Reasons to Live: Stories

Rating:
Summary: Reasons to read "Reasons to Live"
Review: 1. Amy Hempel is one of the best kept secrets of modern fiction. 2. The stories say so much without saying too much. 3. The characters earn your compassion. 4. "In the cemetary where Al Jolson" is buried is the greatest short story I have ever read. 5. If you have ever grieved or felt loss, you will relate to these stories.

Rating:
Summary: Reasons to read "Reasons to Live"
Review: 1. Amy Hempel is one of the best kept secrets of modern fiction. 2. The stories say so much without saying too much. 3. The characters earn your compassion. 4. "In the cemetary where Al Jolson" is buried is the greatest short story I have ever read. 5. If you have ever grieved or felt loss, you will relate to these stories.

Rating:
Summary: I love, adore, and venerate this book
Review: Amy Hempel is a literary goddess. These stories are not "traditional" fiction in the sense that there's not necessarily a beginning-middle-end, not necessarily linear character development. Instead, there is a complete understanding of time, and character *truth*. In the four-page story "Going," we become intimate immediately with the nameless young male narrator simply from his brief description of his recent car crash in the desert. You can understand characters from phrases such as "Then she'll carry herself to the bedroom like a completed jigsaw puzzle" more than you could ever from a lengthy description. Even with her extremely distinctive narrative style (I promise you, once you have read this book, you will be able to recognize her work from a single paragraph), she gives every character in the book a distinctive voice. Every word in Amy Hempel's work is well-chosen, every story so much bigger than it first appears. My favorites are the longer ones in this book ("Tonight Is a Favor to Holly," "In the Cemetary Where Al Jolson Is Buried," "Today Will Be a Quiet Day"--can we talk about the brilliance of her titles, as well?), but even the two- to four-pagers, like "Why I'm Here," are enough to keep you reeling for days. Read this book. Then read it again. The few hours it takes will be some of the best you've ever spent (and nothing compared to how long you spend contemplating it).

Rating:
Summary: Waiting for it
Review: I bought this book because of all the positive reviews about Hempel's full character development while using few words to accomplish it. I am a fan of the short story genre, but if you are looking for full-bodied, hard-hitting, engrossing entertainment that usually accompanies a short story, then steer clear of this one. Granted, the stories ARE well written...but after reading one, I felt like I got a bit cheated. It was like I was watching a great football drive end in a lost fumble to end the game. I figured I'd keep reading until I was more fullfilled, but most of the stories had a lot of build-up only to be finished with a "well, that's life" type of closing. They get you thinking (mostly about not taking things for granted, who needs that guilt?)...but for my hard-earned dollar I'd rather watch that drive end in a game winning touchdown. Overall, I'd say that Amy is a great writer, but I think I'd rather read a novel if her style can translate into it. It would keep the pages turning without so much disappointment.

Rating:
Summary: Waiting for it
Review: I bought this book because of all the positive reviews about Hempel's full character development while using few words to accomplish it. I am a fan of the short story genre, but if you are looking for full-bodied, hard-hitting, engrossing entertainment that usually accompanies a short story, then steer clear of this one. Granted, the stories ARE well written...but after reading one, I felt like I got a bit cheated. It was like I was watching a great football drive end in a lost fumble to end the game. I figured I'd keep reading until I was more fullfilled, but most of the stories had a lot of build-up only to be finished with a "well, that's life" type of closing. They get you thinking (mostly about not taking things for granted, who needs that guilt?)...but for my hard-earned dollar I'd rather watch that drive end in a game winning touchdown. Overall, I'd say that Amy is a great writer, but I think I'd rather read a novel if her style can translate into it. It would keep the pages turning without so much disappointment.

Rating:
Summary: Pleasant.
Review: I first heard about Amy Hempel from chuckpalahniuk.net as "if you haven't read Amy Hempel you don't know Chuck." So of course i had to get this book. I also bought Tumble Home but havent had a chance to look at it yet. I like the tantalising prose that bring the reader to feel empathy for the protagonist. Love it as much as The Great Gatsby.

Rating:
Summary: Pleasant.
Review: I first heard about Amy Hempel from chuckpalahniuk.net as "if you haven't read Amy Hempel you don't know Chuck." So of course i had to get this book. I also bought Tumble Home but havent had a chance to look at it yet. I like the tantalising prose that bring the reader to feel empathy for the protagonist. Love it as much as The Great Gatsby.

Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: I found out about this book from the Chuck Palahniuk website (chuckpalahniuk.net) under some of Chuck's own favorite books. Apparently Hempel is one of chuck's favorite authors so I had a feeling I wouldn't be disappointed, and i definitely wasn't.

Hempel has a lot of talent on her side, enough to make me really jealous of her writing abilities. She crafts her stories amazingly and each story draws you in. My favorite short story of all time "The Man In Bogota" appears in this book and is reason enough to buy it and it's only a page and a half. Please, for your own sake, check this book out.

Rating:
Summary: Lucky Amy
Review: I think of Chuck Palahniuk as a J.K. Rowling for post-teens. People who otherwise would not read, read Chuck. I'm a fan of his book Fight Club and the subsequent movie myself.

And now Chuck has said that Amy is good, so people who ordinarily would not read a two-decade-old book of short stories about sad, desperate people, stuck in their tiny ruts, are now reading Ms. Hempel.

I first read this book when I was in college in the 1980's, when the cabal of Gordo Lish, Ray Carver and Hempel were seemingly rewriting writing. Hempel's stories were fresh and exacting. You had to work a bit to understand the stories and the tortured characters therein. The plots were almost not there.

I just reread this book for the first time in a very long time. I don't know why I waited so long. Maybe it was because I was afraid that it would not be as good as it was the first, second and tenth times I read it back in the mid-80's. I shouldn't have worried so much.

This is a terrific book for a beginning writer to pick up and study. After each story, you'll ask yourself: How did she do that?

So welcome to the Hempel club Chuck fans. Maybe you'll set up a website for her too?

Rating:
Summary: Not Your Grandpa's Minimalism
Review: Ready Hempel is like taking a big, deep breath; it satisfies on a surface level, but there's something deeper at play -- a mixture of emotions and double-meanings that will stick to your ribs for days after the fact. Nodding toward earlier American minimalism, REASONS TO LIVE has the bare bones charm of a Faulkner or Hemingway piece, except -- you know -- pretty (and not soul-crushingly boring).

I've skipped many a class and ignored other tasks at hand just to inhale this book and other works by Ms. Hempel. If you're anything like me, you'll find yourself reading and re-reading each story, sometimes aloud; and each new read will, no doubt, yield something new, poignant, and strangely beautiful.