A Fine Collection of Stories
582297
No surprise this book is about love. Wohlrob's characters, real and flawed, remind us that indeed there is someone out there for everyone. Yet, the true question is whether one will make the necessary sacrifices in the name of love. The final story in this collection, "Taking the Happy Bus On Home", is beautiful and reminiscent of Mishima's story "Patriotism".
1858560
Chris's freshman effort is a fine collection of short stories covering a wide variety of topics. He takes on mental illness, emotional abandonment, greed, lust and even workplace canoodling.

I read it cover-to-cover on a lazy Saturday afternoon. While the book does get a bit heavy in places, the author does strike a good balance and never leaves the reader in a crater of despair.

In all, it's a breezy read that is worth your time.
1445887
The majority of stories in this collection - edited by Julie K. Trevelyan and Scott Brassart - deal with ghosts helping the living find love: of past loves trying to help their partners move on and to find love ("Taking Care of Faith" by A.J. Potter, "Old as a Rose in Bloom" by Lawrence Schimel); older ghosts and other supernatural beings helping new lovers to find one another ("The Course of True Love" by d.g.k. goldberg, "Paisley" by Jessica Kirkwood); and, of course those with a more evil bent ("amat67.jpg" by Hall Owen Calwaugh).  They're all fairly pleasant tales, easy to read an enjoyable; however, this collection is almost like reading the same story over and over.  Some of the standouts making this a worthy collection to read are "The Haunting of Room 110" by Michael Price Nelson about a ghost waiting for his lover to join him, and "Eyes" by E.J. Galusha, which really did put the scare in me and is a fitting finale to the collection.  An overall good collection for anyone wanting a gay take on ghosts.
4587388
Chanel Earl's collection of short stories proved to be a delightful and worthwhile read. This slender volume contains five stories with central themes of grief, death, and dying. On the whole the stories in the collection hold together well. Her approach to her subject is not heavy-handed and I actually was left with a sense of lightness after reading this volume. The stories are refreshing and memorable. I would recommend taking time between stories rather than reading this collection in one sitting as I did. Her characters are complex but relatable and I found they lingered with me long after I set the book down. My personal favorite of the collection is entitled "Whole," which is a lovely and creative story about a couple whose love of mathematics is so great that they name their children after numerals and a father who comes to a new understanding of the world of numbers in his grief. I also thoroughly enjoyed the first story, "One Hundred Breaths" about a child coming to terms with the death of his father. I found "Lorelei Remembers" to be a bit too perfunctory and was somewhat disappointed with the ending. I had mixed feelings about "What to Say to Someone Who's Dying." I was taken in by the mother-daughter interaction but I had the sense the author was trying too hard with the symbolism and it didn't quite work for me. All in all, this collection is a fine debut for the author.
2545916
Walter Dean Myers' collection of short stories focuses on the inhabitants of "145th Street" in Harlem. Each story is well-crafted and geared to readers 12 and up; Delacorte Press is the children's branch of Random House  Publishers. However, this volume is fine reading for adults as well as  children.
The stories share characters, settings, and tone. Myers does  an excellent job avoiding bad language while maintaining the vernacular and  rhythms of the rich characters that he portrays. Myers has a knack for  giving his characters life and credibility. Myers manages to give a sense  of adult versus youth dialect in leading us through the concrete realities  of Harlem.
Although characters are repeated in the stories, sometimes as  background and others as key characters, each story stands on its own and  may be read in any order without loss of continuity. In other words, the  stories do not build on one another like chapters in a novel.
Each of  the ten stories strikes a chord in the reader and "shows" rather than just  "tells" you the pressures, fears, and joys of living in the "hood." Human  emotion is itself a character throughout the collection and the story lines  are expertly constructed to avoid being preachy while relating theme and  the moral undercurrent of the human struggle with choices that must be made  every day on 145th street.
I particularly enjoyed "Big Joe's Funeral"  and "A Christmas Story." Big Joe is a restaurant owner and has his own  particular, unique, and large view of what a funeral ought to be about. The  Christmas tale delicately balances the spirit of Christmas against the  desire of a policeman to separate his personal life from the harshness of  the beat he walks.
Every story in this collection is interesting and  entertaining. As a sampler, it has whetted my appetite for more of Walter  Dean Myers' books. I highly recommend this collection for young or old  readers and those who simply appreciate a good story spun by an author with  a natural voice.
1639069
This is a very good collection of short stories.

I especially appreciate the fact that the type is nice and sharp.

