Rating: 
Summary: A beautiful short story collection
Review: This is a strange but well-written short story collection, starring characters from all walks of life and from all over the United States. Each lead protagonist shares one thing in common: they are in a deep rut that has estranged them from themselves as well as their families. In some cases, their families are loving and supportive, but that fails to stop the lead character from feeling that they are wearing their skin inside out. Lorrie Moore is noted for her humorous perspective on American contemporary life and her current short story collection, BIRDS OF AMERICA, will deservedly embellish that standing. Not all of the stories end in an upbeat, the world is saved, manner. However, all of the tales are quite well written because of Ms. Moore's ability to imbue incredible layers of depth into her characters. This level of profound complexity is rarely seen in a short story let alone found throughout a twelve story collection. Anyone who wants to read a jocular but at times melancholy series of tales about seemingly real people in emotional dilemmas will find Ms. Moore book is the place to be. Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: Heartrending and funny
Review: I have been a fan of Lorrie Moore's since I first read a story of her's in The New Yorker. I tear out stories and give them to my friends to read, then grab them back so they won't keep them. Many of the stories in BIRDS OF AMERICA are her best, I think. WHICH IS MORE THAN I CAN SAY ABOUT SOME PEOPLE sits on my desk when I need it, and I called every friend with a small child to tell them NOT to read PEOPLE LIKE THAT ARE THE ONLY PEOPLE HERE because I thought it would tear them to pieces. The only drawback for me, after reading her for so long, is, I can't take the puns anymore. They take me right out of the story, too much Lorrie Moore being clever and not enough of the specific character. She drops the tendency entirely in PEOPLE LIKE THAT, and lets the emotion carry the story instead, and in my mind anyway I think it proves the point. Lorrie Moore is somebody I'd like to know. I'd like her to be my friend. That's how good she is.
Rating:
Summary: Tears of Heartbreak and Laughter
Review: Lorrie Moore is an expert at making her readers cry, without being the slightest bit sentimental. She will bring you to tears--she just makes it seem like she doesn't realize that. Moore has a somewhat unassuming way about herself and her writing. It isn't until you get into the thick of her stories that you realize how much she not only knows what she is doing, but what you're doing. Stories like "Which is More Than I Can Say About Some People," for example, balance the tightrope of absurd and all-too-real. A standarized test writer named Abby and her mother go to Ireland to kiss the Blarney Stone. It's a whole good luck thing before Abby must leave her quiet basement job for a public speaking job. Public speaking, as Moore points out in the first paragraph, is a number one fear. (Fear is the name of the game in this story.) So, we follow these two women on their road trip through Ireland, and amid references to Abby's childhood fear of balloons (I thought I'd never stop laughing) and her mother's trip to a dangerous rope bridge while her daughter waits in the car, we realize how this mother and daughter--and how perhaps many mothers and daughters--relate to one another. And this is all before the pinnacle moment at the Blarney Stone, and the crux of the plot. Moore will get to that. She's got a lot more to say. "Real Estate" takes two up two pages to let a lonely and discontent housewife laugh about her husband's springtime affairs. I mean really laugh. I mean "Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!" for two pages. Then she gets into a hysterical story about a husband and wife moving, and the way nature plagues their new home. The wife's friend teaches her to shoot, and the exterminator (in a slightly awkward but necessary subplot) breaks up with his girlfriend and goes a little crazy. It all comes together in the end, in a situation that will never happen in our own lives, but we feel it. Surely we've all been terribly unhappy with everything at some time in our life, and a little desperate about it. Other great stories include "Willing," about a washed-up actress's move back to Chicago (she lives at the Days Inn) and her spontaneous affair with a lunkhead mechanic named Walt; "Agnes of Iowa," an incredibly heartbreaking story indeed, with the classic line, "Here we pronounce that O-hi-o"; "Terrific Mother," a longer story at the end of the book that is alternately brilliant, funny, and upsetting; and the infamous "People Like That Are the Only People Here." I know, everyone always likes to talk about "People." You read reviews for this book and think, "Enough about People!" But lemme tell you...it's pitch-perfect. It's the kind of story that never hits a bad note, that never says the wrong thing yet loves saying the wrong thing and getting a wince or laugh for it, and truly makes you agree with the Mother when she says her truly awful last line of the story. Only Moore would have the bravery to say that, but by that point, you agree. You agree completely. The story is "slightly autobiographical," and Moore obviously doesn't want anyone to call it a "mini-memoir" of sorts, but her personal understanding of this situation all the more enhances the story. Okay, so if you read a lot of Moore, you realize she's got a thing for cancer and imminent but vague deaths. She loves puns and completely bizarre moves in conversation. She's got a hell of a sense of humor, and while you'll want to meet her, you hope she won't make fun of you. She's not mean; she's not Dorothy Parker. She's just that good. And whether you're laughing or you're crying, her stories--particularly in this collection--will surely bring you to tears.
Rating:
Summary: More of Moore....
