stories

Frenzy: 60 Stories of Sudden Sex
$14.95
The stories are very brief, and hardly imaginative or satisfying... The book leaves much to be desired...

The Neverending Story
$22.99
Or dreams are the stuff this book is made of, both ways work.

I have loved the movie based on this book since I was a kid, but had never had the chance to read the original story. Now that I have, I have to say the book is so much better (even though it would seem impossible).

I actually got to care about the characters, even those that only appear in one chapter. I felt as if I knew them in person, and they all are presented as characters with their own lives and stories that go on even after their appearance here.

The relationship between Atreyu and Bastian is very special (and very real). In the second half of the book (which I did not know if I'd like before I read it) is where we see most of this relationship. It made me get concerns about Bastian, to the point where I'd want to scold him.

I smiled a lot of times as Bastian defeated some of the obstacles in the final chapters (and laughed out loud at some points during the book, as well).

The book's presentation is very good. The cover features a beautiful illustration and is very durable.

The text inside the book is printed with two inks, one for the "real" world and one for the world of Fantastica. These same inks are used in the illustrations for each chapter.

I highly recommend anyone to buy this book. Kids and adults alike. They will all love it.

And after reading it, they will most likely want to keep reading other books, too.

Stories (Everyman's Library (Cloth))
$26.00
It is difficult to review a collection of 35 disparate stories, ranging from a few pages to short novellas of up to some 70 pages and covering a multitude of subjects and many different social settings. Except for one or two which are in surrealistic form, they almost all make compelling reading. There is an introduction by Margaret Drabble which traces some of the main themes and the influences on Doris Lessing, and I can only follow her example in my own way.

Many of the stories deal with the complicated and often tormented relationships between men and women (recalling the battle of the sexes, as also seen in The Golden Notebooks) and with what they expect of each other, but do not get. The poignancy when, as in three of the stories, the (middle class) people involved are `in a good marriage', `sensible', `rational', and self-analytical. Several times the note is struck that for a woman the all-absorbing task of running a home for husband and children is a kind of slavery. Hardly any of the stories are happy; many, indeed, are tragic. The most haunting of them work towards an almost unbearably inevitable end. Doris Lessing is always compassionate, and occasionally funny, too. Some stories are about lonely people - some of whom are unhappy in their loneliness, while others - women - see it as a sign of their proud independence.

The setting is often recognizably and evocatively in the decade or so after the end of the Second World War, mostly in London; but in some of them English people (with the restricted travel allowance of the post-war years, which create their own problems and tensions) are shown on holidays abroad. Some stories have a strong social or political background. The last and longest one, in particular, is, among many other things, a sad and complex meditation of an elderly socialist about the nature of protest movements, perennially repeating itself in each generation, and perennially creating a gulf between the generations.

Three pieces in this collection are not really stories at all, but observantly descriptive pieces about London's Regent's Park.

All, so the introduction tells us, were originally published between 1957 and 1972, but we are not given the date of each story's first publication.

It is a handsome edition and a pleasure to handle.

Fireside Stories
$19.99
these are just great winter stories. each story is set at a different time during the winter and some on holidays. very intering tales from around the world. art is wonderful as always in the barefoot books.