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160th out of 435 books
—
514 voters
The Most Beautiful Woman in Town
These mad immortal stories, now surfaced from the literary underground, have addicted legions of American readers, even though the high literary establishment continues to ignore them. In Europe, however (particularly in Germany, Italy, and France where he is published by the great publishing houses), he is critically recognized as one of America's greatest living realist...more
Paperback, 240 pages
Published
January 1st 2001
by City Lights Publishers
(first published 1967)
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I doubt, if I had ever met him, I would have liked Charles Bukowski. His character and habits were rather distasteful. I doubt he'd have liked my much either. But Bukowski did occupy a world of the poor and lost that few contemporary readers could appreciate. His writing brought this to life: a place of desperation and hopelessness that cannot be understood unless you were there. As he wrote in one of the short stories in this collection: the poor know the meaning of life; the rich and comfortab...more
Feb 15, 2013
Elizabeth
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
books-in-portuguese,
e-book
O meu primeiro contato com Bukowski foi com Factótum, e pode ter certeza de que não foi o melhor. Leitura chata, crua, não tinha nada. Eu sabia que não era para ter, mas isso não amenizou o tédio da leitura. Mas o autor continuou me interessando bastante, e peguei esse num dia de tédio. Esse sim, valeu muito à pena!
Um ou dois contos foram irritantes - o último eu praticamente só passei o olho, não curto corridas de cavalo. mas tem uma proposta legal, e lerei algum dia, mais tarde - mas a maiori...more
Um ou dois contos foram irritantes - o último eu praticamente só passei o olho, não curto corridas de cavalo. mas tem uma proposta legal, e lerei algum dia, mais tarde - mas a maiori...more
Charles Bukowski wrote about life. He wrote about drinking, dead-end jobs, women, sex, gambling, and violence. Much of his writing is crude because that's how he saw life. The Most Beautiful Woman in Town contains many semi-autobiographical stories and other stories with an interesting taste of fantasy and surrealism.
I greatly enjoyed this book. It was the first Bukowski book I have read, and I honestly wasn't sure what I was getting myself into. What I discovered was an author who was real and...more
I greatly enjoyed this book. It was the first Bukowski book I have read, and I honestly wasn't sure what I was getting myself into. What I discovered was an author who was real and...more
I have read some fucked up books in my day. I’ve watched a dude slip a habitrail into a woman’s vagina. I’ve seen a man suffocate his mother to death with his own feces. I’ve played witness to the Alligator Fuckhouse. I’m not easily shocked, and it’s even harder to offend me.
But, somehow, Charles Bukowski, one of my favorite writers of all time, managed to. In this motley assortment of b-sides, there is a story in which a drunken adult man rapes a little girl in front of two little boys. The act...more
But, somehow, Charles Bukowski, one of my favorite writers of all time, managed to. In this motley assortment of b-sides, there is a story in which a drunken adult man rapes a little girl in front of two little boys. The act...more
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I finished this one earlier this morning. This is the second collection of short stories I have read by Bukowski, the first being Hot Water Music. I wasn't a huge fan of Hot Water Music, it was simply "O.K.", my main complaint being that most of the stories seemed practically the same: I got drunk, I met a girl, we had sex, she got mad at me, I got drunk again. Don't worry, I've read quite a bit of Bukowski. It works in his novels, but 23 short stories that are essentially the same story tend to...more
Bukowski, the beer-beleaguered, no-jiving skink patting madness on the back, smoking Sher Bidi roll-ups through the furnace-red Los Angeles evenings of the late 60s, spitting bruises and forty or fifty pains into the disrobed meter, as though the Muse had nothing better to do but to dry her bones with nuclear paints and dishrags soaked in off-brand whiskey. “The Most Beautiful Woman In Town” is a scripture of yearning molded into dust and ushered back into life, raw and beating faintly, reading...more
yes, it's been ages since i read it, but every so often i find myself thinking about some fragment... with no context i can easily recall, except for that it was from this collection.
these years that i am a little tiny bit older, and agelessly more demented, i find in me a much greater preference for the latter in what Bukowski wrote somewhere in The Most Beautiful Woman In Town.
it is one of my favorite quotes - i think that it came from here - but please do correct me if i'm wrong.
This is f...more
these years that i am a little tiny bit older, and agelessly more demented, i find in me a much greater preference for the latter in what Bukowski wrote somewhere in The Most Beautiful Woman In Town.
it is one of my favorite quotes - i think that it came from here - but please do correct me if i'm wrong.
This is f...more
Dec 15, 2008
Mike Fiddleman
added it
this was my introduction to bukowski. damn, i loved it.
i've loaned it out to several friends over the years. and i never get the sucker back. i'm on my fifth copy or so.
i've loaned it out to several friends over the years. and i never get the sucker back. i'm on my fifth copy or so.