Review: I'm a fan of Lorrie Moore's stories, which I've read over the years in various forms including the BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES series. Several of the stories in BIRDS OF AMERICA were published elsewhere, including "Which is More Than I Can Say About Some People", "Real Estate" and "People Like That Are the Only People Here" all of which apeared in BASS. It's nice to have these stories and others collected together in one volume. Ms Moore's tales force the reader to see life from the perspective of one who is suffering loneliness, heartbreak owing to loss, or sadness at missed chances. In her story "People Like That Are the Only People Here" -- which she dedicated to her son (in BASS 1999)-- Ms Moore tells the story of a young mother who must submit her baby to the Pediatircs Oncology ward. Even after reading her story, I have only a small appreciation of the incredible suffering of the parents and child. "Which is More Than I Can Say About Some People" hits closer to home for me. A young woman and her mother find a new connection over the Blarney Stone in Ireland. The daughter comes to appreciate her mother's courage in the face of adversity, and discovers she may courage too. In "Agnes of Iowa" a young woman who cannot fit in well in her own hometown travels to New York to begin a new life. "Iowa" snorts one New Yorker. "Here we spell it OHIO." Agnes returns to Iowa to marry a realtor 12 years her senior and begin again. Lorrie Moore's plots are not complicated, but her characters are memorable.
Rating: 
Summary: Watch Out Amy Tan
Review: After reading the many good reviews about nearly all of Lorrie Moore's books on amazon, I went to the library and checked out Birds of America, Self-Help, Frog motel whatnot, and Anagrams. I read the first stories from Birds of American and Self-Help and was reminded that there are some truly terrible writers out there; Lorrie Moore is the worst I have read lately. She writes like some graduate student doing a theses on The Joy Luck Club, by turns laughing ironically and weeping. But...if you happened to like the Joy Luck Club, and perhaps loved the movie Steel Magnolias - man, rush out and by everything you can find by this genius.
Rating:
Summary: A collection of stories worth reading over and over
Review: Lorrie Moore's BIRDS OF AMERICA is a rarity: a story collection that arrives on the literary scene with such power that people still talk about it years after its original publication. What's so special about Moore? For one, she writes with an unusual mix of wry humor and deeply-rooted emotion. Because the surface of her stories shimmer with laughs, the true meaning of the story can sneak up on readers, and when it hits, it does so with pure force. Her language is exact and unadorned, leading the reader precisely where Moore intends. Her ability to nail cultural and personal detail is extraordinary. The most famous, and arguably the most successful, story is "People Like That Are The Only People Here," the moving yet at times absurdist tale of a mother coping with the grave illness of her baby. At first, Moore seems almost coy with her character names - the Mother, the Baby, the Husband, the Surgeon - but they serve to mute the roiling fear running underneath in true Moore fashion until it can no longer be contained. Not a single story in this collection fails, but some rise above others: "Which is More Than I Can Say About Some People", "Charades," "Agnes of Iowa," and "Terrific Mother." Some of these stories will have you doubled over with laughter; others will make your heart ache. Most will do both. I highly recommend this book, even to people who don't normally read short stories. If you have already read it, read it again. You'll be surprised by how much surfaces the second time around.
Rating:
Summary: Stories come up in conversation
Review: In conversations over Thanksgiving weekend, I found myself frequently referring to incidents in the stories I had just read in "Birds of America". Lorrie Moore describes love and fear and joy in a way that is close to the bone and very real. The stories Real Estate and People Like That... will stay with me for a long time. I almost felt I should read the stories again to make sure I caught the puns and playfulness with words. As another reviewer mentioned, the word games do interrupt the story but I found them to be a welcome breath of fresh air.
Rating: 
Summary: Local Color
Review: Her descriptions of the (real) settings of some of
the stories are completely accurate, and very vivid.
(I recognized the Days Inn -- now a W Hotel -- in
Chicago, and also Bellagio [Italy].)
So if you're going to be in the places she describes,
I recommend the book for local color. But I don't
know if I would have enjoyed the stories without
that.
Rating:
Summary: Me sorprendió
Review: Lo leí en español. Me gustó mucho y me sorprendió la capacidad de L.Moore para mostrar las contradicciones entre lo que se desea y lo que se obtiene, lo que se piensa y lo que "es". Los personajes que no saben lo que quieren, o creen que lo saben y cuando lo obtienen no era "aquello" que deseaban. Me pareció muy bueno y un logro muy grande el distanciamiento en la narración y al mismo tiempo encontrar cierta ternura, cierto humor...
Sospecho que en la traducción al español se pierde mucho, lamentablemente.
Rating:
Summary: Stories about women who compromise with men are best
Review: The best stories here are about talented, witty, sarcastic people (women mostly) who, lacking any hope or confidence, compromise their integrity to be in relationships with cliche-ridden mediocrities, bores, sociopaths, cheaters, phony ideologues, and other loathsome creatures. The result is a collection of stories that is both comic and sad. These characters seem rather nihilistic in their lack of free-will and the abyss of despair and acedia that they've succumbed to. Lorrie Moore is at the top of the literary food chain when it comes to writing these kind of short stories. There are imitators who try to be cool with their nihilistic, cynical stories, but Lorrie Moore is the genuine article.
| 
