The Shell Collector: Stories

by Anthony Doerr

In this astonishingly assured, exquisitely crafted debut collection, Anthony Doerr takes readers from the African coast to the suburbs of Ohio, from sideshow pageantry to harsh wilderness survival, charting a vast and varied emotional landscape. Like the best storytellers, Doerr explores the human condition in all its manifestations: metamorphosis, grief, fractured relationships, and slowly mending hearts. Most dazzling is Doerr's gift for conjuring nature in both its beautiful abundance and crushing power. Some of his characters contend with tremendous hardship; some discover unique gifts; all arc united by their ultimate deference to the mysteries of their respective landscapes.

In "The Hunter's Wife," a hunter's profession is challenged when he learns that his wife can communicate with animal spirits. "For a Long Time This Was Griselda's Story" features two sisters in Idaho struggling to come to terms with the very different paths they have chosen, one traveling the globe with a sideshow and one remaining with her mother in their hometown. In "July 4th," a group of wealthy Americans enters a bet with a gang of British sportsmen: the first side to land the largest freshwater fish on each of the continents wins. The title story describes a blind marine biologist who isolates himself in a thatch-roofed kibanda in Kenya, only to be thrust into the spotlight when he accidentally discovers the cure for a fatal disease. Like all of Doerr's stories, it shimmers with beautiful language and transports readers to a perfectly realized, magical world of his own creation. "The Shell Collector" is an enchanting and imaginative debut by a young writer embarking on an important literary career.

The shell collector --
The hunter's wife --
So many changes --
For a long time this was Griselda's story --
July fouth --
The caretaker --
A tangle by the rapid river

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Book Club, Magical Realism, Nature

218 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Anthony Doerr is the author of six books, The Shell Collector , About Grace , Memory Wall , Four Seasons in Rome , All the Light We Cannot See , and Cloud Cuckoo Land . Doerr is a two-time National Book Award finalist, and his fiction has won five O. Henry Prizes and won a number of prizes including the Pulitzer Prize and the Carnegie Medal. Become a fan on Facebook and stay up-to-date on his latest publications.

Reviews

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Man, this guy can write like he's an octogenarian. Bastard. Seriously. Like an octogenarian of the Wallace Stegner-class. Who does he think he is, writing timeless stories that will hold up way past the superficial, self-conscious Study of Self dreck that seems to stream from writing workshops these days. If I have to wallow through one more witless and hapless protagonist who washes his or her grief in some kind of pop culture balm, I will merely think of one of Doerr's stories to refrain from bashing my head in with a peen hammer.

[Violet wells · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s like Anthony Doerr aspires to be the David Attenborough of literature. Always seeking to inspire us to remain goggle-eyed by the beauties of the natural world. Pretty much every story in this collection has as its theme an individual’s relationship with the natural world. And the natural world is always called upon to act as a guru – because Doerr, you suspect, is something of an old hippie at heart. He’s deeply attached to ideas of escapism and rainbow endings. Drifting dangerously close to sentimentality at times, or plummeting headlong into it as was the case with his first novel, About Grace. I couldn’t help feeling while reading this that, if he still wants to write about the natural world, he should write a novel about the damage being done to the environment, to the natural world. If the natural world is a constant source of life-enhancing stimulants, as he’s constantly reminding us, how about tackling the more meaty subject of its desecration by human greed?

Another of his favourite subjects is the handicapped outcast groping his or her way towards a soulmate. In this collection he has both a deaf character and a blind character and it’s like getting a sneak preview of early drafts of All the Light. The more of an author’s work you read the more you realise how essentially limited are his/her spheres of influence. They say authors only ever write the same book over and over again and this truism is evident here.

Unlike most books of short stories I didn’t feel there were any stand out stories meshed in with lame sub-standard affairs here. All the stories were on about the same level – enjoyable, well-written, well-crafted. Nothing spectacular but nothing poor either. Essentially I had a sense of a writer honing his craft.

[Tara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my all-time favorite short story collections. I bought the paperback back when I had very little income. I was browsing in the bookstore (my cheap entertainment) and found this book. I read the first sentence: "The shell collector was scrubbing limpets at his sink when he heard the water taxi come scraping over the reef. He cringed to hear it . . ." and I just had to buy it. The only new book I had purchased for some years. But I couldn't pass it up, and wanted to own it.

