You think it, I'll say it : stories /
Material type: TextPublisher: New York : Random House, [2018]Edition: First editionDescription: 226 pages cmContent type:- text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9780399592867
- 0399592865
- Short stories. Selections
- 813/.6 23
- PS3619.I94 A6 2018
Item type | Current library | Home library | Collection | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Standard Loan | Coeur d'Alene Library Adult Fiction | Coeur d'Alene Library | Book | SITTENF (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 50610021415257 | |||
Standard Loan | Hayden Library Adult Fiction | Hayden Library | Book | SITTENF (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 50610021490250 | |||
Standard Loan | Rathdrum Library Adult Fiction | Rathdrum Library | Book | SITTENF (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 50610021490441 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
"Every bit as smart, sensitive, funny, and genuine as her phenomenally popular novels,"* a dazzling collection from the New York Times bestselling author of Prep, American Wife, and Eligible
"I really loved all the characters in this book. They're so complex and interesting, and in every story, you'll find them going through these pivotal moments in their lives."--Reese Witherspoon (Reese's Book Club x Hello Sunshine Book Pick)
NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY PEOPLE AND USA TODAY AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post * NPR * Financial Times * San Francisco Chronicle * New York Public Library * Refinery29
A suburban mother of two fantasizes about the downfall of an old friend whose wholesome lifestyle empire may or may not be built on a lie. A high-powered lawyer honeymooning with her husband is caught off guard by the appearance of the girl who tormented her in high school. A shy Ivy League student learns the truth about a classmate's seemingly enviable life.
Curtis Sittenfeld has established a reputation as a sharp chronicler of the modern age who humanizes her subjects even as she skewers them. Now, with this first collection of short fiction, her "astonishing gift for creating characters that take up residence in readers' heads" ( The Washington Post ) is showcased like never before. Throughout the ten stories in You Think It, I'll Say It, Sittenfeld upends assumptions about class, relationships, and gender roles in a nation that feels both adrift and viscerally divided.
With moving insight and uncanny precision, Curtis Sittenfeld pinpoints the questionable decisions, missed connections, and sometimes extraordinary coincidences that make up a life. Indeed, she writes what we're all thinking--if only we could express it with the wit of a master satirist, the storytelling gifts of an old-fashioned raconteur, and the vision of an American original.
* Booklist (starred review)
LONGLISTED FOR THE CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN FICTION
"At once psychologically acute, deftly crafted and deeply pleasurable." -- San Francisco Chronicle
"Witty and buoyant . . . Each deceptively simple and breezy story is masterfully paced and crafted." -- Chicago Tribune
"Perfectly paced, witty and laced with unexpected twists: Every story here sticks its landing. Whatever [Sittenfeld] writes, we'll read it." -- People
"Razor-sharp, often hilarious . . . [Curtis Sittenfeld] is a sharp observer of human nature and human relationships. . . . A witty, breezy, zeitgeist-y collection." --USA Today
With moving insight and uncanny precision, Curtis Sittenfeld pinpoints the questionable decisions, missed connections, and sometimes extraordinary coincidences that make up a life.
Table of contents provided by Syndetics
- Gender Studies (p. 3)
- The World Has Many Butterflies (p. 20)
- Vox Clamantis in Deserto (p. 40)
- Bad Latch (p. 61)
- Plausible Deniability (p. 69)
- A Regular Couple (p. 91)
- Off the Record (p. 124)
- The Prairie Wife (p. 146)
- Volunteers Are Shining Stars (p. 170)
- Do-Over (p. 201)
Excerpt provided by Syndetics
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Library Journal Review
Sittenfeld's (Eligible) first short story collection is comprised of ten compelling and unique stories that will draw listeners in with deeply flawed and deeply human characters. From honeymooners and an unhappy housewife to a young volunteer and married acquaintances, Sittenfeld humanizes the seemingly mundane everyday lives of her characters, making them fallible and relatable. The collection is exquisitely narrated by Emily Rankin and Mark Deakins, whose strong, engaging voices perfectly capture the many different personae. Rankin especially exudes charm and vulnerability, making the players even more real and accessible. VERDICT A superbly narrated, standout collection of short stories with mass appeal. ["In crisp, surprising language, these ten stories from novelist Sittenfeld put couples' foibles under the spotlight": LJ 1/18 starred review of the Random hc.]-Erin Cataldi, Johnson Cty. P.L., Franklin, IN © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.Publishers Weekly Review
