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Customer Reviews

16 Reviews

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

Average Customer Review

3.9 out of 5 stars (16 customer reviews)

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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fiction that explodes like a bottle rocket, December 5, 2006

By

Crag Talent (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Airships (Paperback)

I can always tell a great book by the fact I'm constantly thinking of bits I'd like to steal while reading. By that criteria, reading Airships was like being tossed in a jewlery store at night without any security around.

Airships is a collection of stories about war, sex, airplanes and horses. The usual, but done with incredible style and energy. I find that far too much modern short fiction is so polished and calculated it comes out as a dulled diamond (or more often polished stone), but Hannah's work is full of the rough, gritty, loose writing that draws you in like possessed jungle vines and then you get attacked by a Panther or something.

A few of the stories fall short and at least one didn't work at all for me, but I'll still give it a big ol' A+

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31 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars They loved her at the Bargain Barn..., November 22, 1999

By

David Antonelli (Windsor, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Airships (Paperback)

A wonderful collection of stories that made me laugh outloud more than anything since the first time I read Celine. From one story to the next I was trully captivated. What sets him apart from other writers is his T.S. Eliot - like gift to come up with phrases that ring in your head like coins for years to come. No writer ever has been able to sum up a character in a single sentence like Hannah. Her husband was an intellectual in real estate... etc. The same is true in other volumes. Latouche (with metaphysical approaches named after him), is a good example.

I am not yet published but have written nine novels and hope my day will come soon. Hannah along with Richard Ford, Cormack McCarthy, Flaubert, Rilke, Celine, and Peter Handke, are my all-time favorites. Thanks for the inspiration!

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19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Airships: Sacred & Profane., May 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Airships (Paperback)

This is one of the greatest short story collections/cycles in the history of the form. To hell with political correctness. When the smoke of overeducated ignorance clears from the last half of this century, Airships will be canonical.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars No more Hannah for me.
The stories were variable in quality, but one theme prevailed throughout: misogyny. Hannah only writes about women in the most limited terms: as sexual objects, as the tragically... Read more

Published 3 months ago by HRL

2.0 out of 5 stars Flat
I enjoyed Hannah's style but none of the stories were particularly memorable. My favorite was the Civil War story, "Knowing He Was Not My Kind Yet I Followed. Read more

Published 8 months ago by Brian Rosenberger

5.0 out of 5 stars wild ride
Running through these stories feels like listing to the tracks off a really good album. Plenty of spicy, but pretty writing. Read more

Published 21 months ago by Col. D

5.0 out of 5 stars A New Approach to the American Story
Airships is a book that breaks apart expectations of what the short form can do. The language is so exacting and unique as to put this book in a league of its own. Read more

Published 21 months ago by Charles Dodd White

4.0 out of 5 stars good short story collection
If you're about to choose your first Barry Hannah book, buy this one to see what all of the fuss has been about all of these years.

Published on February 20, 2006 by Sam Curtis

4.0 out of 5 stars all-in-all very good, yet something irked me . . .
I admired this collection a lot. It is filled with beautiful, mostly inventive writing that features a collective whoop of good humor. Read more

Published on July 7, 2004 by asphlex

1.0 out of 5 stars fell flat, flat
I had to read and reread and reread many of these stories in order to understand that there was nothing to understand. Read more

Published on October 24, 1999 by Joseph M. Campbell

3.0 out of 5 stars For die-hard, jaded literature students only.
Hannah is talented and he touches on some irresistable themes. The trouble seems that Mr. Hannah is bored and needs to turn lit on its head. Read more

Published on September 7, 1999 by S. McHale

5.0 out of 5 stars Barry Hannah rocks!
Barry Hannah is a great Southern writer, to be sure, but he's also just a flat out great writer. This collection is intense, hillarious, joyful, heartbreaking and sometimes very,... Read more

Published on February 4, 1999

5.0 out of 5 stars Defining Work of Near Genius
As a young man, this collection of stories catapaulted me into the fascinating world of stories and writing. Read more

Published on December 13, 1998 by cortright_mcmeel@cargill.com

› See all 16 customer reviews...

Inside This Book (learn more)
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First Sentence:
When I am run down and flocked around by the world, I go down to Farte Cove off the Yazoo River and take my beer to the end of the pier where the old liars are still snapping and wheezing at one another. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Mother Rooney, French Edward, False Corn, Baby Levaster, Hoover Second, Mount Auburn, New York, Harry Monroe, Jeb Stuart, New Orleans, Fat Tim, Black Answer, John Whitelaw, Papa Rooney, Quarles Green, Reggy John, Baton Rouge, Bobby Dove Fleece, Farte Cove, Father Putee, Ole Miss, Sergeant Fish, Sidney Farte, Big Hoover, Big Red

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