Points of View: Revised Edition Book

My mate found this in his attic, left by previous residents, and gave it me, knowing I love (and write) stories. His (now mine!) copy is an earlier 1966 paperback edition with small print. It's small but chunky, 500 pages. It feels great in your hand. I've read a lot of the pieces (eg Flowers for Algernon) and know most of the classic authors (from Chekhov to Updike) but many stories are new to me. It's organised in sections from - as the title implies - different points of view. Ideal for the forthcoming plane trip to NY and back - should last at least 16 hours...

I hate to get all religious on you but for the short story reader this is the book of books. It is wonderful, perfect, lovely, superb. There's some bollocks about point of view at the beginning, and the stories are grouped in categories, ranging from interior monologue to anonymous narration single character and multiple character to no character (the weird and beautiful Eudora Welty's 'Powerhouse'). (Actually it is quite interesting, and I left the book with my daughter who's studying English and American Literature in Maryland Uni). The main thing is though the quality of the stories, and every one I read was a zinger. It starts with Dorothy Parker's amusing dinner party anecdote 'But the One on the Right' and ends with Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery' - which I'd heard so much about but not actually read until this point. The highlights in between are too numerous to mention but Berriault's (new name to me) 'Stone Boy' about a 9 year old boy who accidentally kills his older brother is stunning. Also great were Malamud's 'The Prison', Steinbeck's 'Johhny Bear', Chekov's 'Enemies' (of course), Irwin Shaw's 'Act of Faith' about persecution of Jews in the USA during WW2 (almost blaming them for dragging the country to war), and to praise British writers for a moment Dylan Thomas's and Alan Sillitoe's childhood ones, oh God the whole lot (I think though I did miss a few out, eg the editor's own contribution, as I had to leave the book).