What do you think?
Rate this book
The Sweetest Hours: Love Stories...of a Kind
A collection of thoughtful, humorous and highly original short stories by award-winning novelist Laura Pedersen, author of BEGINNER'S LUCK, LAST CALL, HEART'S DESIRE, and FULL HOUSE.
- GenresFiction
312 pages, Paperback
First published January 15, 2006
7 people want to read
About the author
Laura Pedersen
25 books41 followersLaura Pedersen was born in Buffalo, New York (one of "God's frozen people") in 1965, at the height of The Folk Music Scare. (For details of misspent youth see essay at 'Is there a Nurse in the Church?'). After finishing high school in 1983 she moved to Manhattan and began working on The American Stock Exchange, a time when showing up combined with basic computation skills could be parlayed into a career. She chronicled these years in her first book, Play Money.
Having vowed to become anything but a journalist and with no conception of what a semicolon does, Laura spent the better part of the 1990s writing for The New York Times.
In 1994 President Clinton honored her as one of Ten Outstanding Young Americans. She has appeared on TV shows including Oprah, Good Morning America, Primetime Live, and David Letterman.
In 2001, her first novel, Going Away Party, won the Three Oaks Prize for Fiction and was published by Storyline Press. Beginner's Luck was published by Ballantine Books in 2003 and subsequently chosen for the Barnes & Noble "Discover Great New Writers" program, Borders "Original Voices," and as a featured alternate for The Literary Guild.
Pedersen's other novels include Last Call, Heart's Desire, and The Big Shuffle.
Laura lives in New York City, teaches reading and trades Yu-Gi-Oh! cards at the Booker T. Washington Learning Center in East Harlem, and is a member of the national literary association P.E.N. (poets, essayists and novelists).
Having vowed to become anything but a journalist and with no conception of what a semicolon does, Laura spent the better part of the 1990s writing for The New York Times.
In 1994 President Clinton honored her as one of Ten Outstanding Young Americans. She has appeared on TV shows including Oprah, Good Morning America, Primetime Live, and David Letterman.
In 2001, her first novel, Going Away Party, won the Three Oaks Prize for Fiction and was published by Storyline Press. Beginner's Luck was published by Ballantine Books in 2003 and subsequently chosen for the Barnes & Noble "Discover Great New Writers" program, Borders "Original Voices," and as a featured alternate for The Literary Guild.
Pedersen's other novels include Last Call, Heart's Desire, and The Big Shuffle.
Laura lives in New York City, teaches reading and trades Yu-Gi-Oh! cards at the Booker T. Washington Learning Center in East Harlem, and is a member of the national literary association P.E.N. (poets, essayists and novelists).
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 5, 2018
Stopped on page 87. Blurb said “you’ll laugh....” I didn’t laugh. Guess the stories I read weren’t the funny ones
March 17, 2007
Laura Pedersen’s newest book is a collection of short stories, each one touching on a different aspect of love. Each story is a sweet, simple little tale and each explores love in a different way. Some are quite traditional – such as the story of blooming summer love – and others are decidedly untraditional – such as the love between a man and a dolphin.
It’s an easy read – something you can pick up and put down and come back to again on a lazy afternoon. It’s probably not something you’ll plow right through simply because there are a lot of stories in one and not an overall tale. My favorite story is the first one that appears in the book called, “Gus Hunts for a Job”. It’s a sweet little story about Gus, the family dog, and the many “jobs” he plays throughout his life with each of the children in his family. After each one grows up, he gets a new job with the next child, fulfilling their wishes and desires, no matter what the task, from tagging along for boating trips or playing dress up. Gus finds his place and his job again and again, fulfilling his life’s goal and always staying up to the task set before him. Actually, this story made me cry. It probably wasn’t really meant to, but having lost my own childhood dog earlier this year made me think of him. It was a sweet memory to be left with.
Though most of the stories are sweet and fuzzy, a few are a bit too weird for my taste. “Love Lucy” is the story of a man and a dolphin, who are in love with each other. Now, it’s not some sick, twisted story in any way, it’s more of a transcendent love that I don’t really understand since they often refer to the main character as not only loving Lucy, the dolphin, but being in love with Lucy. Though I’m open to new ideas, this particular story didn’t really do it for me. It just reminds me too much of people’s strange sexual desires (which unfortunately I have learned about thanks to the Internet), even though there’s no sexuality mentioned. I’d just skip that if I were you.
The other stories have sweet little tales, from blooming love while away at summer camp, to two girls sending secret love emails to two lonely people in their town, to a woman who leaves the bright lights of New York to head to Alaska to meet and possibly marry an Alaskan man who she met through a magazine ad.
If you’re looking for an easy breezy summertime read that will sometimes make you smile and feeling fuzzy on the inside, pick up this book and save it for your lazy summer days when all you want to do is kick back, relax and enjoy the afternoon.
It’s an easy read – something you can pick up and put down and come back to again on a lazy afternoon. It’s probably not something you’ll plow right through simply because there are a lot of stories in one and not an overall tale. My favorite story is the first one that appears in the book called, “Gus Hunts for a Job”. It’s a sweet little story about Gus, the family dog, and the many “jobs” he plays throughout his life with each of the children in his family. After each one grows up, he gets a new job with the next child, fulfilling their wishes and desires, no matter what the task, from tagging along for boating trips or playing dress up. Gus finds his place and his job again and again, fulfilling his life’s goal and always staying up to the task set before him. Actually, this story made me cry. It probably wasn’t really meant to, but having lost my own childhood dog earlier this year made me think of him. It was a sweet memory to be left with.
Though most of the stories are sweet and fuzzy, a few are a bit too weird for my taste. “Love Lucy” is the story of a man and a dolphin, who are in love with each other. Now, it’s not some sick, twisted story in any way, it’s more of a transcendent love that I don’t really understand since they often refer to the main character as not only loving Lucy, the dolphin, but being in love with Lucy. Though I’m open to new ideas, this particular story didn’t really do it for me. It just reminds me too much of people’s strange sexual desires (which unfortunately I have learned about thanks to the Internet), even though there’s no sexuality mentioned. I’d just skip that if I were you.
The other stories have sweet little tales, from blooming love while away at summer camp, to two girls sending secret love emails to two lonely people in their town, to a woman who leaves the bright lights of New York to head to Alaska to meet and possibly marry an Alaskan man who she met through a magazine ad.
If you’re looking for an easy breezy summertime read that will sometimes make you smile and feeling fuzzy on the inside, pick up this book and save it for your lazy summer days when all you want to do is kick back, relax and enjoy the afternoon.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews