Tim O'Brien Books

If, like myself you have arrived at this novel after reading O'Brien's other literary offerings: 'The Things they Carried' - Excellent, 'If I Should Die in a Combat Zone' - Pretty Good, and 'Going After Cacciato' - Utterly Brilliant. Then like myself, you will probably be disappointed if you spend your valuable time and lay down you hard-earned, for this VERY mediocre novel. Clearly at the early stage of his career when this was written O'Brien did not possess any great gift for entirely fictitious story-telling, and certainly not outside of his Vietnam 'comfort-zone'.

Billed as somewhere between an epic suspense and a personal growth tale built on many subtle layers, it really is anything but. What it is, is a very average, bland story of no particular suspense, nor growth, evolution nor metamorphosis. All built around a very tenuous cross-country skiing experience that never really delivers any thrills or nail-biting. O'Brien spins his uniform, colourless yarn at an average pace and it's more like a train journey rather than a roller-coaster ride. Not much tensions and not much detail. No neatly drawn characters of carefully painted faces.

O'Brien's ultimate downfall lies in the previous point, in the fact he cannot paint pictures in the reader's mind. The old debate of the written versus the pictorial; the book verses the film is a mute point here. The writer should be at least capable (willing) to deliver enough adjectives and adverbs so as to allow us to use that as glue to add to the nouns and verbs and build our own visual puzzle, but sadly, in this case he clearly does not. His painting is altogether too wishy-washy, too much like some abstract water-colour that leaves the reader squinting trying to match the title to the visual imagery.

Compare this kind of writing to some masters of descriptive writing; Salinger, Hesse, Orwell, or contemporaries like Easton Ellis or Murakami Haruki and you realise that O'Brien is way out of his league in tackling this kind novel. Likewise his publishers were foolish to ever allow this to reach the printing press. One cannot help correlating this to one of those albums greedy record companies put out; albums full of out-takes, b-sides and half ideas better left on the studio floor.

Ultimately this book is bland and fruitless, uninteresting and unchallenging. It neither gives nor takes anything from the reader and offers not the slightest revelation nor ponderous moment, it is pulp-fiction at its worse, and in my mind that is a waste of time and trees. My advice, check out his other three offerings mentioned above, and you won't be disappointed - leave this one to be consigned to the bargain bins and the library shelves.

Northern Lights by Tim O'Brien was not the most exciting novel I've ever read but worth reading nonetheless. It is a story about two brothers, one who is adventurous and athletic and eventually serves in the Vietnam War and the other who chooses not to participate in any physical or outdoor activities. As adults the brothers decide to take a cross-country ski trip and end up lost in a blizzard in the remote woods of Minnesota. The plot sounds like a story of great excitement and suspense. As a matter of fact, the front cover of the book says `The suspense is spellbinding", so why would I think otherwise? In my opinion it really isn't a suspenseful story at all. It is much more a story of the relationship between the brothers than a story of survival in the woods of Minnesota. O'Brien's slow and calm tone throughout the story eliminates any suspense caused by the drastic circumstances the men find themselves in. The brothers overcome several grueling situations, but the tone O'Brien uses minimizes the danger compared to the unfolding relationship between the brothers. I believe this was O'Brien's intention from the start. Instead of a story of survival, he wanted to tell a story of two brothers. He exemplifies this lifelong journey by the use of irony. Harvey, being the outdoorsman, controls the ski trip from the beginning much like he did every adventure in their childhood. The introverted Perry effectively steps into the role of `big brother' once Harvey becomes too ill to survive on his own. Perry is ultimately responsible for their survival.

Through more recent critically acclaimed works, Tim O'Brien has established himself as an author to be reckoned with; he is able to craft stories that are beguiling and sobering, hooking readers from the very start. "Northern Lights" is O'Brien's debut novel, published originally in 1975, and it reads like a first novel, raw with possible revision needed. Yet for those who have read other O'Brien works it is still a fascinating and telling look at the voice he would later develop.

