Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

You Think That's Bad

3.85 of 5 stars 3.85 · rating details · 336 ratings · 67 reviews

Following Like You’d Understand, Anyway—awarded the Story Prize and a finalist for the National Book Award—Jim Shepard returns with an even more wildly diverse collection of astonishingly observant stories. Like an expert curator, he populates the vastness of human experience—from its bizarre fringes and lonely, breathtaking pinnacles to the hopelessly mediocre and despera...more

Hardcover, 225 pages

Published March 22nd 2011 by Knopf (first published March 10th 2011)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

Deferred Gratification: 2011's Most Eagerly Awaited New Books

54th out of 129 books — 382 voters

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

The Best Fiction of the Millennium (So Far)

19th out of 29 books — 27 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 1,074)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Apr 19, 2013 Ted rated it 4 of 5 stars

Some stories are more interesting than others here, but I really have not read anything by this man that I haven't liked. As usual, there are startling moments of humor in sad stories. I don't know if it's my personal life but the first few stories here had me on the verge of weeping. This from "Minotaur" when a wife discovers, after a devastating betrayal, that she doesn't know her husband. From husband's POV:

"She thought she'd put up with however many years of stonewalling for a good reason, a...more

like · see review

Oct 05, 2011 Katie rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was a wildly creative batch of short stories by an author I'd never read before. He's extremely talented at jumping into different voices and characters and I don't know how he does it--it would be interesting to hear where he gets his ideas. He went from an American ex-military private with severe PTSD, to a serial killer/pedophile medieval French lord (seriously! This is what I mean by wildly creative), to the creator of Godzilla, etc. Having said that, I found the stories hit-or-miss, an...more

like · see review

Mar 30, 2011 jordan rated it 5 of 5 stars

One doesn’t so much read a Jim Shepard story as dive into his infectiously delicious prose. If you’ve enjoyed his previous novels or story collections than you’re no doubt thrilled at the publication of his latest, //You Think That’s Bad.// And if you’ve not yet had the pleasure, well then consider yourself graced by good fortune and avail take opportunity to immerse yourself in his spectacular imagination.

Other writers to often settle for remaining in their comfort zone; by contrast Shepard sta...more One doesn’t so much read a Jim Shepard story as dive into his infectiously delicious prose. If you’ve enjoyed his previous novels or story collections than you’re no doubt thrilled at the publication of his latest, //You Think That’s Bad.// And if you’ve not yet had the pleasure, well then consider yourself graced by good fortune and avail take opportunity to immerse yourself in his spectacular imagination.

Other writers to often settle for remaining in their comfort zone; by contrast Shepard stand out for bold leaps in genre, style, and voice, bringing his empathic spirit to topics few others would tackle. . Consider his novel, “Project X,” which pushed past the shallow moral outrage that followed the Columbine tragedy and explored a school shooting from the perspective of the perpetrators. Indeed, in addition to his deep research, his black sense of humor, and his gift for characterization, it is his deep pathos, his easy rapport with the exotic, which chimes through this author’s work.

The string which binds the stories in//You Think That’s Bad// is that empathy ladled onto our common existential tragedy – sure you are alone, struggling, and going to die, but at least we’re all in it together. We all want to understand and to be understood. All of us want to be loved. Not that many of us – or Shepard’s characters for that matter – achieve these goals. Many, perhaps most, of those inhabiting these stories aren’t particularly nice, indeed they often range from the damaged to the outright cruel, but they are all in their own way familiar, even while being impossibly alien.

Real life explorer Freya Stark flees her egomaniacal mother, whose machinations have led to her sister Vera’s death, to search the Persian wastes for Alamut, the lost citadel of the Assassins. The creator/effect artist of Gojira (Godzilla) must balance his troubled marriage, post-war Japanese culture, and the pain of his past against his need to create something unique. As Papua New Guinea tries to kill a soldier in World War II, he struggles with a love triangle back home, one leg of which is his own brother. A peasant in 15th Century France finds himself bound in service to the infamous child murderer, Gilles de Rais.