In her thoroughly satisfying first collection, Sittenfeld (Eligible) spins magic out of the short story form. Bookended by tales concerning the election of Donald Trump, the collection comfortably situates itself in contemporary America, focusing on female protagonists navigating friendships, family, politics, and social media. In "A Regular Couple," a semifamous defense attorney reconsiders her past after she runs into a high school frenemy also honeymooning at the same resort. In "The Prairie Wife," a woman contemplates whether to make public a bombshell revelation that would ruin the image of a lifestyle celebrity she dated as a teen. Another celebrity story, "Off the Record," places a small-time interviewer in the home of an up-and-coming starlet, with explicit instructions to leave her appointment with juicy details on the starlet's recent breakup. And in "Volunteers Are Shining Stars," perhaps the collection's best entry, a young volunteer at a shelter for mothers and children in Washington, D.C., develops a hatred for a new, bubbly volunteer. As in her novels, Sittenfeld's characters are funny and insightful. Reading these consistently engrossing stories is a pleasure. Agent: Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, WME Entertainment. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Sittenfeld, author of five novels, including American Wife (2008) and Eligible (2016), shares 10 entertaining stories of everyday revelations of the human experience. Strongly voiced women and men try to gauge their place in the order of things and attempt to pin down others' perceptions of them, all in spite of the well-established unpredictability and utter unknowability of absolutely everyone, themselves included. A broke single mom is revived by the opportunity to reinterview a celebrity but not in the way she thought she'd be. In the brilliant The Prairie Wife, married mom Kirsten dedicates herself to hate-reading everything posted on social media by a very famous and very straight TV food celebrity, who happens to also have once been the teen lesbian who deflowered Kirsten while they were co-counselors at sleepaway camp all those years ago. The collection is bookended by consequential conversations between men and women featuring a Trump presidency. Masterfully plotted and often further gilded with mirthful twists, Sittenfeld's short-form works (half of which are published here for the first time) are every bit as smart, sensitive, funny, and genuine as her phenomenally popular novels. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Sittenfeld needs no introduction. Her first short story collection will be celebrated by loads of promotion and an author tour.--Bostrom, Annie Copyright 2018 BooklistKirkus Book Review
Ten stories by bestselling novelist Sittenfeld (Eligible, 2016, etc.) probe the fissures beneath the surfaces of comfortable lives.Donald Trump bookends the collection, as an alarming candidate in "Gender Studies" and an upset victor in "Do-Over." His unexpected election suits the characters' sense of the ground shifting underneath them, often due to false assumptions. Sometimes the mistaken ideas are deeply humiliating: The discontented wife in "The World Has Many Butterflies" discovers that the man with whom she's been sharing bitchy assessments of fellow members of their affluent Houston social set is not the soul mate she thought and has been judging her by the conventional standards she believed they both despised. Sometimes they're oddly liberating, as when the annoyingly perky wife and mother in "Bad Latch" proves to have some gumption to back up her chipper proclamations. But even the most positive stories have an undercurrent of unease. The protagonists of "Off the Record" and "The Prairie Wife" feel overwhelmed by the demands of parenthood; it's probably not a coincidence that both are also grappling with mixed feelings about celebrities whose lives seem so much more exciting and important than theirs. Sittenfeld adroitly threads themes of disenchantment and perplexity through a group of stories whose characters, despite their reasonably secure middle-class professional status, share a feeling that their lives haven't turned out the way they expected. Occasionally the plotting can be a little pat. The predictable unmasking of the narrator's secret texting correspondent in "Plausible Deniability" somewhat mars a sad self-portrait of a man painfully aware of his inability to sustain meaningful personal relationships. But in the collection's best stories, such as "Volunteers Are Shining Stars," even a slightly lurid denouement feels true to the protagonist's fierce resistance to points of view that challenge her own closed-off perspective. Sittenfeld's own perspective throughout is compassionate without being sentimental, hopeful without being nave.The way we live now, assessed with rue and grace. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.Author notes provided by Syndetics
Elizabeth Curtis Sittenfeld was born August 23, 1975 in Cincinnati, Ohio. She is an American writer. Her titles include: Prep, the tale of a Massachusetts prep school; The Man of My Dreams, a coming-of-age novel and an examination of romantic love; and American Wife, a fictional story loosely based on the life of First Lady Laura Bush.Sittenfeld attended Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, before transferring to Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. At Stanford, she studied Creative Writing. At the time, she was also chosen as one of Glamour magazine's College Women of the Year. She earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa. In 2018 she made the bestseller list with her title, You Think It, I'll Say It.
(Bowker Author Biography)
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