It did not disappoint. Every story is brilliant. Doerr manages to write about nature with microscopic clarity in the same way that he can write about human interaction. Many writers can do one or the other, but he achieves both. I think the final story in the collection, "Mkondo," though previously unpublished, seems to stand above the others in that it brings all his philosphies on nature, life, and love into one story with perfect balance and execution.

I am in awe of his ability to weave in research and to lyrically capture setting. Even his dialog rings true. It's not a book to be rushed through. You have to savor every line, reread lines, pause between them. If that's how you enjoy reading the best books, you'll love this one.

[Regan · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75

[Dianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well done collection of short stories by Anthony Doerr, written a dozen years before his Pulitzer Prize winner "All The Light We Cannot See." If you read "All The Light," you will recognize little bits and pieces of that lovely book in some of these stories, especially the title story. Remember Marie-Laure's fascination with shells and mollusks? Straight from "The Shell Collector."

All of the stories are engrossing and quite different from one another. They are all written in his signature lyrical style that is almost poetry. I loved them all but one, "July Fourth," which was strangely sardonic and didn't fit in well with the others. One facet that stood out for me in this collection was how beautifully he creates his physical environments. There is such vivid imagery in all of his natural environments - forests, rivers, oceans, the changing of the seasons. You hear it, you see it, you live it, you FEEL it.

I recommend this highly to lovers of short stories and to those who enjoyed "All The Light We Cannot See."

[Teresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maybe not all the stories in this collection are as brilliant as "The Caretaker" and "Mkondo" (a perfect ending to the book), or maybe it only seems that way because these two set the bar so high. In any case, all of them are beautifully crafted and lovely to read, some taking you to remote worlds you most likely will never go to yourself.

Along with the much larger theme of the force of life in both nature and mankind, other subtle threads run through each story: the different manifestations of the color blue and the feeling of existing outside one's own head or body were a couple of my favorites.

"The Caretaker" reminded me of the best of Jhumpa Lahiri combined with, say, a less-innocent version of Coetzee's Life & Times of Michael K, while standing completely on its own merits and even surpassing others. I recommend this story as highly as possible to all my short-story-loving friends.

[AiK · Rating 3 out of 5]

Рассказы об охотниках, рыболовах, исследователях моря, палеонтологах и фокусниках собраны в этом сборнике. Автора интересуют взаимоотношения человека и природы, разница отношения к ней разными людьми. Действие происходит в разных уголках света – в Африке, США, Финляндии, Польше, Беларуси. Есть охотник, вернее проводник, который зарабатывает на убийстве животных и это его не коробит. Есть слепой исследователь ракушек и моллюсков – коллекционер, в крайней ситуации он готов знахарствовать, используя яд красивейших и опаснейших морских улиток-конусов для лечения людей от малярии. Есть Найма, фотографирующая природу, впрочем, можно трактовать ее и как пойманную добычу американского палеонтолога Уорда Бича. Есть рыбаки, отпускающие рыбу на волю, и есть рыбаки, соревнующиеся между собой командами. Есть фокусники и эзотерики.
Мне не понравились рассказы, где убивают животных или, даже если отпускают на волю, калечат их – рыбы с порванными рыболовными снастями губами. Как освободиться форели от 50 метров лески, тянущейся за крючком, который она клюнула.
«В сентябре к ним потянулись любители крупной дичи. Каждый заказывал свое: кто лося, кто антилопу, кто оленя, кто лань. Одни хотели увидеть гризли, другие – выследить росомаху, а кое-кто даже рвался пострелять канадских журавлей. Иные требовали для украшения своего жилища голову матерого вапити с раскидистыми рогами. С промежутками в несколько дней охотник возвращался в хижину, распространяя вокруг себя запах крови, и заводил рассказы о тупости клиентов, об одном толстяке из Техаса, не сумевшем из-за одышки взобраться на пригорок, чтобы оттуда сделать выстрел. О маньяке из Нью-Йорка, который утверждал, что приехал только пофотографировать медведей, а сам выхватил из-за голенища пистолет и открыл стрельбу по медведице и двум медвежатам. Каждый вечер жена замывала на охотничьем комбинезоне кровь, наблюдая, как в речной воде пятна из ржавых становятся красными, а под конец розовыми.»
У нас тоже охота, как бизнес, существует, и это не может не тревожить. Охота в доиндустриальную эпоху для людей, для которых она была средством выживания, может и была оправдана, но в наши времена, в эпоху, когда и лесов, и нетронутых экосистем толком не осталось, о какой охоте может идти речь? Автор не высказывает своего отношения к охоте, рыбалке, давая читателю возможность относиться в соответствии с его представлениями об этих формах досуга. Некая предубежденность автора также наличествует – позабавила беларусская погонщица зубров с автоматом.

