The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis

Lydia Davis shits out tiny nuggets of pure golden prose and says 'oh, this old thing?' This is 5 stars of brillance, and an extra star for the stories that will manifest in your mind as your imagination takes over to fill in the unmentioned and try to place the greater horizons of these characters c......more

Interesting and challenging. At times very funny. She writes excellent stories, but some of the early work has an absurdist/minimalist aspect that is wearying. Though the good stories make it worthwhile wading through the rest. Favorite stories include “In a Northern Country,” “Marie Curie, So Admir......more

The only complaint I have with this book has nothing to do with Davis marvellous stories. I really liked that part, her tone, her ideas, she's all over it, and I loved it. The problem for me was the edition. Short stories are not exactly my favourite form of fiction, since they develop to a certain......more

These stories don’t so much bloom and bleed over their blank pages as hold their breath, fill up their lungs and wait for you to tiptoe past. They’re claustrophobic and lonely, a three floor walk-up to an elbow apartment with pale sunlight and the city below under glass. “Break It Down,” though, gets......more