Part of the delight in Shepard’s work is how he helps us inhabit these dispirit milieus, to get to know and feel for these distant characters, even as he deftly layers in an array of fascinating details. Ever wonder about how the Netherlands will manage to hold back the ocean against global climate change? Might you be curious to learn that the Godzilla costume was so broiling that the actor needed to be removed from it every fifteen minutes and that each time over a cup of sweat was drained from each boots? Or perhaps you’re curious what it is like to be married to an engineer working in the black world of secret military research?

Yes, Shepard answers all these questions and more; he is a sort of time-hopping sorcerous prose genius with a gift for research. Yet he isn’t a writer who feels the need to batter us with facts. Settings and factoids always, always here work to uncover a sense of something true and universal, even as they aid in his telling of a great story. More than anything that may be the source of Shepard’s genius, the ability to take the most alien of people in the most unimaginable places and demonstrate how, despite vast chasms of distance and time, we are all far more alike than we are different. We struggle, we strive, and we all enjoy a great tale when it is well told. On that last score, few writers can hold a quill or a candle to the great Jim Shepard.
(less)

2 likes · like · see review

Mar 03, 2011 Caitlin Constantine rated it 4 of 5 stars

Until I read this book, I hadn't realized how much the authors I generally read tend to limit themselves when it came to characters and settings. In fact, I hadn't really thought about that at all. And then I read these stories, most of which are set outside of the United States and many of which are not set in the late 20th century/early 21st century, and suddenly those limitations have become painfully evident.

Maybe the reason why you don't see it that often is because of the tremendous amount...more

like · see review

Mar 28, 2013 Sheri rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: addiction, male-female-power-sex-attractivenes, wwii

So as some of you may know by now, I'm not a fan of short stories. I feel like if a story and an author are good enough, it should be a novel (or at least a novella). A 15-25 page story is just a summary, an outline of an idea that is underdone or something that is just so flimsy it shouldn't be written in the first place. And, I hate having to get into a story again every 20ish pages. So, the best possible rating for a book of short stories is a 4 star...so this one ain't bad.

Several of the rev...more So as some of you may know by now, I'm not a fan of short stories. I feel like if a story and an author are good enough, it should be a novel (or at least a novella). A 15-25 page story is just a summary, an outline of an idea that is underdone or something that is just so flimsy it shouldn't be written in the first place. And, I hate having to get into a story again every 20ish pages. So, the best possible rating for a book of short stories is a 4 star...so this one ain't bad.

Several of the reviews on goodreads talk about the amazing creativity of Shepard. I agree, to a point. Yes, his characters and settings appear to be very diverse, but that (I would propose) is the point of this collection. The thing that makes these stories a collection (and not just a book of stories, good for you Shepard) is that they all encompass two (or more) of these ten theme/motifs: weapons/army munitions development or usage; depression/dissatisfaction; tedium of married life; husband/father as emotionally distant and/or physically gone; extreme weather conditions (snow/ice, deserts, rain); one brother taking advantage of another's innocence; war; cows; dead children; disappointed fathers. I know it sounds like a big list, but most of the stories have several of these and I think ultimately Shepard's point is the opposite of Tolsoy's: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." In this case, we are all dysfunctional in similar ways.

There were also several quotes that I found amusing or interesting:
"I answered that the discontented were the least capable of living with only themselves, since the same goad that drove them to isolation would spoil their solitude as well. The true traveler left not to renounce but to seek."

"But we look on everyone's transformations as fluid except our own."

"Remember when you told me that the one thing physics teaches you is that the reality you think you observe doesn't have much to do with the reality that's out there?"

"People talk about, Oh this kid's sick and that kid's bipolar and this and that and I always say, Well, does he piss all over himself? And the answer's always no. That's because he chooses to go to the bathroom. Because he knows better. He controls himself. People control what they do."