That's the way old books were printed, and for my old eyes it makes a big difference.

A very nice book.
17737
This is a collection of stories that take place in and around New York from the New Yorker.  Some stories are better than others, but I enjoyed reading all the ones that I did read.
4161956
This anthology of 9 ghost stories has a wonderfully old-style feel to it; I'm not sure if it's that the social stratification of Edo-period Japan is reminiscent of Victorian England's class strata or Daniel Huddleston's translation (which doesn't sound particularly Victorian but is very good at keeping the feel of Japanese honorfics). The physicality of the ghosts and oni is definitely evocative of writers like MR James and EF Benson.

Of the stories, the best one is "Cage of Shadows", a first-person narrative (and nunc dimittis) that is moving because of the narrator's sorrow about whether things could have turned out differently-- had he stepped out of station, could he have stopped the tragedy that unfolded? Other stories of note include "When Plum Rains Fall" (the introduction compares it fairly to "The Minister's Black Veil"), "The Futon Storeroom" (a horror story any Marxist would be pleased with!) and "The Mussel Mound" (which reminds me especially of Lafcadio Hearn and has a streak of dark humor).
1891599
An eclectic collection of short stories by the author, largely drawn from his life.  They offer mental images of places you may not have seen, but will find hard to forget. Most have some element of deeper meaning to them, while some are just plain unvarnished fun.  Lots of good story telling here by a master of the art. Highly recommended.
1227020
Fourteen and a Quarter is an interesting collection of well-crafted stories.

I like stories that focus on character, relationships, and the seemingly small moments of life that hide substantive turning points; thats how real life works. In one of the stories in this collection, the turning point is the characters decision to pick up a coin from the sidewalk. You never know, when watching strangers pass by, which acts are truly inconsequential and which only seem that way.

The author uses the showing style of writingas opposed to tellingwhich I greatly prefer, but readers do have to be able to make inferences.  The internal life of the characters is revealed through their gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice, and actions so that reading is like watching a movie. Word choice is important to this author, and readers will enjoy the descriptive language. There are, however, some clunky sentences, and awkward phrases.

These are character-driven stories and the characters are always interesting. The author has created a wide palette of people from the admirable to the strange.  Each story has an unexpected twist, but the twists are derived from character and are believable.

I recommend this collection to people who like character-driven stories about human nature.
3549333
I enjoyed Mr. Cornford's collection of stories. He gives us characters from all walks of life, from CEOs to neglected teens, and does a compelling job of intertwining the lives of people who might never have met under ordinary circumstances. What I like best is that we get an bit of international flavor, as the stories take place across a few different countries. The only real clunker in this collection for me was the iPod story. That one seemed a little too First World Problems, compared to the rest of the collection. I still recommend this as a good read.
3411896
This book contains excellent stories, poems, and drawings.
4541942
I believe it takes a special talent to be able to produce a good short story, particularly these days when there are not many publishing outlets for them. This collection then, is especially welcome since it brings together short stories from many famous authors. Like any collection, however, it contains stories that are good, and stories that are bad, and some that are a little of both. It's to the credit of the editor that he has produced this work, and I recommend it to those who enjoy reading shorter works from some of their favorite authors. Despite some of the shortcomings of this collection, I am looking forward to the next edition of this work, if only for the continuation of the last story in the collection.
3415823
This is a collection of eight intriguing stories from different authors. I found all of the writing well done and enjoyed each story. It is always fascinating to find a look at new authors through collections like this. The stories inside take a look at a somewhat similar them of alternate history and times. I won't go into each story, but I will just say this collection is a one to pick up and would make a great addition to anyone's library. The stories take you into a different dimension of thinking and on  a great journey.
2490206
I have enjoyed reading these short stories.  It's interesting and laudable to read stories that place strong women in a positive manner by a male writer.  In fact, the narrative perspective is also from male characters who observe and value the strength of the women they meet, confront, and love.  The stories are interesting and varied in style, length, and substance.  A nice collection.
1908233
A thoughtfully conceived collections of stories by an interesting variety of writers. Definitely worth a look!
3410504
When I read the first story of this collection, I was not sure that I was going to like it - but with each page I read, I appreciated the author's perceptions more and more.  There is a calmness to her writing that belies the emotion and depth of each narrative.  The characters are well-drawn and none of the stories are ordinary.  It is a collection that I think needs to be read more than once, with a space of time in-between - one that will give new insights with each reading.  The only criticism I have is that there just aren't as many stories as I would like to explore.  A beautiful work.