false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1167955855m/28746.jpg 28746 3 Talking candy bars, baby geniuses, disappointed mothers, castrated dogs, interned teenagers, and moral fables-all in this hilarious and heartbreaking collection. The best work yet from an author hailed as the heir to Kurt Vonnegut and Thomas Pynchon. 1128238 2006 In Persuasion Nation total:1266|5:383|4:552|3:275|2:48|1:8| 1266 5052 1717 199 0 5 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Wed May 07 16:59:14 -0700 2008 Wed May 07 17:02:22 -0700 2008 4 1 false false Tue Sep 02 17:43:40 -0700 2008 Tue Sep 02 17:44:25 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 2 false false Sat Jan 05 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Apr 13 20:59:17 -0700 2008 Sun Apr 13 20:59:17 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 2 false false Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Apr 08 06:29:44 -0700 2008 Tue Apr 22 07:38:30 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 1 false false Thu May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Dec 26 09:10:51 -0800 2007 Sun Apr 20 15:19:23 -0700 2008
I don't know much about this author except that he contributes to the N...more...]]> 3 1 false false Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Apr 13 17:08:59 -0700 2007 Fri Apr 13 18:44:23 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 1 false false Tue Mar 11 09:50:54 -0700 2008 Fri Oct 03 20:29:51 -0700 2008 CivilWarLand in Bad Decline (Riverhead, 1996) and Pastoralia (2000) were great surrealist fiction entries, as was the novella The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil (Riverhead, 20...more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Jul 24 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Nov 02 17:41:04 -0800 2009 Tue Nov 03 19:22:57 -0800 2009 more...]]> 0 1 false false Thu Feb 05 09:39:22 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 09:39:22 -0800 2009 Can there be too much good Saunders? Critics praise the book but then admit that reading the stories in succession almost overwhelmed them. As he did in CivilWarLand in Bad Decline and Pastoralia, Saunders takes our world to its logical extremes, sometimes to the point of oversaturation. If his wor...

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This one doesn't have the breadth or scope of Pastoralia or CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, but it's easier to get at Saunders' morals and the units that make up his writing and st...more...]]> 2 0 false false Sat Sep 05 20:43:12 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 04 21:22:42 -0700 2009
With so many short stories to choose from here, I'd like to report that there are some gems, namely "my flamboyant gra...more...]]> 5 2 false false Tue May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Apr 23 23:35:00 -0700 2007 Wed May 09 12:47:55 -0700 2007 3 1 false false Wed Apr 01 11:38:36 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 01 11:44:53 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Aug 13 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 30 08:32:01 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 17 16:28:51 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Tue Oct 14 11:46:38 -0700 2008 Tue Oct 14 11:47:10 -0700 2008
My first George Saunders experience was Pastoralia, a collection of weird and hilarious short stories that revealed a dystopian world that was disturbingly familiar to our own. Saunders holds a carefully crafted fun mirror up to our own obsessions and societal afflictions. It makes us la...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Aug 24 18:53:09 -0700 2008 Thu Nov 20 21:19:08 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Jul 04 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Jul 06 10:11:16 -0700 2008 Sun Jul 06 11:07:38 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 1 false false Thu May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed May 28 13:42:35 -0700 2008 Wed May 28 13:54:13 -0700 2008 CivilWarLand... or Pastoralia. These include "...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun May 24 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Apr 22 09:43:48 -0700 2008 Mon May 25 04:19:49 -0700 2009 1
(1) A typical Saunders collection. This means you're getting some delightfully weird prose but it also means you're getting (more than?) a few tales oblique enough to blot out the sun. Which is not to comment on whether/not those sto...more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=28746