What do You think about The Book Of Other People (2008)?
So far, it's amazing! I love the characters, especially Judith Castle, the uppity, overly-dramatic, manipulative Judith. Every day I go to read one of the short stories and end up reading 3 or 4. It's addicting. I haven't come across any I hated and only a few that left me indifferent. I enjoy the varieties of characters from the eccentric to ordinary. I identified with Miranda July's what-ifs, Judge Gladys Parks-Schultz's blame game, and Gabrielle's ingenuity in saving her father from a temptress in Vendela Vida's "Soleil." "Puppy" makes us question our judgments of what is right and wrong. "Frank" allows us to live the horror of losing a child along with the protagonist who blames himself for his child's death but is also blamed by his wife for the death. I have heard that men cannot correctly write from a woman's perspective. I was skeptical of this generalization, but I came across 2 examples of authors' sex superseding their narrator of the opposite sex. For example, in Danticat's (a woman) "Lélé," I was almost finished with the piece before I realized that the narrator was a man. He has a very emotional relationship with his sister and even places his head on her lap to cry at one point. It just seems rather improbable between a brother and sister, though possible between two sisters. The voice definitely seems female. I had the opposite experience when reading Jonathan Safran Foer's "Rhoda." Even though the main character's name is Rhoda, the voice seemed so masculine that it was not until the last sentence that I realized she was a woman. So I guess the phenomenon works both ways, at least in these pieces. It's something to pay attention to, anyway. A wonderful book. I love being able to read a short story before bed. It's so much less daunting than a long novel.
—Sarah
It's annoying to have to judge this as a collection, as it's so variable. The good stories are very bloody good. I love the fact that Zadie Smith (ed) included comics/graphics. The Chris Ware story is one of the best things I've ever read. The Daniel Clowes good. Hari Kunzru ace - wanna read some of his. Miranda July good. Dave Eggers, Colm Toibin, Aleksander Hemon all well written, nice nice.But it all kicks off with David Mitchell. I've not read Cloud Atlas or any of them and I ain't doing if they're as bad as this was (I doubt they are). I know it's easy to say that I could do better. But if I wrote what he had published here, I wouldn't even bother printing it out. Same goes for Toby Litt (no surprise) and Jonathan Safran Foer (surprise).It's strange reading a book of short stories by different authors because you can judge them against each other so easily and work out the conventions of what makes a good one. Some people only wrote 3 pages which seems dead lazy although refreshing when it's crud and you know you won't have to wade through it. Shame that the standard wasn't kept up by everyone. Really really glad I read it for the Chris Ware alone though. I'd given up on him and now I wanna go read everything that I've missed out on.
—Nickie
How I Came To Read This Book: Thanks to some skilled books publicity mongrels, this book showed up in a few magazines I read, and I spotted it at Chapters, and just generally wanted to read it. I bought it about a year ago maybe? The Plot: Erm, well, the 'idea' behind the book is Zadie Smith is the editor of this collection of short stories - all profits go towards a writing program for underprivileged youth. The caveat of the stories is they are all supposed to revolve around the creation of a character - a fun exercise for the 20+ writers involved I'm sure. The actual characters range from monsters to babies to husbands to friends...and even, somewhat indirectly, about a puppy, in possibly the saddest story in the entire book.The Good & The Bad: I'm not a short story reader, but I do want to make it my goal to read a book of short stories a year. Admittedly I liked a handful of these stories - about a third - but many left me uncaring, to the point of being bored sometimes (eep!). In comparison to other short story collections I've read, this one was almost *too* loosely themed and I just couldn't get a good flow / connection going. That being said, there are some really well-written, very thoughtful, and at times, heartwrenching pieces. My personal favourites included: - the first one, Judith Castle, the story of a woman whose 'one true love' has suddenly passed away- Frank, although a bit disjointed, had some really memorable parts, I especially loved his speech about waves and repeat buttons on stereos- Lele felt like a novel sample rather than a short story, but it still worked and told me a lot about the character of a woman who is pregnant but mysteriously estranged from her husband- The Liar was interesting, a memorable departure from the rest of the book as it isn't a *new* character, just a reinvention of perhaps the most famous character of our time- Jordan Wellington Lint was definitely the best of the graphic stories, an abstract visual tale of the thoughts of a young boy- Puppy was freaking sad on so many counts...- Soleil was interesting, although felt a bit Short Story 101- Had Roy Spivey not spelled out the ending for the main character (not Roy Spivey) I would have enjoyed it more, but it was possibly my fave in the bookThe Bottom Line: An interesting author sampler, but a bit too loose in terms of theme to satisfy meAnything Memorable?: This book took me some sweet time to read - but that's okay cause it was really just a surplus to my annual challenge50-Book Challenge: Book #51 in 2008
—Brittany
