When God Laughs [Hardcover]

Jack London (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Books, Inc.; First Edition Thus edition (1945)
• ASIN: B000L29CHO
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,812,673 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars London's best and worst, September 24, 2006

By 

Karl Janssen (Olathe, KS United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: When God Laughs (Literary Classics) (Paperback)

London's literary work has been sliced and diced into so many "greatest hits" collections; it's always great when a publisher rereleases a volume of his stories in their original collected form. This gives the reader a glimpse into a particular stage of London's career, and also provides the opportunity to discover "lost" stories that don't make it into the many editions of "The Call of the Wild and Other Stories". This collection was originally published in 1911, about the middle of London's career, when he was branching out from his tried and true Klondike subject matter, and experimenting with new settings and new literary techniques. The stories take place in San Francisco, Tahiti, Korea, Australia, and the open seas. The pieces range quite a bit in terms of quality. Three of these stories, "The Apostate", "The Chinago", and "A Piece of Steak" are among London's best, masterpieces that alone are worth the price of the book. On the other hand, "A Wicked Woman" may be the worst London story I've ever read, and there are a couple others in this book that could vie for that title. A real discovery for me was "A Curious Fragment", a futuristic socialist tale, reminiscent of London's fascinating novel The Iron Heel. All of London's stories are available for free on the internet, but if you want to read a good, solid collection of his stories in printed form, with typesetting that's easy on the eyes, this inexpensive book is a good purchase.