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Birds of America is a story collection by one of the most talented (but minimal) writers around, Lorrie Moore. The stories here are not big or grand or epic, but work simply as little one-act plays, exposing the inherent complexities and dramas in the everyday lives we all lead. Moore's writing style is subtle, and laced with a fantastic sense of wit; witness, for example, her slight mocking of the health fad craze in the names she creates for juice bars; or her sly commentary about the misnomer...
The stories in this book hit upon universal themes; loss, loneliness, love, finding acceptance, overcoming fears- in short: LIFE.There is so much sadness and heartbreak in these stories, but there is also humour. By the end of the book, I must admit I couldn’t recall one truly happy story.Lorrie Moore is a master of the short story. Each story felt complete. I found her to be very clever with her words.“ Her mother had given her the name Agnes, believing that a good looking woman was even more s...
I really liked Lorrie Moore's "How To Be an Other Woman" (from the love stories collection I read) but I was not wowed by this book. The stories all seemed very similar - isolated, lonely people (mostly women) dealing with husbands and families and communities. I just looked at the overwhelmingly glowing reviews here on goodreads, and hmm, I just don't get it.5 stars - "Four Calling Birds, Three French Hens"4 stars - the joke in "Beautiful Grade" about the professor writing Flannery O'Connor art...
4.5 rounded downIt took a little while for me to warm to the style but in all honesty there’s not a weak story in this collection. Moore can write dialogue and convey human emotions and her character’s thoughts in a way nobody else can.
Adrienne gets to accompany her husband, a research economist, to a posh artist-academic retreat where food and studios are provided while you pursue your writing or art with two dozen or so other guests. You must, however, dress for dinner. The seating is carefully arranged for "the cross-pollination of ideas." You might hear words like Heideggerian and ideological while munching salsiccia alla griglia con spinaci, but Adrienne has to gird herself when there's a discussion of peptides and rabbi...
I liked this book so much I got two copies because as I recall there were several different dustjackets for the book. I have two different birds....they are stickers...that's the way they must have done it. You can tell what a master of the short story she was by where they (the stories in this collection) were published: The Paris Review, The New Yorker, Harpers, Elle.
Beautiful stories, obviously. This is also the book that everyone says YOU MUST READ THIS. So, of course I am resistant to it. I did like it, but I also felt like each story hit a similar note...which is probably a good thing for a collection, but is a bad thing for a reader. All of her stories (in here, nowhere else) have this feeling of spending a day in a musty house to me...not sure if that makes sense.
This was a unique collection of short stories. The characters and scenes were well-written, and they ranged from everyday slices-of-life, to tragic, to surrealistic. I listened to the audio, and I can say the narrator spending what seemed like several minutes letting loose a barrage of sobbing laughter was one of the strangest things I've ever heard in an audiobook. I really don't think I'd like to hear it again, honestly.
Lorrie “Morbid” Moore’s book of stories were bleak and foreboding, but they appealed to me more than I’d have thought. She is a very talented writer. It’s always appreciated when you can go deep into the heads of characters to discover those remote yet recognizable elements of the way we humans can be. It’s not like the stories are relentlessly dark. There’s even some humor at times – good, sharply observed stuff. It’s just drearier in tone than I’m used to enjoying, so it surprised me when I di...
I don't usually read short story collections but picked up this one for a book club.Moore's stories are well-written and insightful, and she can write humorous scenes, but overall I thought the book was somewhat depressing. In the end I was left with the impression that it's almost impossible for two people to have a fulfilling relationship and almost everyone is unhappy in one way or another. Though this may very well be true it's still dispiriting to read about.In some of these stories charact...
Video review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1lmQ...
The writing is very smart and I like the dark humor, the wisecracks. But the stories themselves are too much alike, the main characters are more or less of the same type and there is not too much happening. Good to read a single story once and a while but not an entire collection.
To celebrate my one-year anniversary of joining Goodreads, I've decided to read and review one 5-star book from each of the five favorite new reading buddies I've met on GR. First up is Birds of America , a collection of 12 short stories from Lorrie Moore. It's a favorite book of my new pal Snotchocheez, a kind, wise, supportive, all-around cool guy.Now, in 1998, when BOA was released, I was 20. I was a junior in college at Mizzou. I was fed up for life with the academic approach to analy...
Astute, witty, delightful, sincere, and at times painfully heartfelt; Moore's writings have a pleasantly gentle manner of charting life's subtle peculiarities.This was my first from Moore, and it's definitely encouraged to check out more of their work.
I’m not a huge fan of short stories, and I feel like I was rather fooled by the cover of this book into tackling it. I have worked with the Whooping Crane reintroduction program here in Calgary, exercising young crane chicks, and I simply couldn’t resist the pretty cover with the Whooping Crane on it. Plus that alluring title (for a birder), Birds of America. How either the image or the title relate to the stories within remains a mystery to me.Moore’s stories are rather bleak views of human rel...
"The thing to remember about love affairs," says Simone, "is that they are all like having raccoons in your chimney.""Oh, not the raccoon story," groans Cal."Yes! The raccoons!" cries Eugene.I'm sawing at my duck."We have raccoons sometimes in our chimney," explainsSimone."Hmmm," I say, not surprised."And once we tried to smoke them out. We lit a fire, know-ing they were there, but we hoped that the smoke would causethem to scurry out the top and never come back. Instead, theycaught on fire and
Some stories are awesome, others are lackluster…but some are awesome...Like this one
One of my main strategies for dealing with life is, "If I don't laugh, I'll cry."I think Lorrie Moore's strategy is to make me do both.
I loved three of the stories in this collection: "Charades," about familial aggressions played out over a holiday game, "What You Want to Do Fine," about the breakdown of a romance between two men on endless road trip vacations across the US, and "Four Calling Birds, Three French Hens," about a married mother mourning her dead cat - which, despite sounding like it would mostly be sad, is also so deadpan funny that I laughed until I cried at one point. I would say that I enjoyed reading about nin...
She's an excellent story writer - this is her best I think. I treasure my signed copy! just come across some notes on this from a 1998 notebook: her stuff can hit like a brick round the head. She recounts bruising, tiresome relationships fearlessly, picking the right moments out. Bitterness, the brutality of what we can think and feel, and how we can't forgive ourselves. In 'Real Estate' a death from lung cancer, intertwined with a story of a burglar who makes his victims sing and writes down th...