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Tell Me A Riddle [Paperback]

Tillie Olsen (Author)

4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews) |

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Product Details

Paperback: 156 pages
Publisher: Lippincott; First Edition edition (1961)
Language: English
ASIN: B000IN22DM
Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces

Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,095,299 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

6 Reviews

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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Average Customer Review

4.8 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars She has a magic with words.., November 14, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Tell Me a Riddle (Paperback)

Olsen writes stories that are so powerful, and so well-written, you'll want to read them again and again. Although she uses Jewish culture as a backdrop, her talents bring a universaility to her stories which reminds me of Steinbeck in its power, and Morrison in its complexity.

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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful, March 14, 2005

Hal B. Grossman (New York NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tell Me a Riddle (Paperback)

"Hey Sailor, What Ship" is the most powerful, concentrated portrayal of alcoholism that I have ever read. Olsen gets inside the mind of a late-stage alcoholic. Her prose seems to stretch and distort as her main character goes on an unplanned bender while on shore leave.

She shows beautiful restraint, too: there is nothing sensational or mawkish here. I am in awe of this story.

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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I Sit Here Typing..., May 5, 2002

Akethan (Arlington, VA United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Tell Me a Riddle (Paperback)

Amazed by her words and writing - the first story, I STAND HERE IRONING - where a mother is mulling over the changes in her and her daughter's lives and relationship. The stories were published in the 50s originally, but were written in a time-free fashion. Get you a copy, you hear?

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars On the Title Story only
This is a review of the title- story only. It is Tillie Olsen's most famous work.It tells the story of the decline in old- age of a strong , independent woman who has given her... Read more

Published on February 10, 2009 by Shalom Freedman

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, sad, and wise
Tillie Olsen packs a lifetime of enforced silences into this slender work of art. These are dense and poetic evocations of Joyce and Woolf, but with an added proletarian... Read more

Published on August 22, 2006 by Brandon Mann

4.0 out of 5 stars Will someone translate this for me please?
Tillie Olson is a brilliant woman. She was way ahead of her time, breaking through the constraints binding talented women back then by her sheer persistence and follow-through,... Read more

Published on August 2, 2004 by Ace

› See all 6 customer reviews...

Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!

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First Sentence:
I stand here ironing, and what you asked me moves tormented back and forth with the iron. Read the first page

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Book of the Martyrs, Ellen Mays, Norbert Jacklebaum, San Francisco, Alva Phillips

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Citations (learn more)

This book cites 2 books:

Yonnondio: From the Thirties by Tillie Olsen in Front Matter, and Back Matter
What If? by Shari Low on page 55

92 books cite this book:

Three Radical Women Writers: Class and Gender in Meridel Le Sueur, Tillie Olsen, and Josephine Herbst (Gender and Genre in Literature) by Nora Ruth Roberts on 10 pages
The Oxford Companion to Women's Writing in the United States by Cathy N. Davidson on 6 pages
Follow My Footprints: Changing Images of Women in American Jewish Fiction (Brandeis Series in American Jewish History, Culture and Life) by Sylvia Barack Fishman on 4 pages
The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction by Ann Charters on 4 pages
Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, Vol. 1: A-L by Paula E. Hyman on 4 pages

See all 92 books citing this book

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