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Love Stories
Love Stories brings together a captivating assortment of short stories inspired by romantic entanglement in its many first love, infatuation, obsession, unrequited love, marriage, adultery, jealousy, and the complicated bonds of those who have spent their lives together.
An array of writers evoke a variety of moods, from the raw, erotic passion of Lawrence and Colette to the wickedlycynical comedy of Dorothy Parker and Roald Dahl; from the agonizing madness of jealousy in Nabokov's 'That in Aleppo Once ...' to romantic illusions in Scott Fitzgerald's 'Winter Dreams'. Objects of passion range from a glamorous silent-movie star in Elizabeth Bowen's haunting 'Dead Mabelle' to a faithful ghost in Kawabata's 'Immortality' and a successful heart surgeon and serial husband in Margaret Atwood's 'Bluebeard's Egg'. Jhumpa Lahiri plumbs the depths of a couple sundered by tragedy while Lorrie Moore movingly portrays a husband and wife brought together by it.
Katherine Mansfield, Tobias Wolff and William Trevor explore the intricacies of long-term relationships, while Maupassant, Calvino and T. C. Boyle convey the elemental force of love in extremely different ways.
Together these nineteen stories make an enticing gift for lovers at any stage of life. Perfect for Valentine's Day.
An array of writers evoke a variety of moods, from the raw, erotic passion of Lawrence and Colette to the wickedlycynical comedy of Dorothy Parker and Roald Dahl; from the agonizing madness of jealousy in Nabokov's 'That in Aleppo Once ...' to romantic illusions in Scott Fitzgerald's 'Winter Dreams'. Objects of passion range from a glamorous silent-movie star in Elizabeth Bowen's haunting 'Dead Mabelle' to a faithful ghost in Kawabata's 'Immortality' and a successful heart surgeon and serial husband in Margaret Atwood's 'Bluebeard's Egg'. Jhumpa Lahiri plumbs the depths of a couple sundered by tragedy while Lorrie Moore movingly portrays a husband and wife brought together by it.
Katherine Mansfield, Tobias Wolff and William Trevor explore the intricacies of long-term relationships, while Maupassant, Calvino and T. C. Boyle convey the elemental force of love in extremely different ways.
Together these nineteen stories make an enticing gift for lovers at any stage of life. Perfect for Valentine's Day.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
24 people are currently reading
243 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
December 8, 2019
If you're looking for romance, look elsewhere.
Most of these stories are deliciously unfortunate.
Most of these stories are deliciously unfortunate.
February 10, 2017
An assortment of stories.
I particularly liked Here We Are by Dorothy Parker,
The Stranger by Katherine Mansfield,
Mr Botibol by Roald Dhal and The Horse Dealer's Daughter by D H Lawrence.
Gives you a taste of different author's .
I particularly liked Here We Are by Dorothy Parker,
The Stranger by Katherine Mansfield,
Mr Botibol by Roald Dhal and The Horse Dealer's Daughter by D H Lawrence.
Gives you a taste of different author's .
Want to read
April 5, 2024Spotted this at the bookstore today! The table of contents had such brilliant authors listed that it was just calling out to me!
March 6, 2018
I cannot resist the beautiful Everyman’s Pocket Classics with their lovely striped spines, so when I spotted this in the library, I added it to the already enormous pile of books in my arms. As with my beloved New York Stories, purchased at The Strand in New York City, the authors collected in this volume are varied, and range from F. Scott Fitzgerald and Guy de Maupassant to Roald Dahl and Margaret Atwood.
Love Stories is wonderfully varied, both in terms of their settings and how the love within each is portrayed. Some of them were new to me, and others were not, but it was lovely to revisit old favourites alongside fresh tales.
My favourite stories were ‘Winter Dreams’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald, ‘Armande’ by Colette, ‘Mr Botibol’ by Roald Dahl, ‘Immortality’ by Yasunari Kawabata, ‘Here We Are’ by Dorothy Parker, ‘The Stranger’ by Katherine Mansfield, ‘Bluebeard’s Egg’ by Margaret Atwood, ‘A Temporary Matter’ by Jhumpa Lahiri, and ‘May’ by Ali Smith.