As usual, the undercurrent of Vietnam is present in "Northern Lights". It is the tale of two brothers and how they disconnect and reconnect after one returns home from war. Harvey Perry, the soldier, was always the beloved son; the youngest child, seemingly revered by their father. Paul Perry, the older son, was always the beleaguered son; meant to follow in his father's footsteps, but not wanting to be like the old man. The brothers consistently found themselves at odds with each other, especially when it came to their father. When Harvey returns from Vietnam, the brothers are forced to confront the differences they had, and the false impressions they have grown up believing to be true. This happens while the brothers are trapped in a blizzard during a ski trip through the Minnesota north woods; lost for weeks on end, they must rely upon one another to make it out, and roles easily become reversed.

O'Brien is a master storyteller; his novels are full of poetic observations about the miniutae of everyday life peppered with dialogue and characters that are vividly realistic. It is easy to see "Northern Lights" as a first novel; the blizzard that traps the brothers in the woods also traps the readers. As Paul Perry blunders and wanders about, the narrative is rambling and unfocused. There always seems to be hints at great revelations to come, but O'Brien fails upon the delivery of such secrets; more seems to remain hidden than is revealed. However, ever-present is the voice with which O'Brien infuses his creations. These characters are living, breathing beings, whose lives are haunting depictions of what lies within every man's soul.

Tim O'Brien is an award-winning writer and I have really enjoyed some of his other novels. This is his first, written in 1975. I recommend reading Tim O'Brien, but don't start with this one. You may get turned off early and miss out on something really good. After slogging through the first half of this book, I almost pitched it. Nothing happens, even when there is a big buildup to make you think something is finally going to happen. The writing style is poor. There is endless repitition, uninspired description "It was very hot," bad grammar and other irritants.
THEN, I read the second half and was plunged into an action-adventure-survival drama with two brothers fighting for their lives in a whited-out northern Minnesota forest in January. The style didn't improve, but I didn't care. In many ways this book seemed to me the forerunner of his bestseller In the Lake of the Woods, which I highly recommend. Don't pass this one by, either. Skip or skim the first part if you feel the way I did. He gets a lot better as he goes along.

Excellent debut novel, but Tim O'Brien only got better. All of his tension and emotion in present in this novel, but he still had yet to develope his style and language that has made him, in my opinion, one of America's best writers today.

It's a story about privacy. Private lives at home and secret romances of sorts and the return of a Vietnam vet who has a constant reminder of his time In Country, but he never tells the secret of how he received the injury to his ear.

It's an excellent debut novel, but don't be discouraged if this is the first Tim O'Brien novel you read, he only get's better. I give it my highest recommendation.

It's adventurous and tense when the brothers are lost in the woods. O'Brien paints an impressive picture of the Minnesota woods when these brothers travel at the feet of these enormous snow covered trees in awe and reverence of nature.

Although a bit out of date, this book is a great introduction to the Jakarta Commons libraries.
The Jakarta Commons libraries are an invaluable resource for the Java programmer. So many holes in the Java class libraries are covered by Commons, that it can become an inseparable part of any Java code. As a Java programmer, I recognized such utilities and code fragments, found in the commons libraries, that I used to implement over and over again on my past various projects.
No more! Commons is to the rescue, and much tested, working code can now be reused.
The book itself follows some of the major libraries: Strings, IO, Templates, Networking, Collections and more.
Some of the covered libraries are not any longer part of the Jakarta Commons (Velocity), and others are missing (commons-jdbc). It would be great to have a new edition for this book.
But even so, the book provides a structural, well defined review of the most interesting features in these libraries. Written in an easy to follow language, having simple yet clear examples and making a point on where and why Jakarta Commons is a good choice.
Many of the features are not well presented in the Commons User's Guide on the Jakarta web page. This book complements the online examples, and serves as a useful reference.

This book serves as a good introduction to commons project. It gave me a brief overview and applicability of the projects. Though the Cookbook doesn't serve as a exhaustive reference in itself, it starts the ground work .

It is a very good book, but there is some stuff that's missing and it's important, like Commons Validator

This book does provide a good overview of some of the most popular libraries in the Commons project. Although I have read and enjoyed several other Cookbook style books on more general topics, I did not find this one as useful. This is because the Jakarata Commons recipies are very speicific, and cover a wide array of unrelated topics. If you have a specific need that is covered, you will likely find the book helpful. Otherwise, it may be like some of the real cookbooks in my kitchen that are interesting, but rarely used.

