City Beasts: Fourteen Stories of Uninvited Wildlife

by Mark Kurlansky

All-new stories about the urban worlds where animals and humans fight, love, and find common ground, from the nationally bestselling author of Cod and Salt .
 
In these stories, Mark Kurlansky journeys to his familiar haunts like New York’s Central Park or Miami’s Little Havana but with an original, earthy, and adventurous perspective. From baseball players in the Dominican Republic to Basque separatists in Spain to a restaurant owner in Cuba, from urban coyotes to a murder of crows, Kurlansky travels the worlds of animals and their human counterparts, revealing moving and hilarious truths about our connected existence.
 
In the end, he illuminates how closely our worlds are aligned, how humans really are beasts, susceptible to their basest instincts, their wildest dreams, and their artful survival.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Animals, New York, Nature, Anthologies

320 pages, Paperback

First published February 3, 2015

About the author

Mark Kurlansky is an American journalist and author who has written a number of books of fiction and nonfiction. His 1997 book, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World (1997), was an international bestseller and was translated into more than fifteen languages. His book Nonviolence: Twenty-five Lessons From the History of a Dangerous Idea (2006) was the nonfiction winner of the 2007 Dayton Literary Peace Prize.

Reviews

[Cher · Rating 2 out of 5]

This collection of short stories is appealing in concept but disappointing in result. The Idaho Locavores Trilogy captured my attention, but overall I found the writer's voice off-putting. The collection is rife with cultural appropriation, overuse of modifiers and unclear sentence structure and needs work.

[Vickie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I could give this book more than 5 stars! Instead of a serious study of the history of how animals got urbanized, it is a collection of wonderful short stories in which the animals play a pivotal role.

[Rrshively · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mark Kurlansky is a master of the short story, and these are unique, ironic, and creative. The problem is that I really didn't like more than a couple of them, no matter how cleverly they were written.

[Sheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kurlansky is a gem, this book made made me smile in the depths of February grey days. Well worth the read.

[Nick Fanelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

This books fun short stories are easy to get lost in.

[Toey · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was interesting to read about animals and some stories were entertaining. However, the plot of many of the stories was overshadowed by the racist depictions of minorities.

[Carrie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some of these stories are wildly offensive.

[Bryan Fox · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my first exposure to Kurlansky's work, and I realize that he's far better known for his non-fiction. The stories in this collection are breezy and easy enough to read - this would make a decent beach book for a long weekend. However, it feels as though his all-out effort to show how intimately he knows all of the cultures and subcultures in which the stories are set (looking at his other published works, he seems to have written nonfiction books about many of the topics/regions he gives fictional treatment to here) at times takes away from the readability and enjoyability of these stories. The level of fictionality/believability is suspect in some tales (are they meant to be magical realism? are they meant to be allegorical? when animal characters can talk and think, what does that mean for the reader?), and many of these stories - just end , which feels somewhat unfulfilling.

[Chris Notionless · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this up hoping for some satirical stories involving NYC, animals, and human society. A few were great, notably Odd Birds in NYC (written well before Flaco) and the Gloucester Whale Code. Others were super strange, unenjoyable, and sometimes a combo of both. At times I found the author's voice either condescending or difficult to decipher which lead to a bit of confusion and lack of narrative understanding. Whenever I had to reread sentences or paragraphs to see where I lost track of the story that's a sign it's not for me. However, I did purchase this so I was persistent in pushing through cover to cover.

[Erik · Rating 3 out of 5]

A series of short stories about animals in urban settings. Some stories were better than others (wolves trilogy, the quetzal story, the coyote storry, the basque story). The stories are quite varied - in tone, in perspective, in theme - which is greatly appreciated. Stories definitely border on Kurlansky's known areas of expertise - basque , baseball, cod.

although the cover might seem to imply such, there was no elephant in the book.

[Backoff51 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fine book by Mark Kurlansky. This one is a book of 14 short stories. I usually find most such compilations quite boring with most of the stories less than fulfilling. However, that was not the case this time. Each of the stories was very interesting and unusual.

I do recommend this work to you.

[Donna · Rating 3 out of 5]

These stories were good, entertaining. Sometimes you get the story from the animal's perspective and sometimes the human's. Having grown up in Manhattan, they sort of raised my curiosity about what wild animals could have been around without my knowledge.

[Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had only read Kurlansky's non-fiction before and always liked it. I greatly enjoyed many of the stories in this book, with the first and the last being real treats. All have an interesting viewpoint. And he does the illustrations!

[Alyssa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting short stories! I especially love those that considered the perspective of the animals. Then, at the end of the book, you’d realise that humans are animals too.

[Kimberly Jean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the way the author told his stories! He set up his analogizes from one end of the world to the other. you can find relate able things to hold onto in looking at some of these crazy characters!

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

294 pages

[Aaron Ambrose · Rating 1 out of 5]

I judged this book by its cover, and paid the price. Beautiful book design, dressing up a big pile of artless and ungainly writing. After the first story and a half, I ended up skimming this one.

[Emma Weisman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book of stories. It was perfect for reading on the train during my commute.

[Morgan · Rating 2 out of 5]

A few of these stories were really good, but a few were absolutely terrible. I'd only recommend this to diehard Kurlansky fans.

[Raina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked some of the stories, but they all ended so abruptly, no closure.

[Brendan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Closer to a solid 3.5 to me, but I’m rounding up. Kurlansky’s short stories are enjoyable and well written, but I think they sparkle a bit less than his nonfiction work.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I almost stopped reading after first 2 or 3 stories but I liked the rest better than those few

[Joan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clever and often ironic short stories that feature interactions between humans and animals.

[Felicity · Rating 2 out of 5]

After rescuing or removing three fledgling robins, two swallows, a distressed rabbit and a drowned vole from my farmhouse kitchen and bedroom, I seized on this volume from the staggering slush pile of books for bedtime reading. I should, of course, have known better than to judge a book by its subtitle, rough-cut pages, author's own primitive illustrations and folksy style. A back-cover review compares Kurlansky's fiction to 'a long wonderful meal with friends. It is nurturing, succulent, and, most of all, a lot of fun'. Some of these stories offer gentle reflection; more remain trapped in the macho hunting, shooting, fishing tradition, just the stuff of tall tales told over drink-sodden dinners. Not much nurturing here, either for coyotes or for non-carnivores like me. I've yet to read his 'succulent' Edible Stories, but I suspect I'll continue to find more sustenance in Kurlansky's non-fiction.

[Becki Iverson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I adore Mark Kurlansky but this book just did not do it for me. I was expecting something more along the lines of Botany of Desire - an animal's eye view of life in the city. I find that an interesting concept. What I was met with, however, was a bevy of totally random short stories.

I'm not a short story fan in general (it's the only genre I just can't seem to read) so this wasn't good. It's a credit to my respect for Kurlansky that I finished this despite my genere-ism but I didn't love it.

Adult animal fans will probably find something to enjoy here, but I just didn't like it much. I will stick to nonfiction for Kurklansky from now on for sure.

[Kris McCracken · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this collection very much. I'm used to reading Mark Kurlansky for his popular histories, so it's nice to see some of his research enter into the stories themselves, be it the Basque diaspora, the wonderful cod, salt, baseball in the Dominican Republic, or the history of fine dining in Cuba.

The stories themselves see the worlds of animals and their human counterparts collide, each truths and possible truths. As always, not all are even, but at its best, it is very very good. I enjoyed it very much.

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't usually read short stories, but I loved most of the short stories in this book, particularly those that took place in cities. I enjoyed reading from both the animal and human perspective, and loved how the author blended reality with moments of fantasy, such as with the tarantula in the story that takes place in the DR. Overall, it was fanciful, entertaining, and at times actually suspenseful.

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a big fan of Kurlansky's non-fiction, especially Salt and Cod. These short stories have a similar feel and, indeed, draw many details from his non-fiction. Highly readable and interesting, but not really great "literary" fiction. More of a 3.5-3.75 rating.

[Benjamin Kahn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent collection of short stories. I stumbled upon this book at work and thought I would read and few pages got hooked. The stories are quirky, filled with humour, and had a nice deft touch to them. They cover a wide variety of characters, settings and situations. Lots of fun.

[Pip Jennings · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very unusual stories and also very atmospheric. I never want a short story to finish & found it was so with this book.