Love Stories is wonderfully varied, both in terms of their settings and how the love within each is portrayed. Some of them were new to me, and others were not, but it was lovely to revisit old favourites alongside fresh tales.
My favourite stories were ‘Winter Dreams’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald, ‘Armande’ by Colette, ‘Mr Botibol’ by Roald Dahl, ‘Immortality’ by Yasunari Kawabata, ‘Here We Are’ by Dorothy Parker, ‘The Stranger’ by Katherine Mansfield, ‘Bluebeard’s Egg’ by Margaret Atwood, ‘A Temporary Matter’ by Jhumpa Lahiri, and ‘May’ by Ali Smith.
May 4, 2017
Devastating yet beautiful, Love Stories presents a series of short stories about love. From falling into it to falling out of it; whether the characters decide to stay together or to part ways, this book is certainly not for those faint hearted.
Among my favorites were:
A temporary matter,
The room,
May,
Bluebeard's egg,
Lady's Dream,
Swept away, and
Winter Dreams.
Among my favorites were:
A temporary matter,
The room,
May,
Bluebeard's egg,
Lady's Dream,
Swept away, and
Winter Dreams.
May 26, 2023
A very thought-provoking, interesting series of 19 stories surrounding the topic of love; not just romantic love, but also religious love, familial love, companionship love, abstract sexuality, problematic love and the end of love. I found myself loving some stories more than others. Some made me put down the book after the story to ponder its deeper meaning, while others amused me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 22, 2022
Interesantes historias de amor escritas por varios escritores. Las que me gustaron fueron:
Winter Dreams de F. Scott Fitzgerald
Bluebeard's Egg. Margaret Atwood
A Temporary Matter", Jhumpa Lahiri
Winter Dreams de F. Scott Fitzgerald
Bluebeard's Egg. Margaret Atwood
A Temporary Matter", Jhumpa Lahiri
Want to read
June 25, 2023Very interesting anthology of stories related to love.
February 18, 2015
I wasn't going to review this, and then I noticed that some people had, and that set me to thinking about why I liked what I liked and why collections never settle right in my stomach.
They're all capable stories, each from differing sensibilities. But the thing about collections from various writers of a range of historical time and place is that you get used to one style, one mind, and then you have to readjust to another.
So maybe I was helped in my own reading by taking on the project of this book through the 'methodology' (is it this?) I use with poetry, even poetry by the same person: I only read one at a sitting.
Despite that, I found unevenness. Not of their writing, but of my response. Some things we like, some we don't. Some approaches work for us, some don't. Some views of life strike as cockamamie, some as romantic, others as pessimistic or dark or whatever.
Some of my responses to these were not surprising: Fitzgerald and Lawrence I almost always like, though one is a romantic teetering always on disaster, and the other struggles against closeness, finding the bliss of orgasm, even, to be a complex ambiguity, nasty if also wanted.
The Atwood piece struck me, going in, as long, something itching for that reason to be put off ‘until later’, but I mustered self-discipline and entered her world, that of the savvy woman fully in control of her domestic surround who then finds her understanding of things – her marriage – to be a hillside home newly discovered not to have mudslide insurance. Entertaining a fresh interpretation of subtle clues, boggled and now very unsure and frightened.
I would rate those among the better stories in this book, but equally as high would be the stories by Lahiri and Moore. Their works deal with the fragility of the 'man-woman complexus' when the addition (or subtraction) of a child is involved. How those authors handle the psychology of people faced with terrible personal shock differs, but the surprises in each case overwhelmed me. Lahiri’s couple seem slowly to proceed toward . . . but then . . .. Moore’s female protagonist, Adrienne, troubled by a seeming ineradicable remorse, fends off the world with quick humor. Unlike Atwood’s woman whose nest appears scattered by unseen wind, Moore’s woman may have come to a place of settling.
