What We Talk about When We Talk about Love (Audiobook)

from aoxford

Carver's minimalist writing does not build up characters but breaks them down and nearly destroys them. He captures people at their most vulnerable and illustrates the power a chaotic moment can have on an otherwise stable person. The unexpected is all that should be expected in his often morose ...

from wunderkind

Carver is very spare and very depressing, at least at first. I must admit that I wasn't sure I liked his stories much in the beginning, but about halfway through (I think with the story "So Much Water So Close to Home") I warmed up to him, and by the end I loved the overall effect Carver achieved...

from benjamin.duffy

Read it in a day, was utterly blown away. It's a collection of unrelated short stories that somehow feel related, and the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. I know I'm not exactly early to the Carver party, so I'll save all the hackneyed praise about his evocative minimalist prose raw gi...

from alchemie

Breathtakingly good. I found it hard to keep reading at times because the emotional impact of the stories was so intense. Technically speaking Carver is truly a master of understatement and really, really tight writing. I mainly picked this up because Murakami lists him as an inspiration, and I c...

from banjo123

Carver was born in Clatskanie, Oregon and lived mostly in Port Angeles, Washington, so this collection of short stories has a Pacific Northwest flavor. The stories are short and spare, the settings gritty, and the characters difficult. The focus is on romantic relationships that don't completely ...