Cass was the youngest and most beautiful of 5 sisters. Cass was the most beautiful girl
in town. 1/2 Indian with a supple and strange body, a snake-like and fiery body with eyes
to go with it. Cass was fluid moving fire. She was like a spirit stuck into a form that
would not hold her. Her hair was black and long and silken and whirled about as did her
body. Her spirit was either very high or very low. There was no in between for Cass. Some
said she was crazy. The dull ones said that. The dull ones wo...more
in town. 1/2 Indian with a supple and strange body, a snake-like and fiery body with eyes
to go with it. Cass was fluid moving fire. She was like a spirit stuck into a form that
would not hold her. Her hair was black and long and silken and whirled about as did her
body. Her spirit was either very high or very low. There was no in between for Cass. Some
said she was crazy. The dull ones said that. The dull ones wo...more
Being an admirer of Charles Bukowski's work - I love his poetry, and his novel "Ham on Rye" is one of my all-time favourites - I eagerly read this collection of short stories. A very hit-and-miss collection, to say the least. Most of the stories were just ok, some were brilliant, others were terrible. The majority of the stories are about drinking, sexual encounters with strangers, drinking, apathy, and more drinking.
Best: "The Most Beautiful Woman in Town", "Kid Stardust on the Porterhouse", "T...more
Best: "The Most Beautiful Woman in Town", "Kid Stardust on the Porterhouse", "T...more
When one reads Bukowski's prose, one has a fairly good idea of the types of "stories" to expect. However, in this volume, there were a few pieces that were about things almost too horrible to read about. While I certainly understand Bukowski's intent in presenting these subjects, I still would have to say I found at least a few of the stories to be revolting. That being said, there were others that were Bukowski at his best, finding tiny, sometimes microscopic, instances of hope, love and peace...more
I gotta say, I was decidedly "meh" on this book. I don't know if it's that I'm burned out on Bukowski (highly doubtful) or what, but this collection just didn't float my boat. While it had all the trappings of your standard Bukowski stories, with the sex, drinking, fighting, and horse racing, it just lacked a bit of the soul and beauty of his earlier writing. Really, it feels like he was just cranking out pages for the sake of cranking out pages; this book read more like a journal than a piece o...more
A collection of short stories straight from Skid Row that's many things, including but not limited to brutal, sad, frightening, touching, honest, bitter, coarse, disturbing and hilarious.
Most are very good, a couple didn't interest me at all (the horse-racing ones - betting odds make as much sense to me as Klingon) and some are excellent. Rounding it out brings me to give this a 3!
Standouts for me were:
Six Inches
The Fuck Machine
Life & Death in the Charity Ward
Swastika
Politics is Like Trying...more
Most are very good, a couple didn't interest me at all (the horse-racing ones - betting odds make as much sense to me as Klingon) and some are excellent. Rounding it out brings me to give this a 3!
Standouts for me were:
Six Inches
The Fuck Machine
Life & Death in the Charity Ward
Swastika
Politics is Like Trying...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
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I picked up Bukowski'sThe Most Beautiful Woman in Townand spent a couple of hours reading the collection, which contains two of my favorite stories by the Bukinator: "Kid Stardust on the Porterhouse" and "The Beginner." What drove me to the Bukinator's book was the desire for propulsive prose, sentences that get up and go and drag you kicking and screaming to the end of the story. In "Kid Stardust on the Porterhouse" the Buk takes a job at a meat packing plant and it's a story animal rights acti...more
Jul 03, 2007
AJ Griffin
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
male pigs; people without livers; judy and her dream of horses
Jesus Christ, I've been awake for like 24 hours and my tongue hurts and I've been eating 2 pieces of bread for an hour, but I couldn't resist this one.
I'd really only read Chuck's poetry before, but I enjoyed it and bought this collection of stories after someone told me it would be a nice birthday gift for the lady friend.
I think this person hated me. I almost had an anxiety attack after I read it; Bukowski's MO seems to involve drinking excessive beer, having somewhat selfish sex with girls w...more
I'd really only read Chuck's poetry before, but I enjoyed it and bought this collection of stories after someone told me it would be a nice birthday gift for the lady friend.
I think this person hated me. I almost had an anxiety attack after I read it; Bukowski's MO seems to involve drinking excessive beer, having somewhat selfish sex with girls w...more
Dec 16, 2010
Ian Russell
rated it
2 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
low-life anthropoligists, drinkers, wankers
Shelves:
short-stories
On the page which gives the publishing details it says that these short stories first appeared serialised in a number of newspapers, magazines and journals. By the end you would probably guess this if you hadn't known. Revelling in the low-life, sometimes he set out to shock, sometimes he set out simply to write, simply. Sometimes it feels very much like his heart wasn't in it, like he was fulfilling some contractual obligation, or simply he needed the money. It's a mixed bag.