[Larry Bassett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was lead to The Shell Collector directly by the author’s current best seller All the Light We Cannot See. On a certain level, the books have similarities: blindness and nature and objects with magic properties. But I found my interaction with the two books to be very different. With Light I was easily drawn in by the language and the story whereas with Collector I was immediately put off by the story, confused by the details and uncertain where I was being led. The language was similarly mesmerizing in both but the meaning of the stories in Collector was hidden to me. Light is a relatively long novel while Collector is a collection of short stories. But they are not all truly “short” stories, some going to 30 and 40 pages.

I do not know much about magical realism in fiction and the non-religious part of me (admittedly a sizeable part of me) wants to hold it at some distance. But I do not think that Anthony Doerr can be best enjoyed without some willingness to suspend disbelief. The skill of his writing makes me want to grudgingly say, “Well, I suppose I could go that far …” And, once on the slippery slope, I am subject to the obviously real force of gravity. In Light there is open debate about the likelihood that the diamond actually has real magic properties. And in Collector I understand that there is some real discussion of the potential medicinal benefits from the poison of cone shells. I am susceptible to the belief that Nature does have some truly astounding aspects; the concept of a soul has a certain appeal.

I can begin to see how reading Anthony Doerr could be addictive. Even when I am not fully understanding a story – which happens regularly – I am immensely enjoying the words and the writing. Even with the air filled with question markes, I am still experiencing “wow”! He has his magic hooks that are like fly fishing with no real bait. His regular immersion in nature makes the natural world sparkle.

I like short stories in part because you can easily survive a “clunker” that does not do much for you by simply going on to the next story. Take what you like and leave the rest, they say in AA. With Doerr there are some stories I like better than others and most have some moments of perplexity where I sputter along in uncertainty. But Doerr stories have a strength in their readability and re-readability. They grow on you as you experience the nuances and eddies and rip tides. There might be a surprise on the very next page even in the story that you have already read once.

I had an experience in reading this particular book of short stories. As you may know, I especially like very short stories – maybe just a half dozen pages – and books with chapters that are similarly short. Well, Doerr does not really do short, short stories. He runs on a bit at times with a story and, especially when you might be struggling for a meaning, you can be hoping for an ending. And, yet, if you are like me reading in the eBook format, your little note at the bottom left of the page is telling you that you still have a ways to go. Well, so here I am, reading along with bedtime approaching but my Kindle is telling me I still have over an hour to go in this story. Do I stop and pick this up the next day?

I have to get up relatively early to get my daughter to school. I am reading the last story in the book, Mkondo, and for once I think I am actually understanding the allegory, where the story is taking me, and I want to know if there is going to be a happy or puzzling or sad ending. I won’t be able to go to sleep with that hanging over me! But, guess what? The story pulls me along and the hour rushes by and, before I know it, I have successfully navigated the rapids and have reached the conclusion with an unexpected happy (or is it?) ending. Or maybe I need to read this medium-length story again in a day or two to see what I think the second time. But that night I can go to sleep satisfied but with the knowledge that Doerr has only finished with me temporarily and will be glad to welcome me back at a future moment. I am left with a wonderful uncertainty that is simultaneously a conclusion yet also an open door.

Sometimes you will read a review in which the reader lets you know that s/he had to let the book rest before a review could be considered. This is that kind of a book for me. But I am not patient with my own writing to allow for that resting period. This is my second experience with Doerr and I have not yet been able to rest from the first one. When you read this review a month from now and Like it (Thank you so much!), I will come back to it as a result of your Like and think about it again. Or maybe in six months or a year.

