The Ring Lardner Reader

by Ring Lardner

A collection of plays, essays, and songs which adequately illustrate Mr. Lardner's humor and satire

Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Ringgold Wilmer Lardner was an American sports columnist and short story writer best known for his satirical takes on the sports world, marriage, and the theatre.

Father of author Ring Lardner Jr.

Reviews

[Lyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

In my opinion, nobody before or since writes man-of-the-street like Ring Lardner. This book has all his best stories. I already loved a handful when I found it, and this anthology just added some icing to a delicious cake. His heavy use of idiosyncratic vernacular makes his stories hilarious. Besides, I'm a sucker for stories by sportswriters.

[Daniel Blok · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ring Lardner's heyday lies about a century in the past; in the twenties he was pretty famous. This is, I think, mainly because of a his good, often very amusing short stories - solid stories you can still appreciate today. But not everything in this extensive collection has aged that well...

There are several pieces - I hesitate to call them 'stories' - that are quite cheesy, and Lardner's deliberate misspellings of the vernacular get tiresome after a while.
Yet, on the other hand, there are also a few 'plays' - well, they're very, very short, sometimes just a handful of characters with a few lines and then it's 'curtain!' - and these are surprisingly funny and absurd, like Ionesco or even Monty Python.

Overall advice: pick one of the short story collections.

[Abe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Feels like I shouldn't be allowed to read this book, it's so damn educational. No one has taught me more about writing than RIng Lardner.

[Dean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read "Haircut". Read half of "You Know Me Al" Got the flavor through half of the book.
Read "I'd Hate Myself in the Morning" about his standing up to the McCarthy witchhunt in the 1950's.