I think my rating has more to do with the book being different than my expectations than the actual quality of the book. I downloaded the audio version of this from my library for my christmas trip because I wanted something holidayish for the holiday season. Yeah. This is not that. At all. All the stories seemed really similar, and some really quite tragic. Tragic stories aren't necessarily a bad thing, but you have to make the reader care about the people you're writing about. I was apathetic. Both the title and the cover make it seem like a fun little christmas book, but that is not the case. They say you can’t judge a book by its cover. Fair enough. But there are some books that you should be able to make a fairly accurate guess about the subject matter based on the title. For example, if you picked up a book titled “The Life and Times of George Washington, First President of the United States,” you would probably be surprised, and more than a little upset, if the book turned out to be about Millard Fillmore. Now we come to the title of the book being reviewed: “Nothing With Strings: NPR’s Beloved Holiday Stories” by Bailey White. Even if you were not familiar with White’s witty National Public Radio commentaries on life in the Deep South, it would not seem too much of a stretch for the Fearless Reader to expect heartwarming holiday stories. And this is where the cover does come in to play. For the cover shows a red-cushioned window seat with an open box surrounded by a string of Christmas lights. A beat up old red pickup truck (the universal hieroglyph for rural southern environs) is driving off in the distance. These two pieces of evidence would seem to suggest that the book’s stories are rural in nature and that Christmas is very likely the holiday noted in the title. But, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I submit to you that even though it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, what we have here is one big turkey of a book. In fact, Nothing With Strings has nothing to do with any holidays. Instead these stories are concentrated on the themes of aging, dementia and death. Not exactly the kind of stories that make you want to deck the halls. But it the marketing department that should be faulted, not Bailey's writing. In fact, most of these stories, in a compilation with a different title, would be—if not exactly enjoyable—at least capable of being appreciated for their literary merit. Two stories, “The Bus Ride,” in which the lives of five bus passengers and the driver are slowly revealed, and “Almost Gone,” about the last memory of an Alzheimer’s patient, are wonderfully crafted. However, as holiday entertainment, they’re more likely to make you want to stick a candy cane in your eye. Buyer beware.
What do You think about Nothing With Strings: NPR's Beloved Holiday Stories (2008)?
Southern short stories, listened on audio. Stories have a surprising snarky twist at the end.
—eagle9
Why are these stories beloved? I found them real downers and didn't even finish the book!
—acedeno
A wonderful collection of humourous Southern short stories. Delightful
—jdemaine
A modern Faulkner. Bailey White is a genius.
—Debonair4