I think I will come back to Doerr sooner or later and maybe even do some rereading. That would be unusual for me since I do not commonly do much rereading. But I am going to give The Shell Collector only four stars as a challenge to my future self to come back one day and convince myself that there is ample reason to shift to five. This may be a great book that just needs a little time to grow on me!

The story Mkondo did that to me! Left me relentlessly pursued…

[mkondo, noun . Current, flow, rush, passage, run, e.g., of water in a river or poured on the ground; of air through a door or window, i.e., a draft; of the wake of a ship, a track, the run of an animal.]

Maybe living was no more than getting swept over a riverbed and eventually out to sea, no choices to make, only the vast, formless ocean ahead, the frothing waves, the lightless tomb of its depths.

Stunning? Or stunned?

[Libby · Rating 1 out of 5]

This collection of short stories is lifeless. It's everything I hate about writing: boring stories that take place in "exotic" locations, featuring "interesting" charcters, written by a 29 year old white guy invested in authenticity. Uggh.

[Bettie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Description: A remarkable collection of stories from a young American writer of huge potential: 'A show-stopping debut, as close to faultless as any writer could wish for' Los Angeles Times 'His fingers dug the shell up, he felt the sleek egg of its body, the toothy gap of its aperture. It was the most elegant thing he'd ever held. "That's a mouse cowry," the doctor said.

"A lovely find. It has brown spots, and darker stripes at its base, like tiger stripes. You can't see it, can you?" But he could. He'd never seen anything so clearly in his life.' In this assured, exquisite debut, Anthony Doerr takes readers from the African coast to the suburbs of Ohio, from sideshow pageantry to harsh wilderness survival, conjuring nature in both its beautiful abundance and its crushing power.

The blind hero of the title story spends his days roaming the beaches of Kenya, his fingers ploughing through sandy granules of grace and intrigue, his German shepherd at his side. And then there are whale-watchers and fishermen, hunters and mystics, living lives uncompleted or undone, caught, memorably, as they turn toward the reader.

A natural storyteller, Doerr explores the human dilemma in all its manifestations: longing, grief, indecision, heartbreak and slow, slow recuperation. Shimmering with elegance and invention, The Shell Collector is an enchanting and imaginative book by a young writer just setting off on what will surely be a hugely compelling literary odyssey.

Chapter 1: The Shell Collector

Opening: The shell collector was scrubbing limpets at his sink when he heard the water taxi come scraping over the reef. He cringed to hear it—its hull grinding the calices of finger corals and the tiny tubes of pipe organ corals, tearing the flower and fern shapes of soft corals, and damaging shells too: punching holes in olives and murexes and spiny whelks, in Hydatina physis and Turris babylonia. It was not the first time people tried to seek him out.

geography cone snail

Lamu, Kenya

Choroideremia /kɒˌrɔɪdᵻˈriːmi.ə/ (CHM) is a rare, X-linked recessive form of hereditary retinal degeneration that affects roughly 1 in 50,000 males. The disease causes a gradual loss of vision, starting with childhood night blindness, followed by peripheral vision loss, and progressing to loss of central vision later in life. Progression continues throughout the individual's life, but both the rate of change and the degree of visual loss are variable among those affected, even within the same family. Source

Chapter 2: The Hunter’s Wife

Opening: It was the hunter’s first time outside of Montana. He woke, stricken still with the hours-old vision of ascending through rose-lit cumulus, of houses and barns like specks deep in the snowed-in valleys, all the scrolling country below looking December— brown and black hills streaked with snow, flashes of iced-over lakes, the long braids of a river gleaming at the bottom of a canyon. Above the wing the sky had deepened to a blue so pure he knew it would bring tears to his eyes if he looked long enough.

He rolled onto his back and watched shadows shift across the ceiling. Winter is getting to you, he said. In the morning he resolved to make sure she went out every day. It was something he’d long believed: go out every day in winter or your mind will slip. Every winter the paper was full of stories about ranchers’ wives, snowed in and crazed with cabin fever, who had dispatched their husbands with cleavers or awls.