A collection of his brilliant warped fictional essays involving the president being Hitler and the Fucking Machine servicing men in taverns in the lower West Side while biting off the Cherokee's P.P. in which he falls in love with.
Reading Authors short essays seem to really premold into what their whole realm of style will be (generally).
Completely on a different lilipad than the more iconic Bukowski Novels, but not in a negative trend.
Reading Authors short essays seem to really premold into what their whole realm of style will be (generally).
Completely on a different lilipad than the more iconic Bukowski Novels, but not in a negative trend.
This book was awesome!! I love Bukowski because he is so controversial, brutal and vile in ways. This collection of short stories were so fast paced and liberating. I always liked short stories but this really put the icing on the cake! It was a quick read that was nearly impossible to put down for days on end till the last page. The stories made me laugh, cry and cringe. If your ready for an offensive read, READ THIS!
This writing definitely reflects the writer: brutal, gritty, and intense.
I think Modest Mouse said it best in their song, aptly entitled "Bukowski":
Woke up this morning and it seemed to me,
that every night turns out to be
A little more like Bukowski.
And yeah, I know he's a pretty good read.
But God who'd wanna be?
God who'd wanna be such an asshole?
I think Modest Mouse said it best in their song, aptly entitled "Bukowski":
Woke up this morning and it seemed to me,
that every night turns out to be
A little more like Bukowski.
And yeah, I know he's a pretty good read.
But God who'd wanna be?
God who'd wanna be such an asshole?
May 14, 2012
Anna
added it
this was my stepping off point into the world of buk when i was barely 20yrs old. the crass dirty way these stories are written didnt deter me from picking up another of the authors book soon after. i have had a love affair with his writting ever since. sometimes, it takes the grittiness and pain in life to also really see the beauty in our human world.
Kasabanın en güzel kızı intihar eder.Ve nedensiz ağlar insan, kurgusal ve çok uzaktaki bir hikayeye.Bu müzik eşliğinde okursan hele ötenazi sebebi http://youtu.be/_5-XF_pnXX4 ...
“Bir insanı sevmek mümkün mü? - Tanımadığımız biri ise belki. Ben insanları pencereden seyretmeyi severim.” demiş üstad.
“Bir insanı sevmek mümkün mü? - Tanımadığımız biri ise belki. Ben insanları pencereden seyretmeyi severim.” demiş üstad.
Dark, twisted, morbid... I've never read anything else quite like it, and had a hard time putting it down. The stories in this book made me cringe, gasp, laugh and cry. This isn't for anyone who has a weak stomach or a closed mind. A fine collection of literature by a brilliant author and poet.
Some crazy a@@ stories in this book. I leave it in the bathroom for peeps to gander at while doing some biz. Makes me want to read some of his novels rather than just his short stories. We all have a little bit of a sick mind in us....this guy takes the cake though! ;)
A man confortable to living in hell, Bukowski brings obscenity to a level unknown to common literature. Some of the pieces are of pure genius, while others are only style. But I wouldn't advise reading it before at least 28 or 30.
This author was recommended to me by my co-teacher. Charles is a very straight forward writer. He makes no bones about anything and uses fowl language. This writer is not for everyone but I enjoy his unique way of writing.
More classic shorts from the man who tells it like it was... Well kind of... Well maybe not at all... Who knows? Who cares? These stories take you somewhere that no other author I know is capable of showing us.
If you pick this up you obviously know what you are getting into-vulgar stories and unlikable characters. The stories overall are solid and enjoyable. Bukowki excels when discussing the mundane and day in day out life.
Another great collection of short stories. The story that the book was named after really fucked me up. It was truly sad and showed me yet again that he wasn't the heartless bastard people think he was.
More awesmoe short stories...same of old Bukowski, just more of it and equally as beautiful. You can pick up this book and read just a few pages and get inside this man's twisted head and have no idea what's around you but still love every bit of it. He's insane and mean and sharp, but he'd have your back if it mattered.
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Charles Bukowski was born in Andernach, Germany on August 16, 1920, the only child of an American soldier and a German mother. At the age of three, he came with his family to the United States and grew up in Los Angeles. He attended Los Angeles City College from 1939 to 1941, then left school and moved to New York City to become a writer. His lack of publishing success at this time caused him to g...more
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“Even the stove and the refrigerator looked human, I mean good human - they seemed to have arms and voices and they said, hang around, kid, it's good here, it can be very good here.”
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23 people liked it
“...wszystko jest stratą czasu, chyba że człowiek pieprzy się w najlepsze, tworzy w najlepsze, ma się jak najlepiej albo zmierza w kierunku ułudy pod tytułem miłość i szczęście. Wszyscy kończymy w gnojówce porażki - czy nazwiemy to śmiercią czy błędem.”
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