Nabokov. I’d read this story before, among a collection of many of his. I’d forgotten it, not recognizing the title, until I read a page or two. Reading it again didn’t mean the whole flooded back to me – not at all. It was a re-experiencing. He’s a writer, over and over, who melds wit, deep theme, psychological poise and nuance, irony, bitterness, lightness of touch, and verbal acuity almost anywhere you read. Does this overstate his value?
This particular story might be read as a companion piece to the film Casablanca, but while the latter romanticized the refugee escape from German World War Two invasions, ‘Aleppo’ is a looking back, as related by an escapee to a friend. Yet the relating is managed up front as a story murky in its facts, in its own internal versions. By its end, yet a further view of what happened opens up.
'Aleppo' is no documentary. Nor is it a pathetic appeal, a ‘human outreach’. Those edges may be implied, but we’re not asked to settle there at all. As a matter of fact, we’re invited to note that we can’t easily settle anywhere. Who’s to be believed about what? We’re wrenched from any possible pathos by the humorous accident of what might or might not have gone on.
Unlike Calvino, whose stylistic kookiness is also represented ("Blood, Sea") in this collection, Nabokov’s style is not a matter of obsessive over-elaboration of detail and descriptive oddity. Nabokov presents the unpredictable. It’s as if ‘what happens in Vegas . . .’ may not really has happened in Vegas, even for those who were there and stay there.
This unreliability. This touch. Genius.
Winter Dreams. F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Horse Dealer’s Daughter. D.H. Lawrence
Bluebeard’s Egg. Margaret Atwood
‘That In Aleppo Once . . .’ Vladimir Nabokov
A Temporary Matter. Jhumpa Lahiri
Terrific Mother. Lorrie Moore.
They're all capable stories, each from differing sensibilities. But the thing about collections from various writers of a range of historical time and place is that you get used to one style, one mind, and then you have to readjust to another.
So maybe I was helped in my own reading by taking on the project of this book through the 'methodology' (is it this?) I use with poetry, even poetry by the same person: I only read one at a sitting.
Despite that, I found unevenness. Not of their writing, but of my response. Some things we like, some we don't. Some approaches work for us, some don't. Some views of life strike as cockamamie, some as romantic, others as pessimistic or dark or whatever.
Some of my responses to these were not surprising: Fitzgerald and Lawrence I almost always like, though one is a romantic teetering always on disaster, and the other struggles against closeness, finding the bliss of orgasm, even, to be a complex ambiguity, nasty if also wanted.
The Atwood piece struck me, going in, as long, something itching for that reason to be put off ‘until later’, but I mustered self-discipline and entered her world, that of the savvy woman fully in control of her domestic surround who then finds her understanding of things – her marriage – to be a hillside home newly discovered not to have mudslide insurance. Entertaining a fresh interpretation of subtle clues, boggled and now very unsure and frightened.
I would rate those among the better stories in this book, but equally as high would be the stories by Lahiri and Moore. Their works deal with the fragility of the 'man-woman complexus' when the addition (or subtraction) of a child is involved. How those authors handle the psychology of people faced with terrible personal shock differs, but the surprises in each case overwhelmed me. Lahiri’s couple seem slowly to proceed toward . . . but then . . .. Moore’s female protagonist, Adrienne, troubled by a seeming ineradicable remorse, fends off the world with quick humor. Unlike Atwood’s woman whose nest appears scattered by unseen wind, Moore’s woman may have come to a place of settling.
Nabokov. I’d read this story before, among a collection of many of his. I’d forgotten it, not recognizing the title, until I read a page or two. Reading it again didn’t mean the whole flooded back to me – not at all. It was a re-experiencing. He’s a writer, over and over, who melds wit, deep theme, psychological poise and nuance, irony, bitterness, lightness of touch, and verbal acuity almost anywhere you read. Does this overstate his value?