Chapter 3: So Many Chances

Opening: Dorotea San Juan, a fourteen year old in a brown cardigan. The janitor’s daughter. Walks with her head down, wears cheap sneakers, never lipstick. Picks at salads during lunch. Tacks maps to her bedroom walls. Holds her breath when she gets nervous. Years of being the janitor’s daughter teach her to blend in, look down, be nobody.

Chapter 4: For a Long Time This Was Griselda’s Story:

Opening 1979 Griselda Drown was a senior volleyballer at Boise High, a terrifically tall girl with trunky thighs, slender arms and a volleyball serve that won an Idaho State Championship despite T-shirts claiming it was a team effort. She was a gray-eyed growth spurt, orange-haired, an early bloomer, and there were rumors about how she took boys two at a time in the dusty band closet where the dented tubas and ruptured drums were kept, about how she straddled the physics teacher, about her escapades during study hall with ice cubes. They were rumors; whether they were true or not didn’t matter. We all knew them. They might as well have been true.

Chapter 5: July Fourth:

Opening: By July fourth it was all but over. The Americans went to fish the River Neris one last time. They boarded a trolleybus outside the Balatonas Hotel, squeezed shoulder to shoulder with grim Lithuanians—whiskered old ladies, sullen-faced men in thin ties, a miniskirted girl with a cluster of nose rings—and stood in their rubber waders, holding their bamboo poles out the windows to keep them from being snapped. The trolley rolled past the green market stalls and awning-fronted shops on Pilies Street, past the cathedral and belfry below the castle on the promontory. It rattled to a stop at the Zaliasis Bridge and the Americans pushed off and slumped down the slick grassless slope underneath the arches where the river slogged between concrete banks. They spread out along the cobbles, impaled cubes of bread on their hooks, and pitched them into the current.

Žaliasis bridge: Vilnius bridge Soviet sculptures



Chapter 6: The Caretaker:

For his first thirty-five years, Joseph Saleeby’s mother makes his bed and each of his meals; each morning she makes him read a column of the English dictionary, selected at random, before he is allowed to set foot outside. They live in a small collapsing house in the hills outside Monrovia in Liberia, West Africa. Joseph is tall and quiet and often sick; beneath the lenses of his oversized eyeglasses, the whites of his eyes are a pale yellow. His mother is tiny and vigorous; twice a week she stacks two baskets of vegetables on her head and hikes six miles to sell them in her stall at the market in Mazien Town. When the neighbors come to compliment her garden, she smiles and offers them Coca-Cola. “Joseph is resting,” she tells them, and they sip their Cokes, and gaze over her shoulder at the dark shuttered windows of the house, behind which, they imagine, the boy lies sweating and delirious on his cot.



Chapter 7: A Tangle by the Rapid:

Mulligan gathers his things: his fly rod, a coffee-browned thermos, Ziplocs plumped with potato sticks, deer jerky, ginger-snaps, extra socks in a knapsack. A fly box from the basement. Breakfast: sausage sizzled in oil, two slabs of pumpernickel slathered with margarine, coffee in a chipped mug. He chews in the worn door frame between the kitchen and bedroom and watches his wife sleep. Her bulk rounded under blankets. Her gray undergarments on the wooden chair. Ever since their first night she has slept like this, like an ox. Since that fine and giddy wedding night, when he held her long after she slept, and told her things and she did not wake up. He told her once that it was as if some huntsman with his hounds comes to drag her into the night and hold her until dawn. Some wraithy night huntsman with slaverous hounds on tethers. Mulligan says her name. She sleeps her hard vacant sleep. Before he leaves he stokes the fire.




Chapter 8: Mkondo:

mkondo, noun. Current, flow, rush, passage, run, e.g., of water in a river or poured on the ground; of air through a door or window, i.e., a draft; of the wake of a ship, a track, the run of an animal.]
 
 
In October of 1983, an American named Ward Beach was sent to Tanzania by the Ohio Museum of Natural History to obtain the fossil of a prehistoric bird. Teams of European paleontologists had found something like the Chinese caudipteryx—a small, feathered reptile—in the limestone hills west of Tanga and the museum was eager to get one for itself. Ward was not a paleontologist (halfway to his doctorate he had given up) but he was a competent fossil hunter and an ambitious man. He did not like the work itself—backbreaking hours with a chisel and sifting pan, blind alleys, dead ends, disappointments—but he liked the idea behind the work. To discover fossils, he told himself, was to reclaim answers to important questions.

