Love Begins In Winter: Five Stories (2009) - Plot & Excerpts
“I read books because I love them, not because I think I should read them.” -Simon Van BooyIt is a rare thing for me to write or underling books that I’m not reading academically but there were so many beautiful, poetic, truthful lines in this book that I couldn’t not. Initially Van Booy seems the typical literary fiction writer that critics and intellectual elitists adore. Alas, it doesn’t take long to figure out all the beautifully poetic yet uncomplicated prose makes his work very accessible to the average reader. This is one of the few books I can say has charmed me.The title may be off-putting if you’re not a romantic but Van Booy explores love in many of its facets be it romantic, unrequited, parent-child, lost, or friendly. He is an excellent observer of the human condition and this would be a great way to shake up your next book club. This book took me totally by surprise. I may just have discovered a new favorite author. I picked this up from the donations pile at our library's book sale department and decided to give it a try based on the blurbs on the back. I'm not usually a short story fan, but I took this book home and read it all the way through at a single sitting. Incredible use of language--sentences and paragraphs I wanted to remember forever--and plots structured more like mini-novels than typical short stories. I will immediately order Van Booy's other story collection and his first novel.
What do You think about Love Begins In Winter: Five Stories (2009)?
"And there is no such thing as fate, but there are no accidents either."
—Masha
grindingly slow paced collection of 5 short stories.
—kimbo
Great characters. Great settings. Great stories.
—martin