This particular story might be read as a companion piece to the film Casablanca, but while the latter romanticized the refugee escape from German World War Two invasions, ‘Aleppo’ is a looking back, as related by an escapee to a friend. Yet the relating is managed up front as a story murky in its facts, in its own internal versions. By its end, yet a further view of what happened opens up.
'Aleppo' is no documentary. Nor is it a pathetic appeal, a ‘human outreach’. Those edges may be implied, but we’re not asked to settle there at all. As a matter of fact, we’re invited to note that we can’t easily settle anywhere. Who’s to be believed about what? We’re wrenched from any possible pathos by the humorous accident of what might or might not have gone on.
Unlike Calvino, whose stylistic kookiness is also represented ("Blood, Sea") in this collection, Nabokov’s style is not a matter of obsessive over-elaboration of detail and descriptive oddity. Nabokov presents the unpredictable. It’s as if ‘what happens in Vegas . . .’ may not really has happened in Vegas, even for those who were there and stay there.
This unreliability. This touch. Genius.
Winter Dreams. F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Horse Dealer’s Daughter. D.H. Lawrence
Bluebeard’s Egg. Margaret Atwood
‘That In Aleppo Once . . .’ Vladimir Nabokov
A Temporary Matter. Jhumpa Lahiri
Terrific Mother. Lorrie Moore.
January 10, 2009
I picked up this collection to read over the holidays, thinking it would be the perfect warm, snuggly companion. But it's not. This collection is BRUTAL. And this isn't a criticism—the collection is fantastically curated, with straight-forward stories about true love, ineffable stories about what it means to love, and brutal stories of deception. Particularly moving were the contributions from Italo Calvino and Margaret Atwood; I can't get them out of my mind. I heartily recommend...although I wouldn't give this as a gift to your sweetheart.
Read
August 5, 2011I was intrigued by this book, since it has one of my all time favorite short stories, Lorrie Moore's "Terrific Mother." and a great selection of authors. I really enjoyed many of them (T. Coraghessan Boyle's "Swept Away," F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Winter Dreams," and Jhumpa Lahiri's "A Temporary Matter," for example.) Others, such as Elizabeth Bowen's "Dead Mabelle," hardly struck me as classics. But all in all, it's a worthwhile collection of stories addressing the many different aspects of love.
May 7, 2014
More depressing for what it says about contemporary writers than anything. The moment I looked through the table of contents I knew it was more likely to be an anthology of pathology.
I have been looking for something by Elizabeth Bowen. Maybe at the time she wrote her contribution to this, mediated necrophilia was the hot new thing and yowza,' whaddya know, it's still the hot new thing.
Her contribution to Women and Fiction II has aged better and it involves the Blitz - at least tangentially.(less)
I have been looking for something by Elizabeth Bowen. Maybe at the time she wrote her contribution to this, mediated necrophilia was the hot new thing and yowza,' whaddya know, it's still the hot new thing.
Her contribution to Women and Fiction II has aged better and it involves the Blitz - at least tangentially.(less)
February 10, 2009
Way too depressing...I don't mind depressing if it leads to redemption, and this collection was numbing.
Currently reading
February 25, 2009Very good. Marvelous collection of fine writers.
February 29, 2012
some stories better then others.
My favorites::
The Woman Who Came at Six o'Clock
The Stranger
A Temporary Matter
May
My favorites::
The Woman Who Came at Six o'Clock
The Stranger
A Temporary Matter
May
March 10, 2012
I enjoyed some of the short stories more than others, but I truly recommend it
March 15, 2016
Beautiful collection
April 15, 2017
Una recolección de cuentos cortos escrito por varios autores que reflejan las diferentes situaciones que se dan cuando se ama. Las mejores son de Scott Fitzgerald , Yatsunari Kawabata y Margaret Atwood. El amor puede ir desde el cursi y romántico hasta el que mata y destruye. Un libro con cuentos para todos los gustos.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews