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Nothing But You: Love Stories From The New Yorker
Raymond Carver, Alice Munro, John Updike, Gabriel García Márquez, Mavis Gallant, Julian Barnes, Michael Chabon, Jamaica Kincaid, John O'Hara, Muriel Spark, Ann Beattie, and William Maxwell are among the contributors to Nothing But You: Love Stories from The New Yorker--assembled by Roger Angell, senior editor at The New Yorker. This is the first fiction anthology in more than three decades from the magazine that has defined the American short story for almost a century. As noteworthy for its range as for its excellence, Nothing But You features a stunning array of present and past masters writing about love in all its varieties, from the classic love story to dislocated narratives of weird modern romance. Taken separately, these stories suggest the infinite variety of the human heart. Taken together, they are a literary milestone, a comprehensive review of the way we live and love now.
471 pages, Paperback
First published January 21, 1997
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394 people want to read
About the author
The New Yorker
503 books222 followersThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry published by Condé Nast Publications. Starting as a weekly in the mid-1920s, the magazine is now published forty-seven times per year, with five of these issues covering two-week spans.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
August 9, 2007
I bought a used copy of this (hardcover), and inside the cover are written dozens of "Happy 19th Birthday" messages to a girl named Jill. It looks like she'd never even cracked it open. So I guess Jill doesn't care about love.
November 8, 2008
This book is full of that shed-a-little-bit-of-light-on-love-for-me-would-you-please kind of insight and that's just the kind of insight I like.
Insight galore:
"Though of course we would always be strangers. Is that not the essence, the requisite of love?"(Edna O'Brien— from The Plan)
(INDEED!)
"Perhaps too little attention is paid to the necessary precondition of 'falling in love'— I mean the state of mind or place that precedes one's first sight of the loved person (or house or land). In my own case, I remember the dark Boston afternoons as a precondition of love." (Alice Adams— from Roses, Rhododendron)
(YES!)
"…ceaseless talk of love, various ways of making love, various sorts of love. [Captain Cardew would] explain that love was not kind and gentle, as she had imagined, but violent. Violence, even, cruelty, was an essential part of it." (Jean Rhys— from Goodbye Marcus Goodbye Rose)
(OH?)
"The men in the bar had two kinds of women with them: innocent-looking women with pastel skirts and careful hairdos, and hard-looking women without makeup in T-shirts and jeans. Jenny imagined that each type could be either a girlfriend or a wife. She felt odd. She was neither type." (Bobbie Ann Mason— from Love Life)
(I FEEL YOU!)
"He walked in the garden, conscious of the fact that she had at least given him the illusion of playing an important romantic role, a lead – a thrilling improvement over the sundry messengers, porters, and clowns of monogamy – and there was no doubt about the fact that her praise had turned his head. Was her excitement over the declivity in his back cunning, sly, a pitiless exploitation of the enormous and deep-buried vanity in men?" (John Cheever— from Marito in Citta
(OH MY!)
"…yet when he was lying on top of me he looked down at me as if I were the only woman in the world, the only woman he had ever looked at in that way— but that was not true, a man only does that when it is not true." (Jamaica Kincaid—from Song of Roland)
(I'M DOOMED!)
No matter the state of your love life, you'll fall for this book— it can't be helped!
xoxoxo
Insight galore:
"Though of course we would always be strangers. Is that not the essence, the requisite of love?"(Edna O'Brien— from The Plan)
(INDEED!)
"Perhaps too little attention is paid to the necessary precondition of 'falling in love'— I mean the state of mind or place that precedes one's first sight of the loved person (or house or land). In my own case, I remember the dark Boston afternoons as a precondition of love." (Alice Adams— from Roses, Rhododendron)
(YES!)
"…ceaseless talk of love, various ways of making love, various sorts of love. [Captain Cardew would] explain that love was not kind and gentle, as she had imagined, but violent. Violence, even, cruelty, was an essential part of it." (Jean Rhys— from Goodbye Marcus Goodbye Rose)
(OH?)
"The men in the bar had two kinds of women with them: innocent-looking women with pastel skirts and careful hairdos, and hard-looking women without makeup in T-shirts and jeans. Jenny imagined that each type could be either a girlfriend or a wife. She felt odd. She was neither type." (Bobbie Ann Mason— from Love Life)
(I FEEL YOU!)
"He walked in the garden, conscious of the fact that she had at least given him the illusion of playing an important romantic role, a lead – a thrilling improvement over the sundry messengers, porters, and clowns of monogamy – and there was no doubt about the fact that her praise had turned his head. Was her excitement over the declivity in his back cunning, sly, a pitiless exploitation of the enormous and deep-buried vanity in men?" (John Cheever— from Marito in Citta
(OH MY!)
"…yet when he was lying on top of me he looked down at me as if I were the only woman in the world, the only woman he had ever looked at in that way— but that was not true, a man only does that when it is not true." (Jamaica Kincaid—from Song of Roland)
(I'M DOOMED!)
No matter the state of your love life, you'll fall for this book— it can't be helped!
xoxoxo
May 13, 2025
3.5. Some stories were amazing and profound and I’ll remember them for a long time. Most of them I felt like I missed the point on what they were trying to say. Overall entertaining
June 3, 2013
Really, really wonderful. There were about 38 stories, and only about 3 or 4 that I genuinely disliked. Only about 7 that were "tolerable". The rest were genuinely interesting, or truly great. It was a bit long--they could've lost about a hundred pages for it to be perfect, I have a hard time reading that many short stories all in a row like that, and I knew that if I put it down between short stories for very long, I wouldn't pick it up again for a month. I'd recommend this to just about anyone. It's one of the best collections of short stories by multiple authors that I've ever seen.
August 9, 2023
(4) Sometimes short stories can be really hard to get into, because they stop and start so fast. I found myself really pleasantly surprised as to how well all of these fit together! Naturally there were a few that I didn’t care for, but overall I loved all the different styles of writing! Would recommend.
July 26, 2021
This is one edition of a wonderful series from The New Yorker. It's hard to beat a short story from TNY. I have several of the series. This was my second reading of this one as I wait for The Vixen to become available from my library.
August 19, 2023
Well, this is a collection of stories. To me, some were good, some not so good; but a few that I still laugh at, such as the one where the Cuban therapist's accent is so well denoted by the way the author spells the English words, or stop to think about months afterwards, like the four forces of nature, gravity; molecular and cosmic; habit; and boredom. I didn't "get" all of them, like that same one that used the magnetic attraction of nearly invisible quarks based on their proximity to explain human behavior.
Some are hilarious, some somber. One was outrageous. It didn't seem to me that they were all about romance. After thinking about it for awhile, I decided that what unifies them was the obsession one person sometimes has for another, you know, Nothing But You, but the way things are in our time, that obsession is not always reciprocated.
Some are hilarious, some somber. One was outrageous. It didn't seem to me that they were all about romance. After thinking about it for awhile, I decided that what unifies them was the obsession one person sometimes has for another, you know, Nothing But You, but the way things are in our time, that obsession is not always reciprocated.
October 8, 2007
This is a decent collection but I am suprised it isn't more consistent - the theme is stories about love that have been published in the New Yorker. That's a pretty big list to choose from, and the choices are up and down. Some are very good but a lot leave much to be desired. The other thing that is strange is that the editor - Roger Angell - makes mention in his foreword that he hasn't just "picked love stories between a man and a woman", but really, that's what the stories are. Its a very decent subway book, but that's about it.
February 9, 2012
All the 38 stories in this volume came from the New Yorker magazine and were originally published there between 1965 and 1995. They are not all "classic" romantic love stories--some tremble on the very edge--but they all deal with love in some fashion.
The authors were a mixed bag of well-known and not-so-well-known names but the stories were all worth reading. I enjoyed several by authors that I normally don't care for.
The authors were a mixed bag of well-known and not-so-well-known names but the stories were all worth reading. I enjoyed several by authors that I normally don't care for.
October 16, 2012
Interesting mix of stories from the New Yorker by a surprising number of authors I recognized. I liked that the definition of "love story" was so vague - every story doesn't have a happy ending, sometimes it's familial love, etc. It's an anthology and some stories were harder to get through than others, but most were short enough to not be a problem. I'm not a huge fan of short stories in general, but I enjoyed a few of these.
July 20, 2009
My favorite book of short stories. Each story is a masterpiece and each is completely different from the next. Mytwo favorites were "How to Give the Wrong Impression" by Katherine Heiny--a story written in SECOND person--and "Yours" by Mary Robinson--a peice of short short fiction with a deep impact.
November 22, 2009
True to New Yorker tradition, this collection of love stories is anything but sappy or schmaltzy. From writers both well-known and obscure, they span the spectrum of relationships - friends, lovers, singles, couples, parents, children - and are, by turns, humorous, heartbreaking, poignant, shocking, gentle and fierce. A must-have.
January 31, 2008
My all time favorite anthology of stories! I keep this one close by for a good pick-me up. It was especially great for me while I was going through my dating phases. It'll make you laugh, cry, and sigh about ALL aspects of the damn dating/love game!
June 9, 2009
My husband is an avid reader of the New Yorker so I bought this book for him years ago but he never read it. Obviously he's not a romantic! It's a great read especially if you're a fan of The New Yorker.
April 6, 2009
This is a great collection of short pieces on the subject of love and all its complications. SO many famous writers contributed, and it was a fun book to pick up and put down during busy times.
Read
April 23, 2009stories
August 15, 2009
my favorite collection ever
November 30, 2009
This collection is very nearly perfect! If you love New Yorker fiction, it is a must read.
Read
February 21, 2010Nothing But You : Love Stories From The New Yorker (Modern Library Paperbacks) (1998)
January 18, 2012
Every type of love--lost, found, parental, paramour, marriage--is here, written by wonderful wordsmiths.
August 20, 2013
Of course I'm going to read a collection that includes stories by (the fabulous and my current favorite) Julian Barnes, Woody Allen, Ian Frazier, and John Updike.
March 20, 2013
My 3 favourites:
Blackbird Pie by Raymond Carver
How to Give the Wrong Impression by Katherine Heiny
The Kugelmass Epidsode by Woody Ellen
Blackbird Pie by Raymond Carver
How to Give the Wrong Impression by Katherine Heiny
The Kugelmass Epidsode by Woody Ellen
never-finished
December 27, 2015I got through about 2-4 short stories before this was due back at the library. It wasn't bad, I just didn't want it hanging out in my currently reading file.
January 31, 2014
This is a wonderful compilation of short love stories from the New Yorker magazine. These stories are not just romantic. They span all types of love and are wonderful to read.
August 27, 2017
Nice selection.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews