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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Recommended, October 30, 2008
I look forward to this series every year, so it was with high hopes that I opened up this year's editon and began to read. The format is the same as it has been for years, with Ms. Pitlor cherry picking stories and handing over a hundred or so vetted stories to the guest editor. I don't get too caught up in who the guest editor is in any given year - I think Ms. Pitlor does a good job in gathering a pool of quality stories, but this year I thought the overall effort was slightly below the average.
Four of the stories in the collection come from Harper's Magazine, and while I was glad to see the series move away from being so New Yorker oriented, I subscribe to Harper's, so those stories weren't new to me. To of them deserved rereading anyway - the masterful Alice Munro with "Child's Play", and Nicole Krauss, "From the Desk of Daniel Varsky."
Two of the three stories from the New Yorker were also quite well done - "Puppy", by George Saunders, and "Nawabdin Electrician" by Daniyal Mueenuddin. Others that I felt really rose above were "Buying Lenin" by Miroslav Penkov, "Man and Wife," by Katie Chase, and "Straightaway," by Mark Wisniewski.
Four of the stories in this collection would fall under what I would loosely consider 'Fabulist' stories, and those are not really my thing, although I still enjoyed "Man and Wife." Perhaps that is a trend, because I don't remember as much of that in years past.
One of the things I've always enjoyed about this series is that it collects stories I'm sure I'd never get to see otherwise, and that always makes it worth it to me. This year, I would just have to say that not all of it was as interesting to me as other years. I would still definetly recommend it to anyone who enjoys short stories.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A collection of very good short stories, but no gems, April 30, 2009
As always, I recommend both the Best American and O. Henry Prize short story anthologies as being great ways to become exposed to a wide variety of different authors and top-notch writing. For 2008, I would cite the O. Henry Prize Stories anthology as being the stronger of the two, because it features more truly memorable stories. But, for those with the desire to tackle two volumes of vintage 2008 short stories, I can also recommend the 2008 Best American Short Stories.
Usually when reviewing anthologies, I will cite my favorite stories and state why I especially liked them. However, for the 2008 Best American Short Stories anthology, I was unable to do so, because no stories stood out as being especially good. I found the quality level to be uniformly high, but with no truly superb stories. The only story that caused me to question its appearance in this volume was Tobias Wolff's "Bible", which I found to be pretty mundane and perhaps guilty of stereotyping recent immigrants to America. Usually I question the appearance of the de rigueur Alice Munro story, because seemingly every short story anthology always includes a Munro story, which I typically find to be predictable in terms of setting, subject matter and writing style. The Munro story included in this volume, "Child's Play", does indeed have a predictable plot (in stark contrast to the short story style pioneered by O. Henry), but it did hold my interest more than the typical Munro story.
Salman Rushdie's introductory essay is quickly read and forgotten. Often the stories selected by the guest editor of the Best American Short Stories series will tend to reflect that editor's views. If I had to cite a general characteristic of the stories Rushdie selected, it would be that many are prurient in nature. Whether this does in fact indicate something about Rushdie's mindset is subject to conjecture.
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9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
good variety of short stories, November 23, 2008
Bought at the airport for a Denver-Seattle trip, I found these stories ranged from fair to excellent, with plenty of very good ones. These tend toward moderately serious, with definite purpose and action, and minimal preaching, and are 20-30 pages apiece.
What else should a short-story review report to avoid any more "not useful" feedback? I like short stories, and have not come across such a good collection in my lackadaisical eclectic sampling for quite a few years. Several, including the ones about the guy on the motorcycle, the swimming girls, and the puppy adoption, remain on my mind still.
The brief biographies and authors' comments about their stories was a welcome addendum.
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