The Jakarta Commons Cookbook provides an excellent resource into the many useful features and functions in the Apache Jakarta Commons libraries. In addition to the nice cookbook style, there are large numbers of examples in one single volume. This is an indispensable book for the Java developers who want to understand the Jakarta Commons libraries.

In The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien recalls his past experiences as a young and innocent soilder. O'Brien also expresses themes if of personal and physical burdens as well as the the theme of isolation.
"They carried the soldier's greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died so as not to die of embarrassment." This is one of O'Briens most striking quatations in the novel.
If you want to hear a good war story, I would highly recomend Tim O'Brien's books. They are beautifull written and are availible for everyone to enjoy.

The things they carried is a great book by Tim O'Brien. Jimmy cross has a crush on a college girl named Martha, he knows she will never return his love because she majors in English and went to a movie on a single date to see Bonnie and Clyde and he put his hand on her knee and she looked at him and ordered him to pull his hand back. Now cross is in Vietnam and he really misses martha. The things that that they carried in thier packs depended on what kind of constitutions and personalities they had, like marijuana, bug repellant etc.. The stronger men got to carry the guns. Cross was the map keeper and basically had to protect his men. Lavender got shot, but cross didnt really care because he was focused to much on Martha and how much that he missed her. The things they carried is basically and introspective memory story and self-conscious examination of the methods and reasons behind storytelling. The narrator is unreliable; he speaks of the necessity of blurring truth and fiction in a true war story. The settings are during the late 1960's and late 1900's in Vietnam and Massachussets. The major conflict is the men of the Alpha Company, especially Tim O'Brien, grapple with the effects - both immediate and long term - of the vietnam war. Themes are physical and emotional burdens;fear of shame as motivation; the subjection of truth to storytelling.

This book gives outstanding insight into rhe Vietnam War and the people that served in it. The Things They Carried is a very enjoyable book; after you get through the first 10 or so pages you'll want to read the whole thing. I'm not normally into reading books, but I really liked this book and I'd recommend it to anyone who likes a well told set of stories. Meaning, this book isn't just one story, but instead a set of stories told through the eyes of multiple characters. Regardless of whether you like that in a book or not, READ THIS BOOK!

I wish every body would read this and other stories like it. It was well-written and helps people to understand why there are so many people fleeing from Haiti. Stories like this help to give compassion and understanding to a beautiful island nation that is racked with poverty and civil unrest, yet only 1.5 hours flight from US soil.

Tonight by Sea may have grammatical and orthographical errors such as "Belle Fleuve" for either "Beau Fleuve" (in French) or "Bèl Flèv" (in Creole) or stylistic inconsistencies and incongruities as in the speech pattern of the character Sadrak who is a teacher but sometimes speaks like an uneducated person. But Frances Temple's novel for young adults succeeds in capturing the atmosphere that lead hundreds of Haitian people to risk their lives in rickety boats to "Chache lavi," Seek Life in the U.S. As the story evolves, the reader is treated to an overview of Haitian History and culture and, at the same time, comes to realize that, put in the same situation, he or she might have done the same.

A story about the will to survive. A story that rehabilitates the image of the Haitian Boat People. Tonight by Sea is a story that needed to be told.

I purchased "Tonight, by Sea" hoping for the same experience I got from reading "Taste of Salt", Temple's other novel about Haiti, but this one just didn't have the power to transport me to beloved Haiti as the other did. However, it's not a bad read and does tell quite honestly of the horror that caused the exodus from Haiti by "boat people" in the 90's and that still lingers today, albeit in a more "underground" form.

A baseball hit 400 feet has twice the destructive energy as a bullet fired from a .8 calibur pistol. That, and other strange and unusual facts can be found in "Ripley's Believe It Or Not!: Baseball Oddities & Trivia: A Journey Through the Weird, Wacky, and Absolutely True World of Baseball". Packed cover to cover with charming drawings by John Granziano, "Ripley's Believe It or Not: Baseball Oddities & Trivia: A Journey Through the Weird, Wacky, and Absolutely True World of Baseball" is over a hundred pages of interesting and intriguing facts and notes of interest. Highly recommended for baseball fans or anyone who just likes weird, bizarre information - it also should be considered as a lighter edition to any community library collection focuses on sports or baseball.

I enjoy reading baseball trivia. However, found four errors in this book and e-mailed the publisher. The publisher responded and said these would be corrected in the next edition.

Just when I thought that Asimov's was the major US magazine that was sense of humor impaired, along comes this issue, with the generally entertaining Connie Willis delivering, and the actually laugh out loud funny Tim McDaniel gag story. About time, and well done.

The issue itself is a rock solid 3.50 average, 3 x 2, 2 good, 2 above average, 2 average.

A bunch of book reviews at the end, including Slan Hunter, and a series by L. Timmel Duchamp that sounds pretty interesting, and is the second time I have seen that mentioned recently. An editorial about the a magazine story and some letters, and Silverberg takes on an early Heinlein work and talks about how it was revolutionary.

ASIMOVS383 : ALL SEATED ON THE GROUND - Connie Willis
ASIMOVS383 : THE LONESOME PLANET TRAVELERS' ADVISORY - Tim McDaniel
ASIMOVS383 : STRANGERS ON A BUS - Jack Skillingstead
ASIMOVS383 : THE RULES - Nancy Kress
ASIMOVS383 : do[this] - Stephen Graham Jones
ASIMOVS383 : GALAXY BLUES 2 - Allen M. Steele


Space song carol communication goodwill breakthrough.

4 out of 5


Alien abduction and assorted antics instruction.

4 out of 5


Made-up man.

3 out of 5


Going in for end of life reflection, in a big way.

(call this one 3.75)

3. 5 out of 5


Dictionary machine solitude.

3.5 out of 5


Prime dope delivery.

3 out of 5

Though I don't agree with some other reviewers who believe that narrators or main characters need to have redeeming qualities to be interesting or engaging (read the short story "Rock Springs" by Richard Ford), I found Chippering to be just plain annoying. His voice was too silly to keep reading for 384 pages. Maybe it's funny the first time he tells us something that obviously isn't true, but after 300 references to how attractive he is to women when the women he's with clearly despise him, the story gets to be a bit trite. Had this book been a little shorter, maybe it wouldn't have been so bad. I don't know, though, because I never got to the end - and I'm usually the kind that can't leave a book unfinished.

The most interesting part of the story is one which is left almost completely untouched. I kept wanting to read more about Chippering's betrayal of his Green Beret buddies and what they were going to do to him, but after 280 pages of the same nonsense with Lorna Sue and Mrs. Robert Kooshof, I gave up. Okay, maybe Tim O'Brien has been type-cast as a Vietnam writer - but really his best work revolves around the war. Hopefully (ha ha) he can break out of this label, but if he keeps writing GOOD fiction about the war instead of this garbage, I'll be happy.

This book is a easy read at the beginning. It starts with some childhood memory like a lot of other books. Then it became hard to read all that Tommy's craziness and obsessive behaviour. At last, alas, it ended with common sense and some bitter sweet twist.

You need to be patient to read through all those pages, and in many ways, all those loose ends.

This novel tries to be funny, but the satire falls flat and the whole thing quickly becomes totally tedious. I bailed after 75 pages.

The many recent negative reviews for this amazing work of literature sadden me greatly. Granted, I may be a bit biased as a huge fan of O'Brien's other books; but, this is certainly not a typical piece of Tim O'Brien fiction.

The main character, Thomas Chippering is self-centered to the extreme, very critical of others, incapable of listening, and obnoxiously perfectionist when it comes to language and word usage. Yet, O'Brien makes it work. Through his faults and sins, we are presented with an intelligent criticism of gender and relationships in contemporary society and perhaps an insight to why we (yes, I am including you in this) behave the way we do. His faults are over-the-top and at points even unforgivable, but aren't they merely magnifications of things of which we are all guilty? His character is wonderfully drawn. All of the side narratives (which at points seem slightly disordered, yet contribute to sense that Thomas is hiding something not only from the reader, but himself as well) tie the story together quite nicely. Chippering makes the proper character advancements, learning things about himself and others through an often-humorous series of mistakes and misunderstandings. However, it isn't unbelievable. He doesn't have some great epiphany that makes him not-sexist or egotistical. He improves. He stays a flawed human, as we all are and will remain.

I will concede that the story itself is outrageous at points. But a true realist like Tim O'Brien keeps it believable. His wit is sharp and his sense of satire and irony are among the keenest I've ever come across. The story is also heart-warming, an endearing look at love and the crazy lengths people will go to for it.

Humor. Sympathy. Tenderness. Social criticism. Self-criticism. Read it. It's all here. You'll love it.

Though this book isn't the literay masterpiece that "The Things They Carried" is it is still an enjoyable read that rings true. The descriptions of the main character's heartbreak and his mixed feelings at being betrayed are dead on. I love how he examines language and the loaded meaning of words once imbued with personal meaning. Yes, the main character is dislikeable in many ways (this is completely on purpose) but despite all his pompous flaws I still liked him. He is a sort of exageration of character flaws that are in many of us. Because he is at times dislikeable it also allows the reader to laugh at his predicaments without having to feel sorry for him. I found the book hilarious, all the characters to be well-developed, and the depiction of lost first love and betrayal perfect.

I have read with dismay some of the negative reviews of this amazing text. Frankly, I don't get it. I am not a product of the Vietnam generation (I am 30) but that is not the primary power of the novel. Rather the power of this text is the truth that it reveals about human nature, dreams, and maturation. People have complained that some of the characters are one dimensional ( I don't see it), boring, unlikable, selfish, etc. Yeah folks, that's the point! Look around you. Do you not know a plethora of people like this in your world? And yet, they are still people, who share with us a common humanity. If anything July,July is too painfully real, precisely because at times it is so unpleasant. All of the characters are flawed, as are all of us, and yet most of us can find in this text some sentiment that expresses some desire of our own. As I finished this text I thought of that great line from Orwell's 1984 where he writes that (paraphrase) "great books tell us what we already know". O'Brien accomplishes just that in this text. That is why it resonates long after the last page. Because at some point in the novel he has articulated a feeling, thought, desire, etc that we the readers have felt in our own lives.
The ending of this novel is especially powerful as, in a very cinematic style, it shows how in all groups of friends some lose in this game of life. Some give up, some die, some try to rectify mistakes, some try again, and some remain ignorantly oblivious. My chest tightened with the immediate recognition of reality as I swept thought the novel's final chapter. I know that when I reread this book later in my life there will be something more for me to reflect upon, something different to see in its truth, and that is why this novel is a remarkable read. I cannot recommend it enough.

The first O'Brien novel I ever read was The Things They Carried...it was college...I was impressionable...and it slayed me. Since then, he's become one of those authors I know will not disappoint. All of O'Brien's novels tell the story of a generation emboldened by idealism and ravaged by war. His characters are neither heroes nor villains but, like all of us, a little of both.

July, July tells the tragic story of what happened to those who protested, those who were all about free love, those who went to war, those who came home, and those who ignored the generation that raised them. Thirty years later, college friends attend a reunion and reflect on their choices, their individual pasts, and the impact that their collective youth has had on their collective present.

It's a remarkable, poignant, devastatingly real book about real people. Like all of O'Brien's books, it doesn't pretend to know the answers--and it leaves you with a slight sense of unease at its close. But maybe that's just the way we all feel as we look back.

This was my first Tim O'Brien novel. I agree with the other reviews that have characterized this more as a series of interrelated short stories. For some reason these characters and O'Brien's style reminds me of Raymond Carver. I found the beginning of the book challenging because the reader is quickly introduced to so many characters. The strength of the book lies in how O'Brien introduces the characters and their interwoven stories throughout the remainder of the book. My one criticism is the book's premise that so many of these central characters would be so consumed with events that occurred 30 years ago. I struggled to accept that none of them had moved on. But this problem didn't take away from the great writing.

As the old saying goes, Tim O'Brien has nothing to say, but he says it very well.

The setting is cliche'ed - the 30 year reunion of the Class of '69 full of stock characters left over from The Big Chill - but the author keeps the pace moving nicely with chapters alternating between the events of the reunion and flashbacks to the past.

The characters have a paint-by-numbers feel to them, however. During the reunion, many of them make major changes in their lives, but you know that they are just making the same mistakes that the earlier chapters led them through. The characters demonstrate no growth, no reexamination of their lives, no new insights. The result is a flat and depressing regurgitation of successful, but empty lives.

Maybe that is the point of the book: that the shallow Baby Boomers have no capacity for change, that they will wallow in their materialism full of good intentions and bad actions until the day they die.

Whether that is the theme of the book or a fault in its author, it makes for a depressing read.

Just as a note, I picked up this book at a local used bookstore, in one of the boxes by the exit listed as "FREE." I guess that would be a sort of portent for what was to come next.

The plot is simple and almost cliche enough: ten people gathering for a 30-year college reunion. Ten different stories basically, plus one recount of a dead graduate. These people are in their early fifties, with each little story/chapter reminiscing on their lives after college graduation.

As a previous reviewer has stated, yes, the major flaw with this book that had the potential to be quite good is that all these people are being whiny, whiny, whiny. Now. Of course, everybody has their own right to be sad and whatnot, but these people seem to take it one step further. I'm gonna just get to the point and state that I absolutely abhor the women in this book (except for two). The rest, sadly, are basically just emotionless bitches in some way or another: one thinks she's 'incapable' of falling in love (and note, she was an art major, haha), another is some blonde with 2 husbands because she wants it all, another, I think, gets what she deserves after cheating on her husband. And so forth. And the men? The men, they just basically sit there, brood a little, and take this BS from the women. Not that I'm saying to go and beat the gals up, but at some point, a guy will have to realize that he was being f***ed over by this lady, true love or not, and has to move on and stop wasting precious time over what has already been done.

So if this is adulthood, or rather, being middle-aged--a bleak overview of their failed love lives so far and nothing else--then I think I'm gonna kill myself before I turn forty. The ending was simply ridiculous and not really an ending at all. The conclusion, the characters, it all just made me angry. It could be that O'Brien's intention was to pick the saddest group of lovestruck losers you've ever met to poke fun at them. But if your some heartbroken idiot who can't get over your unrequited-love situation and wish to indulge in a story that shares your pain, this is the book for you. Now, on a personal note, I've known love too, and experienced its pain, but this is just ABSURD. If your fifty, feeling sorry for yourelf, and still aching over what happened years back, stop watching Lifetime and go read up on people who REALLY suffer; our fellow humans in third-world areas and countries that practice political oppression.

I am part of a short story group that meets weekly. We read two stories each week. We've read the first 12 stories so far. I can't tell you how much I am enjoying this opportunity to sample authors that "somehow" I completely missed even though I have a master's degree in language arts. Even if I don't care for a story, I am glad to sample the writing. It also gives me an opportunity to decide which artists to delve further into. An example: After reading Willa Cather's Double Birthday I am now reading My Antonia.

Only unknown authors to me. I was expecting some works by Edgar Allan Poe, O. Henry and/or Agatha Christie (maybe I ordered the wrong volume!). Also, some of the stories are quite dull and end as if the author didn't know how to end it! Quite disappointing!

I read "The Best American Short Stories of the Century" to get a broad overview of the contemporary American short story genre. John Updike edited the collection. The introduction, written by Updike, is an interesting essay on the difficulties inherent in assembling any best-of collection. I suppose I would have liked to have read more of his thoughts on the form, its progress over the century and perhaps its place in contemporary fiction rather than his struggle in selecting pieces. But taken together with the forward, written by co-editor Katrina Kenison, the two essays offer an interesting look into the fickleness of publishing tastes and how those tastes can be influenced by only a few people. It makes the current consolidation of the publishing world seem slightly less troubling.



In any event, there are many people I would have included in the collection that are absent--John Edger Wideman comes quickly to mind, and Latino writers seem strikingly absent. And similarly, though I would not even pretend to know all that one needs to know to authoritatively assemble a collection with such a presumptuous title, I would nonetheless exclude more than one or two pieces that were included in the anthology. But as I reflect on the collection, it occurs to me that it was written more for the general reading public and less for a person interested in the diversity of the form and its practitioners. There are some great stories in the collection, however, I suspect that it more closely represents a particular writer's tastes than a true overview of the form.



