Rating: 
Summary: Best Wolff collection yet, and nearly as good as his memoirs
Review: These stories are far and away the best Wolff short stories to date. The breadth of subjects and points of view, the hilarious and touching situations they describe, the purity of his language and clarity of his imagery--all of it is unrivalled in his previous writing. Moreover, many of the stories pack the emotional wallop of his THIS BOY'S LIFE, a book that this reader thought would never be equaled in that department
Rating:
Summary: Spare and strong writing that seizes the power of ordinary
Review: This is a carefully crafted set of stories by a master. The prose is sinewy and firmly grounded in the real experiences of real people. Wolff has the short story teller's gift of transforming ordinary, mundane events into revealing glimpses into the human condition. Many of these stories deal with a generation of wanderers who came of age in the seventies and eighties in America. Regular people whose unremarkable lives suddenly jump out of an uninteresting pattern. These stories show the reader, if not the characters, how the smallest events and details can suddenly shape our experience of life and our understanding of ourselves
Rating:
Summary: A master of the quiet art
Review: Tobias Wolff's 14 stories in this collection is quiet, spare, measured - and absolutely stellar. Wolff can take a mundane, everyday experience and thru his meticulous craftsmanship dig into the depths to mine it for every nuance of emotional significance. Nothing is present in any of his stories that doesn't serve a purpose: not a dog, a twig, a sweater, or a smile. Everything moves the stories forward and shows us more about each character and his/her relationship to others. "Firelight," a story I've now read several times, is my favorite: a boy and his single mom, stranded in a university town, spend their weekends looking at houses and apartments for rent, knowing they can't afford any of them. At the end of the long day, they're invited inside the last house, one where a university professor lives with his wife and daughter. The story, told from the boy's POV, is bittersweet and focuses on a sense of being an outsider to the comforts of home, the warmth of the fireside - but he realizes that all is not as it appears within this family that he still envies.
Absolutely wonderful collection.
Rating:
Summary: my favorite book by the world's best short fiction writer
Review: Tone perfect. As fine of writing, word for word, as I've read. In my opinion, Wolff is the best short fiction writer who has lived. I've taught creative writing at several universities. Other very fine pieces of writing (my all-time faves, in no particular order): BACK IN THE WORLD, Tobias Wolff; ROCK SPRINGS, Richard Ford (easily Ford's best -- and the only one I find particularly readable); THE TAO OF MUHAMMAD ALI: A FATHERS AND SONS MEMOIR, Davis Miller (a remarkable, dreamy, beautiful nonfiction novel by a fairly unheralded writer); THE THINGS THEY CARRIED, Tim O'Brien (transcendent, jaw-droppingly well written); TRACKS, Louise Erdrich (for me, the best -- and most real-world mythical -- in her interrelated series of novels). I can't imagine a better written, more entertaining group of books than the ones I've listed above. Happy reading!
Rating:
Summary: my favorite book by the world's best short fiction writer
Review: Tone perfect. As fine of writing, word for word, as I've read. In my opinion, Wolff is the best short fiction writer who has lived. I've taught creative writing at several universities. Other very fine pieces of writing (my all-time faves, in no particular order): BACK IN THE WORLD, Tobias Wolff; ROCK SPRINGS, Richard Ford (easily Ford's best -- and the only one I find particularly readable); THE TAO OF MUHAMMAD ALI: A FATHERS AND SONS MEMOIR, Davis Miller (a remarkable, dreamy, beautiful nonfiction novel by a fairly unheralded writer); THE THINGS THEY CARRIED, Tim O'Brien (transcendent, jaw-droppingly well written); TRACKS, Louise Erdrich (for me, the best -- and most real-world mythical -- in her interrelated series of novels). I can't imagine a better written, more entertaining group of books than the ones I've listed above. Happy reading!
Rating:
Summary: Like taking a course in short fiction
Review: Using the leanest of prose to create searing imagery and unshakable truths, Wolff has outdone even himself. The best thing about these stories is the clarity. You understand the characters and their resolutions the first time through. There is no literary treasure hunting here. Wolff is one of the great short story writers of this century.
Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece; the written language at its best!
Review: Why can't you give certain titles 40 stars??? Then again, even that wouldn't be enough. These are wondeful explorations of the human psyche and spirit. No two are similar yet they are all a piece of the whole. The whole: exactly what we humans are, what we do and why. I recently bought Back In The World and I can not wait to finish it and read it again and again, just as I have with The Night In Question. M.J. Iuppa, thank you so much for assigning this to us to read for class, it was beautiful and imaginative and I just can't get enough. Read it, read it, read it!!! Especially Powder. It's so innocent yet so daring, so intriguing yet so secretive. Then again, all of them are, trust me. It doesn't get much better than this.
Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece; the written language at its best!
Review: Why can't you give certain titles 40 stars??? Then again, even that wouldn't be enough. These are wondeful explorations of the human psyche and spirit. No two are similar yet they are all a piece of the whole. The whole: exactly what we humans are, what we do and why. I recently bought Back In The World and I can not wait to finish it and read it again and again, just as I have with The Night In Question. M.J. Iuppa, thank you so much for assigning this to us to read for class, it was beautiful and imaginative and I just can't get enough. Read it, read it, read it!!! Especially Powder. It's so innocent yet so daring, so intriguing yet so secretive. Then again, all of them are, trust me. It doesn't get much better than this.
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