I really, really really wanted to love this book: It swept through Channel 4 like a plague a few years ago, and I now find myself ahead of the curve in my new office. Having *finally* got around to read it, I have to say I'm conflicted.The best thing you can do is to pick at random any one of her tales illuminating worn-at-the-edges lives, febrile crises and the daily battle against an implacable 'other'. Do that and you will not be disappointed as you wallow in the mesmeric artistry of her stor...

Only 3 new stories in this U.K. edition (previously published in the New Yorker), but worth it. I couldn't help but reread the old ones too.

I became aware of the legend of Lorrie Moore after reading extremely positive reviews in The Guardian in 2016. I really engaged with the idea of a great woman writer from America, whose writing was the best short fiction since Carver...who everyone says is the best short story writer since Chekhov. So, I read the free short stories available on the internet. One of these, a recent work, had been published not that long ago, when, with respect, Moore was old, in a magazine; it concerned an elderl...

two stars is meant to signify 'it was ok'. And it was ok - just not the box of fireworks I was expecting. One of the stories has two and half pages of HaHaHaHaHaHa. Nothing else. (Sorry about the spoiler). I'm not a fan of 'tricks'. The blurb on the back cover says 'the nearest thing we have to Chekhov'. That needs to be held up as a shining example of hyperbole - and a good reason NEVER to read the blurb on any book.

This is just the best thing.

“This is how he gets into bed at night.” Evan stood up to demonstrate. “He whips all his clothes off, and when he gets to his underwear, he lets it drop to one ankle. Then he kicks up his leg and flips the underwear in the air and catches it. I, of course, watch from the bed. There’s nothing else. There’s just that.”How Lorrie Moore managed to sneak a peek into my bedroom, I guess I’ll never know. It’s a silly trick, that underwear thing, I’m aware of that. If I wasn’t before, I am now.I spent m...

In spite of how well written these tories are, I wasn't able to make a strong connection with them, as though I were observing without being immersed in them. Perhaps the author didn't have the likes of me in mind when they were written. Fair enough.

An art teacher once told me to stop drawing a tree's branches, leaves and trunk and to focus on drawing the spaces between them. I really feel like this technique is akin to what Moore achieves with her precise and witty writing in this excellent collection.From the long, thin line two bodies create as they cling to one another to the angular and disparate shapes thrown by a doomed couple going about their diverging lives, Moore, over the years, consistently draws you in to the ordinary, dreary,...

I've just finished reading this gigantic collection of short stories from cover to cover! It's the best short story collection I've read so far and what I like most about it is that the characters in all the short stories are real and alive. Their personalities shine through in the way they speak. All of them have their distinct voices and it is lovely to feel that you're friends with the characters in the stories you read. Lorrie Moore really has a way with dialogues.

I could easily read nobody other than Lorrie Moore for the rest of my life, she is just that good. I enjoyed every single bit of this 600+page book and would have happily continued reading her forever if it had happened to be some kind of magical novel that never ended.Moore's writing is superb. That is an understatement. As usual, what do you write about books that you love without sounding trite? Her stories are brilliant, the characters are fully fleshed out, fascinating and usually endearing...

Simply the best. I could read her forever. the way she mixes humour with pain. You laugh out loud and then she shoots an arrow through your heart. Lorrie Moore, the master of the short story

Like Life is my favourite of the books, because it was the first Moore I read.Self Help is second favourite.Birds of America and Anagrams are 3* ties.

This book goes backwards. It starts with Moore's most recent stories and then works backwards to 1988 to her first collection. There's no introduction to explain this decision, or tell us anything about Ms Moore: we're straight into "Foes", a quirky tale of a literary dinner, featuring a sweet but careworn middle aged couple and the difficulty of meeting people; the importance of holding back judgement even on those we don't like. All of Moore's characters are pretty similar: liberals exiled fro...

Stories from: Self Help (1985), Like Life (1990), a personal favorite: Birds of America (1998). Also some selections from Anagrams (1986) and some stories that will eventually appear in Bark (2014)-Rereading most of the stories, I realize that my sense of humor might have derived from reading Lorrie Moore in my early twenties. -A review somewhere summarised Lorrie Moore characters as: “Poetry-loving, cat-owning, musical-comedy enthusiast with gift for wordplay seeks conventional man to baffle wi...

My favourite short story writer, so utterly brilliant at blending the tragic and comic in life in a way that feels so true. And she makes it look effortless. It's easy to think that her stories are simple but that would be to miss the point of what she writes; the revelations contained in every story about how challenging, awful, exhilarating, poignant and messy living is. How it is always open-ended and never neat. She's a master of her craft and I will always return to these stories. I enjoyed...

Noting as I read “ Agnes of Iowa “ follows a woman on the cusp of disillusioned middle age. Returned to her hometown in Iowa from New York City at thirty she had settled down to the mundane life she was sure didn’t want. When they prove unable to have children the reason for that sort of intimacy is gone. She and her husband have a getaway to NYC but one questions if it helps. She sees what she left and forgets why she did, and he sees that she settled for him.In “ Amahl and the Night Visitors”

If I had to keep only one book for the rest of my life, it would be this one. Granted, it's cheating, since it contains multiple volumes in one. But it's that excellent.

I am rating this collection five stars because I am making my way slowly, a day at a time, through the devastating "People . . . Peed Onk" in David Sedaris's collection, and know I need to read more of Moore's work. I won't read critical pieces on the story until I've finished it, because the experience is so fearful, so halting--I read almost between my fingers because I cannot bear to go on . . .

Actually this wasn't the book I read. I read (listened to) Bark, which is also one of her story collections, and she narrates it herself. As with all story collections, it's uneven. Some are great and very memorable and some have already slipped away. But there's great writing in all.

Thoughtful, intentional lines and funny plots. A collection of little stories that make you think. I picked it up when I needed a breather from seemingly never-ending panini (read: pandemic) life, and I am thankful to have had Lorrie Moore's with me on my journey.