The most interesting pieces for me were those written by writers who I associate with other genres. Robert Penn Warren's "Christmas Gift" is a beautifully raw and sensual story. And although it has been some years since I've read Warren's work, my vision of him was always that of a country gentlemen poet living the gentlemanly life in semi-rural Connecticut. The "Christmas Gift" rivals Faulkner or O'Connor in the evocation of the rough-knuckled rural life. The language of the piece and the structure of the lines felt fresh and new. The images were so unique and evocative that I must make a point not to mimic them in my own writing. The opening paragraph is wonderful, his attention to the details of the place and its people comes out with poetic precision that is at once authentic for the place and yet far, far above the circumstances of anybody involved. In this sense it brought to mind Steinbeck (another writer who didn't make the cut) yet his prose seemed even more carefully measured.



I have always admired E.B. White's essays and now, after having read the short story, "The Second Tree from the Corner," I have come to appreciate his abilities as a fiction writer. It has inspired me to track down some of his fiction--other than that written for children, though those stories are also good. "The Second Tree from the Corner" was somewhat unexpected. It's a decidedly non-country story--a far cry from many of the essays I have read. Its protagonist is a patient who is undergoing therapy--another surprise. However when I think about many of his essays, even the most well known essays written at the height of the war, essays that were intended to bring some measure of comfort to a society and culture that could not escape the general sense that they were indeed fighting for their very survival, I still find in these essays a certain sense of existential angst, of an uncertainty that seems thoroughly modern and non-sentimental.



When I hear people talk about White's well-known essay, "Once More to the Lake," it seems almost as though the last lines are forgotten. There is so much talk of lake weather, farm-girls, and berry pies that that final line seems to somehow not stick to memory. But what a line--the entire piece is informed by that last line. The last two paragraphs keep the essay from become a simple, shallow reflection on the American way of life. It was almost as though, despite the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese Emperor, White could not help but feel almost desperately modern. When he wrote, "As he buckled the swollen belt, suddenly my groin felt the chill of death," he rescued the essay from the slash pile of Americana.



And just as he rescued "Once More to the Lake," he may have condemned "The Second Tree from the Corner." Though it is a good short story, it is not at all the warm and fuzzy piece that some may expect from White. And again, in the story White waits to put the last nail in the emotional structure of the piece, which could until the final line go in any one of a number of directions. The final direction of the piece is not nearly as comfortable as it perhaps could be. He closes: "He crossed the Madison, boarded the downtown bus, and rode all the way to Fifty-second Street before he had a thought that could rightly have been called bizarre."



We never discover the nature of his bizarre thoughts, we are left to fill them in with our own interpretation of the strange, never the less, the piece is far from conclusive or comforting.



Similarly, I was impressed with Elizabeth Bishop's "The Farmer's Children." Again I am familiar with her essays and of course her poetry, but I had never before read one of her short stories.



There were also stories by writers whom I have never before read, at least as far as I can remember. Susan Glaspell's 1917 story, "A Jury of her Peers," was impressively fresh and full of a very modern sense of feminism. Grace Stone Coates', "Wild Plums," was an emotionally complex story about class in the early years of the Great Depression.



I did not find what I wanted in the collection--that is, an overview of the contemporary American short story form. I suspect that there is no easy or fast way to come to such an understanding. Maybe that has something to do with the nature of the short story, like the personal essay it is a constantly shifting form, something that responds quickly to contemporary pressures, but also somehow stays true to its form as laid down by Chekhov (or in the case of the essay, Montaign).



I did find some things I did not expect in the collection. And thought I confess that I did not like some of the stories in the and found myself questioning why they were included at the expense of other writers, it was a worthwhile read.

To reduce the boredom of exercise I decided to listen to audio books. Short stories work well as I'm inclined to keep moving until the end.

This audio CD collection is very good and really well done. Many of the stories are read by their authors. The sound is crisp and clean, and (with rare exception) the diction fluid and natural. The stories themselves are varied and high-quality.

