Why I Like This Story

Jackson R Bryer

ISBN 10: 1640142142 / ISBN 13: 9781640142145

Published by Boydell & Brewer Mai 2025, 2025

About this Item

Neuware - Presents essays by leading short-story writers on their favorite American short stories and why they like them. It will send readers to the library or bookstore to read, or re-read, the stories selected.On the assumption that John Updike was correct when he asserted, in a 1978 letter to Joyce Carol Oates, that 'Nobody can read like a writer,' Why I Like This Story presents brief essays by forty-eight leading American writers on their favorite American short stories, explaining why they like them. The essays, which are personal, not scholarly, not only tell us much about the story selected, they also tell us a good deal about the author of the essay, about what elements of fiction he or she values. Among the writers whose stories are discussed are such American masters as James, Melville, Hemingway, O'Connor, Fitzgerald, Porter, Carver, Wright, Updike, Bellow, Salinger, Malamud and Welty; but the book also includes pieces on stories by canonical but lesser-known practitioners such as Andre Dubus, Ellen Glasgow, Kay Boyle, Delmore Schwartz, George Garrett, Elizabeth Tallent, William Goyen, Jerome Weidman, Peter Matthiessen, Grace Paley, William H. Gass and Jamaica Kincaid, and relative newcomers such as Lorrie Moore, Kirstin Valdez Quade, Phil Klay, Viet Thanh Nguyen and Edward P. Jones. Why I Like This Story will send readers to the library or bookstore to read or re-read the stories selected. Among the contributors to the book are Julia Alvarez, Andrea Barrett, Richard Bausch, Ann Beattie, Andre Dubus, George Garrett, William H. Gass, Julia Glass, Doris Grumbach, Jane Hamilton, Jill McCorkle, Alice McDermott, Clarence Major, Howard Norman, Annie Proulx, Joan Silber, Elizabeth Spencer and Mako Yoshikawa.

Seller Inventory # 9781640142145

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Why I Like This Story
• Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Mai 2025
• Publication Date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1640142142
• ISBN 13: 9781640142145
• Binding: Taschenbuch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 216W x 140H x 20D millimeters 216 millimeters width by 140 millimeters height by 20 millimeters depth
• Weight: 458 grams

About this title

Synopsis

Presents essays by leading short-story writers on their favorite American short stories and why they like them. It will send readers to the library or bookstore to read, or re-read, the stories selected.


On the assumption that John Updike was correct when he asserted, in a 1978 letter to Joyce Carol Oates, that "Nobody can read like a writer," Why I Like This Story presents brief essays by forty-eight leading American writers on their favorite American short stories, explaining why they like them. The essays, which are personal, not scholarly, not only tell us much about the story selected, they also tell us a good deal about the author of the essay, about what elements of fiction he or she values.

Among the writers whose stories are discussed are such American masters as James, Melville, Hemingway, O'Connor, Fitzgerald, Porter, Carver, Wright, Updike, Bellow, Salinger, Malamud and Welty; but the book also includes pieces on stories by canonical but lesser-known practitioners such as Andre Dubus, Ellen Glasgow, Kay Boyle, Delmore Schwartz, George Garrett, Elizabeth Tallent, William Goyen, Jerome Weidman, Peter Matthiessen, Grace Paley, William H. Gass and Jamaica Kincaid, and relative newcomers such as Lorrie Moore, Kirstin Valdez Quade, Phil Klay, Viet Thanh Nguyen and Edward P. Jones. Why I Like This Story will send readers to the library or bookstore to read or re-read the stories selected.

Among the contributors to the book are Julia Alvarez, Andrea Barrett, Richard Bausch, Ann Beattie, Andre Dubus, George Garrett, William H. Gass, Julia Glass, Doris Grumbach, Jane Hamilton, Jill McCorkle, Alice McDermott, Clarence Major, Howard Norman, Annie Proulx, Joan Silber, Elizabeth Spencer and Mako Yoshikawa.

About the Author

JACKSON R. BRYER is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Maryland.