The Short Stories, Vol 3

The short stories #3

by Ernest Hemingway, Stacy Keach (Read by)

Before he gained wide fame as a novelist, Ernest Hemingway established his literary reputation with his short stories. Set in the varied landscapes of Spain, Africa, and the American Midwest, this definitive audio collection traces the development and maturation of Hemingway's distinct and revolutionary storytelling style -- from the plain bold language of this first story to his mastery of seamless prose that contained a spare, eloquent pathos, as well as a sense of expansive solitude. These stories showcase the singular talent of a master, the most important American writer of the twentieth century.

The Short Stories Volume III features Stacy Keach reading such favorites as: An Alpine Idyll, A Pursuit Race, Today is Friday, Banal Story, Now I Lay Me, After the Storm, A Clean, Well-lighted Place, The Light of the World, God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen, The Sea Change, A Way You'll Never Be, The Mother of the Queen, One Reader Writes, Homage to Switzerland, A Day's Wait, A Natural History of the Dead, Wine of Wyoming, The Gambler, The Nun, and the Radio, and Fathers and Sons.

ALL STORIES ARE UNABRIDGED

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Audiobook, Short Stories, Literature

5 pages, Audio CD

First published March 1, 2003

About the author

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Best known for an economical, understated style that significantly influenced later 20th-century writers, he is often romanticized for his adventurous lifestyle, and outspoken and blunt public image. Most of Hemingway's works were published between the mid-1920s and mid-1950s, including seven novels, six short-story collections and two non-fiction works. His writings have become classics of American literature; he was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature, while three of his novels, four short-story collections and three nonfiction works were published posthumously.
Hemingway was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. After high school, he spent six months as a cub reporter for The Kansas City Star before enlisting in the Red Cross. He served as an ambulance driver on the Italian Front in World War I and was seriously wounded in 1918. His wartime experiences formed the basis for his 1929 novel A Farewell to Arms. He married Hadley Richardson in 1921, the first of four wives. They moved to Paris where he worked as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star and fell under the influence of the modernist writers and artists of the 1920s' "Lost Generation" expatriate community. His debut novel The Sun Also Rises was published in 1926.
He divorced Richardson in 1927 and married Pauline Pfeiffer. They divorced after he returned from the Spanish Civil War, where he had worked as a journalist and which formed the basis for his 1940 novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. Martha Gellhorn became his third wife in 1940. He and Gellhorn separated after he met Mary Welsh Hemingway in London during World War II. Hemingway was present with Allied troops as a journalist at the Normandy landings and the liberation of Paris. He maintained permanent residences in Key West, Florida, in the 1930s and in Cuba in the 1940s and 1950s. On a 1954 trip to Africa, he was seriously injured in two plane accidents on successive days, leaving him in pain and ill health for much of the rest of his life. In 1959, he bought a house in Ketchum, Idaho, where, on July 2, 1961 (a couple weeks before his 62nd birthday), he killed himself using one of his shotguns.

Reviews

[R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like most short story collections, there's a fair bit of overlap in here. If you've read the other two collections of Hemingway in this series, there are several stories you will have already heard, and one that you may have heard twice if my memory is correct. It's a bit weird that that's the way it shook out in a collection, but nevertheless it was an entertaining series.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stacy Keach is the perfect Hemingway narrator for this audio book. There are some classic and some new-to-me short stories in this volume. It’s worthwhile to acknowledge Hemingway for his writing. Sometimes his celebrity and notoriety overshadow his literary achievements.

[Jason McCracken · Rating 2 out of 5]

It felt like these were just leftovers. It's still Hemingway but I found most of these stories to be pretty bland and uninteresting.

[James Biser · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great collection of short stories by Hemingway. It is well read and entertaining. The stories are not related, but they share the voice of Ernest Hemingway.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the existential feel of these. I particularly like the story about the hospitalized card player and the sports-loving nun

[Ibis3 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed most of these stories, the last of the entire oeuvre, despite how much Hemingway is described as the quintessential masculine writer (and so, supposedly the antithesis of what a feminist would like). I do think I got a lot more out of them by listening to Stacey Keach read them than I'd have derived had I read them myself. They're so plotless and both begin and end rather abruptly and seemingly without reason. On to the novels.

[Brent · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok, so in truth I gave up on this collection less than half-way through. The stories were simply not compelling. I suppose I can live with the idea that not everything Hemingway put out was literary gold. And this is the third volume of his short stories- I'm assuming the first volume contains better stuff.

[Beth · Rating 1 out of 5]

I guess I just don't "get" Hemingway. I didn't enjoy any of these stories. I'm hoping that since this was Volume 3 that his really good stuff is on volumes 1 and 2.

[Jennie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not his best work. Little dark in theme for my taste.

[Jayson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hated it

[Jackie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some stories convey eternal human interests. Mr Hemingway knows how to tell them.