[Antigone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anthony Doerr, he of All the Light We Cannot See fame, produced this volume of short stories some time ago. Filled with thick, jewel-like prose and heavy doses of magical realism, these eight tales flirt with primitive themes in primitive locales - which is to say there are many hard men and eccentric women swimming through natures both external and internal as they attempt to pin a maddeningly elusive truth to a tree or a rock or a wall.

The O'Henry Prize committee was absolutely correct. For sheer short story expertise, The Hunter's Wife is the most well-constructed of the lot. However, I fell to another selection and enjoyed it completely. A Tangle by the Rapid River follows a retiree named Mulligan as he sets off for a day of fly-fishing. This is, perhaps, the one pastime in which there is no danger at all of getting caught in a lie. And the fact that he manages this, and bumbles so badly into it, flat out endeared him to me. Won't say much more than that.

The rest of the work is a mixed bag. Some are righteously relevant, others far more work than they're worth. Poetic, yes, and filled with meaning. But, boy, that's a lot of words.

[Leon Enciso · Rating 4 out of 5]

El Rastreador de Conchas 3/5

La Mujer del Cazador 4,5/5

Tantas Opurtunidades 5/5 :)

Durante mucho tiempo Griselda fue la comidilla 3/5

Cuatro de Julio 3/5

El Casero 5/5 ;D

Un Laberinto junto al Rapid River 2/5 :/

Mkondo 5/5 ;D

[Barb H · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a selection of my short story book club, which was an article in The Chicago Review , 12/21/2001.
Many of us are familiar with this author's book, All the Light We Cannot See . The interesting feature of that book is that the main character is blind, as is the protagonist in this brief tale. This aspect arouses many questions. Many believe that the unsighted person has increased sensitivities in other senses. Does this mean that they are more capable to view failings of others? Does this equate with everyone's human condition- that we are actually all alone, from birth to death? This story had many technical aspects as well as the social and psychological elements, which directed the group to a complex, interesting discussion.

So briefly, the tale is of a blind, former professor with a PhD in biology and malacology (the branch of zoology that deals with mollusks). He has moved to Lamu, Kenya, 100 km. south of the equator, where his world is obsessed by shells. His knowledge and his abilities were widely respected, especially with a certain poisonous snail. His skills of this and many others and his ability to find these creatures, though blind, lead to an intriguing tale. Although many people, both professional and uneducated, seek his advice and prowess, his social skills often seem lacking to some.

Doerr has not disappointed in his elegant and scholarly writing.

[Lesley R M · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the way this dude thinks, imagines, enchants, puts pen to paper! Each short story is like a tiny sample of something so delicious you crave more of! He teases your brain in ways that make you ache for it not to end. Each story is is magic. Where they end are also their beginnings left to us to traverse.

Sentences that linger in your head when you close your eyes. Something worthy, something touchable, something that says “wow, I feel that, I see that.” If you’re into short stories I recommend this one.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

2.99 today
This was my first book by Anthony Doerr. Each story was made up of rich, dimensional characters and beautiful prose. This collection of short stories tempers hope with despair and you will find yourself thinking about them long after you finish. All The Light We Cannot See has been on my TBR list for sometime, I am looking forward to reading it. This has been an awesome year of reading for me with many new authors!
Immediately drawn to this cover!

[Julie Parks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anthony Doerr's stories always spark interest in the most unusual things.

These are two of my favorite stories from this collection.

THE SHELL COLLECTOR is a heartwarming tale about a blind man who on a verge of losing his eyesight develops the love for smooth and delicate shells on the beach of Florida. He then decides to devote his entire life to searching and studying various kinds of shells all around the world, becoming thus one of the wisest men in the field. Until he accidentally discovers the healing powers of the supposedly deadly cone snails that cure two malaria patients, causing a public outburst and landing him in the center of unwanted social attention.

Sometimes the most beautiful things can be the also the deadliest. In nature. And in people.



THE HUNTER'S WIFE was originally published in The Atlantic which is where I first read it and which is also how I discovered Anthony Doerr.



The hunter's wife is an unusual woman who connects with dead animals and people, giving the grieving relatives the chance to say goodbye, to feel the last emotions and insights their beloved had felt through this woman's powers - the hunter's wife. The story climaxes when after years apart the hunter comes to see one of her public appearances and finally understands her magic. Essentially, it's the most basic love story told in an unusually imaginative and metaphorical style.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of short stories by Anthony Doerr, whose All the Light We Cannot See left a lasting impression on me. I must preface my next comment by saying that I am not always a fan of the short story. I often feel it is just getting interesting and it is gone. This might be why I was less than moved by this collection. The stories were good, the ideas were strong, but the connection just never materialized.

Of the eight stories, I most enjoyed For a Time This Was Griselda’s Story. The relationship between the two sisters, though strange, was something I could relate to and also the question that rose to my mind of whether it is best to be the one who goes or the one who is left behind. What, if anything, did Griselda owe to her mother and her sister? Isn’t the making of happiness within and not outside us?

The Hunter’s Wife was interesting and different. I’m not sure I would want to be able to touch a dead or dying body and feel where it is going and what it sees. And, A Tangle By the Rapid River might just be a lesson in getting what you deserve (although I doubt that is the lesson Doerr thought to teach with it).

Overall, perfectly satisfactory reading and easily fit in between my longer reads. One or two a night before bed, not a problem.

[Cherie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think reading the stories more than once helped me enjoy them a little bit more than my first take on them. I can't say that I have a favorite story, but I think I liked the last one the best. I am looking forward to reading All the Light...

[Magdelanye · Rating 4 out of 5]

In each of these 8 gratifyingly longish stories we have time to bond with the mostly floundering oddball characters that populate them. AD has a talent for pulling a reader in from the first sentence, and he lays things out without fuss, yet it would be a mistake to take things for granted and prepare for a twist on the anticipated twist, and maybe a few deep laughs.

She was learning that in her life everything- health, happiness, even love- was subject to the landscape. p199

[Nathaniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection starts strong, then it starts to seem like this guy's instrument doesn't have too many strings and then he tries to write about Africans.

The first three stories are memorable and rewarding, pleasantly removed from day-to-day circumstances and romantically committed to unlikely pairings and second shots--"So Many Chances" I might read again just for pleasure. But, Doerr is hung up on female characters who aren't human (or female)--one dimensional fantasy objects for boy poets who haven't come to terms with loving anyone that doesn't act, move and think like a man. They are too captivating and convenient, magical and false.

And he can't write about Africans for shit. In fact, his attempts were almost offensive. If this was 1700 and Africa was still the unknown, he could people it with barbarians and alienated semi-adapted, cerebral metaphors; but it isn't and his African stories ("The Caretaker" and "Mkondo"), while perhaps well structured and rewarding to interpret, use foreigness as a blocking device to protect characters who act in unlikely but memorable ways.

When he lightens up, ("July Fourth"--oily feel to it, and "For a Long Time This Was Griselda's Story") he can sound a bit like a more self-conscious Lewis Nordan, which is weird but good. Doerr has potential; but he needs to branch out and stop projecting his fantasies on real things.

Lastly, you must like fishing and people isolated in the back country in a real Annie Dillard sort of way to get enjoyment from this at all. There are no cities or social settings that involve more than two people in conversation at once (pretty much).

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75 stars. These stories all share a common thread, which is that they reveal the power and beauty of nature and the relative frailty of human beings. Every time one seemed to fall into a pattern or became a bit predictable, the author turned it on its head and pulled the rug out from under me. I really enjoyed that.

His writing calls to mind Colum McCann, and if you haven't experienced his stuff yet, you might want to think about it. Doerr's prose is spare and precise. He doesn't waste time getting to the point. At times, I became lulled by their beauty, or became immersed in the disparate worlds and then suddenly *shwoom* out flew the rug and down I tumbled, scratching my head and wondering "Now what was that all about?"

I think anyone who has stared at a sunset or an intricate spiderweb in awe would find a lot to appreciate here. Mother Nature is the star of the show. Human beings are sideline characters, even when they seem like major players. That's what I appreciated about this book the most. Maybe because it's what I believe myself.