One thing to note, though, is that the audio version does not contain all the stories from the print version. That may seem obvious, but if you are expecting to hear one or anther of the stories from the book, know that the CD set only includes 22 stories.

The quintessential in the American short story is represented in this collection of fiction. I am reading these tales both for the pleasure they bring me and as a means of studying the craft of masters in a field I hope to enter. As part of my fiction class at the University of Iowa, I have read "Janus" and "Where are you going, Where have you been?" (Beattie and Oates).

These two tales explore the psyches of two women: one a successful married realtor obsessed who owns an artistic bowl that assumes a character of its own and, the other, a young girl who becomes a victim of her and others' obsession with her beauty.

Lesser-known authors are represented alongside the giants of American literature. Points of view representing various walks of life, ethnicities, languages and periods of time abound in the volume. For my own pleasure and out of curiosity, I have read "Zelig," a tale about a lonely man obsessed with saving his money, torn between his new home in America and his native Russian village (Rosenblatt).

Ann Beattie, Joyce Carol Oates and Benjamin Rosenblatt are authors whose works I have relished so far from the collection, and because the stories are so intricately woven, I find myself re-reading them, delaying the pleasure awaiting me in the remaining fifty plus tales.

I read this book as a preview for the upcoming year of Sonlight 3+4 curriculum. While I liked the writing of Across Five Aprils more than this book, Shades of Gray is a wonderful look at how easy it is to prejudge those we do not know or understand. Note: Even though I love the idea of students writing reviews, you WILL get a skewed and incomplete portrayal when you read the "kid's review" of this book.
While some of the student reviews criticized how unlikable the main character is, his ultimate change of heart is the centerpiece of the book. He has to start out unlikable to appreciate how he matures in the end.
I love Uncle Jed for his patience and wisdom. Children will see how these traits are just as valuable as the bravery of Will's father as he went off to war.
Other timely themes are touched upon in this book: Bullies and how to deal with fear, pride v. humility, materialism, strong work ethic and thankfulness.
I am looking forward to sharing htis book with my dd's this school year. Hopefully, you will enjoy this book as well.

This book is a book about a young man named Will he lived in virgina with his parents when one night his parents didnt return so he left to live with his anut and uncle. when he got there the they were there with opens arms and they hade a big dinner and the next day the work began in the morning he left with his uncle to go walk the trap line when he got back this uncle took a shower as Will help this anut make dinner after about 3 weeks of the same thing he met his cousin Cindy and she didnt know how to read and when he got a letter from his dad and Cindy was cleaning the house and pick up the note to clean and Will thought she was readin the note and he fliped out on her and then he figured out that she couldnt read. Well 2 weeks later his dad came to pick him up and he live happy ever after then died

In school when we first started reading Shades of Gray I was bored from the start. It's plot is uninteresting and dull followed by events that make you feel strong dislike towards the main character. Will (the main character)is unlikable even by the most accepting of readers and will make you want to cry at him in frustration. This book takes place after the Civil War when had North won the war.Will is a boy that has no parents or relatives except his uncle and his family who didn't fight in the war at all. Will believes his uncle is a traitor and be's rude and unaccepting to him. The ending in very predicable after even the first few chapters of the book. Will eventually warms up to his uncle and stays with him and his family. A truly disappointing read.

Shades of Grey is an excellent book. It is about a boy whose dad and his brothers go to fight in the war and end up getting killed. Also his sisters died because of malnutrition and his mom died of depression. So Will had to go live with his aunt. But he doesn't want to because his uncle refused to fight in the war. One element that I noticed a lot was flashback. Will kept remembering how his life was so different when he lived in Winchester.

Shades of Gray by Carolyn Reder is a wonderful book of learning how to respect people. Will's family has died. His mother died of a sickness, as did his sisters. His brother and father died in war. He moves in with the closet relatives he has, his Aunt and Uncle Jed. Will doesn't respect his uncle because he wasn't in the Confederate Army, but he wasn't in the Union Army either. Will thinks of his uncle as a traitor and doesn't want anything to do with him. As time goes by, Will learns that just because you weren't in the war, doesn't mean you aren't brave.