false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178329208m/785438.jpg 785438 2 Following his widely acclaimed <i>Project X</i> and <i>Love and Hydrogen</i> -- "Here is the effect of these two books," wrote the Chicago Tribune, "A reader finishes them buzzing with awe" -- Jim Shepard now gives us his first entirely new collection in more than a decade. <i>Like You'd Understand, Anyway</i> reaches from Chernobyl to Bridgeport, with a host of narrators only Shepard could bring to pitch-perfect life. Among them: a middle-aged Aeschylus taking his place at Marathon, still vying for parental approval. A maddeningly indefatigable Victorian explorer hauling his expedition, whaleboat and all, through the Great Australian Desert in midsummer. The first woman in space and her cosmonaut lover, caught in the star-crossed orbits of their joint mission. Two Texas high school football players at the top of their food chain, soliciting their fathers' attention by leveling everything before them on the field. And the rational and compassionate chief executioner of Paris, whose occupation, during the height of the Terror, eats away at all he holds dear. Brimming with irony, compassion, and withering humor, these eleven stories are at once eerily pertinent and dazzlingly exotic, and they showcase the work of a protean, prodigiously gifted writer at the height of his form. Reading Jim Shepard, according to Michael Chabon, "is like encountering our national literature in microcosm." 2391479 2007 Like You'd Understand, Anyway: Stories total:476|5:120|4:195|3:109|2:40|1:12| 476 1799 965 149 5 5 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Oct 23 13:50:36 -0700 2007 Tue Oct 30 10:48:08 -0700 2007 Like You’d Understand Anyway is a collection of all first-person short stories, though the similarities between them end there. The settings and time periods range from the site of Hadrian’s Wall during the late Roman Empire, to present day Alaska, to Chernobyl during the nuclear meltdown, to go...more...]]> 5 4 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Sep 21 21:14:23 -0700 2007 Tue Apr 01 09:38:30 -0700 2008
If J...more...]]> 4 2 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu Oct 11 10:06:50 -0700 2007 Wed Oct 17 05:41:03 -0700 2007
I'm trying to divvy up my attention over three story collection...more...]]> 5 2 false false Fri Feb 01 14:06:40 -0800 2008 Fri Oct 12 05:55:01 -0700 2007 Fri Feb 01 14:05:53 -0800 2008
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It doesn't feel forced or too obvious. I can imagine all the minute word Mr. Shepard has poured into his characters and their stories, his feelings for them.

But that's my problem. I wasn't fully able to invest myself into the characte...more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=785438