[Renata · Rating 5 out of 5]

Doerr is magnificent writer of breathtaking prose, poetic descriptions of nature's beauty and sudden harshness, and evocative characterization of uniquely interesting yet all too human characters. The Shell Collector is one of the richest short stories I've ever read. It has more weight than many a novel. The richness of the points of view, the dynamic between unexpected characters reminds me of Chekhov. I am not a frequent reader of short stories but I picked this up after reading a review of Doerr's new novel All the Light We Cannot See. I immediately purchased it after reading these short stories and feel like it is the best gift of the year. Sublime writing, intriguing characters all set in WWII. And shells.
Reminiscent of Andrea Barrett's short stories in the way they connect characters to the natural world.

[Olivia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Loved "So Many Chances," liked "The Shell Collector," didn't care for or about any of the others.

(This collection also features the spectacularly idiotic quote, "Was that what hunting meant to people? Killing animals?" and this is exactly the kind of nonsense that makes me lose all faith in humanity.)

[Leah · Rating 2 out of 5]

doerr really likes fishing, huh

[Kim Lockhart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Doerr's earliest work, and even in this collection, his talent was already evident. Most of the stories are very good. I was disappointed with "July Fourth," which lacked the depth and the insight of the others. "The Caretaker" was the best story, in my view, and represented an early glimpse of the kind of writing he is best at today: a stark examination of life, guilt, strife, meaning, and longing.

[Barnabas Piper · Rating 2 out of 5]

Beautiful, ethereal prose. Pointless, meandering stories about nothing.

[smells_like_book · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tiek daug lūkesčiú..., bet.. neišpildyti. Man pasirode dauguma istorijú,neišbaigtos,kai kurios padrikos, kai kurios nuobodžios ir beprasmes..:/. Vos viena is visú labiau užkabino. Dar tiek daug tikėjausi iš apsakymo apie Lietuva, o ji buvo pati neįdomiausia.... seniai taip bebuvau nuvilta..

[Ringa Sruogienė · Rating 5 out of 5]

Puiku. Gamta ir žmogus. Žmogus gamtoje, gamta žmoguje. Nepatiko tik amerikonai, žvejojantys Vilniaus Neryje.

[Kathryn Houghton · Rating 1 out of 5]

I dnf’d this book about halfway through the fourth story. I had seen this collection all over bookstagram, and now I’m wondering why it’s so highly acclaimed. The first story was good, being about the shell collector and what definitely sounds like some hidden mental illnesses. Or maybe just a bitter old man. It was intriguing, wild, and insightful. But unfortunately the stories just go downhill from there.

The next story tells us about a man in his thirties stalking a sixteen year old girl. Let me repeat that. A THIRTY year old grown man romanticizing a literal CHILD. When these types of stories show up in my life as a reader, I really have to criticize the author. What kind of author makes this thing acceptable? I thought we left those relationships in the dark ages where they belong? Getting back on track, this man waits until she’s 18, most definitely grooming her in the mean time. The author then tells us about how isolating their life is up in their cabin and how his new wife almost freezes to death as her husband just neglects to check up on her. And then she claims she can see animals thoughts when she touches them? How did I get here? She then starts to order witchcraft books from all over the country to develop her weird abilities. At some point she leaves this man (good for her I guess) but then invites him to one of her college lectures years later. I’m not sure what the authors intent with this was, but I hated it.

Third story was charming, but not impressionable. It’s something I’ll forget probably in a month. I won’t bother going into it. The fourth story is where I totally give up. We have the author, yet again sexualizing a girl in high school and describing her in unnecessary detail. Then we have to painfully read through the fact that she loses her virginity to some local overweight butcher who is yet again over twice her age.

I’m shocked that Anthony has won as many awards and Instagram posts as he has, but there won’t be any praises coming from me.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a collection of short stories from a pretty young author--really beautiful stuff. Sharon, this is the book I told you about with the story about the hunter's wife who touches the dying animals to feel their pain and their life. It stems from there to get even more dramatic and metaphysical but seriously.....the stories in here absolutely changed me and made me want to become a writer. There's a story in here about a homeless man who cuts out the hearts of beached whales and buries them and then sleeps on the ground above them, only it's not gross, Jen, it's beautiful. I can't even write a literate review for this book because I can't stress enough how much I want one of you three to read it so you can tell me if you like it or not.