"The difference between us and addicts was that you never got us to admit that anything was wrong with what we loved to do."

Overall, it wasn't a bad read. Personally, I did not care for a few of the stories (at the end of March living in WI I am really rather done with ice and snow and don't want to read about it), but I recognize their worth and Shepard's overarching argument.(less)

like · see review

May 02, 2011 Carmen Petaccio rated it 3 of 5 stars

"In those last few nights with her, I spent what time we had let trying to recover the irrecoverable with only my presence. I wanted to believe that nothing had been lost of what we had shared so many years before. But we look on everyone's transformations as fluid except our own. 'Dress them up as you like, but they will always run away,' the King of Naples is reported to have said of his inadequate soldiers. The mother I trusted, the Vera I loved, the woman I imagined myself to be: all of thos...more

like · see review

Jul 12, 2011 Holly rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011-reads

Who knew that Jim Shepard does weather and science (and heartbreak and sadness) so well? My three favorite stories in this (amazingly wonderful) collection are about Swiss avalanche experts ("Your Fate Hurtles Down at You"), Dutch "water sector" workers of the near-future working to ameliorate the effects of global climate change ("The Netherlands Lives with Water"), and Polish winter mountain-climbers ("Poland is Watching"). These are men-(and Freya Stark)-at-work stories, each filled with deta...more

like · see review

Jun 26, 2011 Thom (T.E.) rated it 4 of 5 stars

I devoured this book. These are incredibly well-researched short stories. The situations are from the far corners of reality: Avalanche researchers in 1930s Switzerland; physicists working projects on a supercollider; hapless Lake States soldiers thrown against Japanese forces (if they and their equipment don't rot in the jungle of Papua); an impulsive young man stumbling on the path from deadbeat father and layabout to rampaging survivalist. Three are world-class: speculative fiction about how...more

like · see review

Sep 27, 2012 Linda Michel-Cassidy rated it 5 of 5 stars

I know that this doesn't speak to the quality of the writing, per se, but I really admire/an in awe of Shepard's research as well as his ability to claim authority over such a wide variety of settings and timeframes. I think "The Netherlands Lives With Water" is the first of his stories that I've read set in near-future and I was utterly convinced. Most of the others I've read are set in the past, and he seems to be able to tackle any time period or location. I read "Your Fate Hurdles Down at Yo...more

1 like · like · see review

May 18, 2011 Geoff Wyss rated it 3 of 5 stars

I'd give this 3.5 stars if you could do half-stars on Goodreads.

My advice would be to skip the first four stories (and especially the first), which simply aren't on par with the rest of the collection. Those four stories (with the possible slight exception of the second, "The Track of the Assassins") aren't much distinguished from the sort of clunky, obvious efforts you'd see in an average literary journal, and they don't do anything to support the idea (which you often hear advanced) that Shepa...more

like · see review

Apr 04, 2012 Marc rated it 3 of 5 stars

Good, but not great, and certainly nowhere near as good as "Like You'd Understand." Short story collections tread a fine line--as a reader, I want some degree of unity, but I don't want that unity to bleed over into mere repetition. Unfortunately, I think this book does that, in terms of both voice and themes. There are some gems--the Netherlands/water story particularly stands out--but by the end, although I still enjoyed stories as discrete units, I was almost bored with the collection. Worst...more

like · see review

Sep 24, 2011 Patrick McCoy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary-fiction, short-stories

I have to say that jim Shepard is probably my favorite contemporary short story writer. I really enjoyed his previous short story collections, Love & Hydrogen and Like You'd Understand Anyway. But You Think That's Bad is probably his best to date. One thing i like about his fiction is that he often does extensive research into a subject to write a historically realistic story that has a universal message about love, life, and death. For example, one of my favorites is is called "Happy With C...more I have to say that jim Shepard is probably my favorite contemporary short story writer. I really enjoyed his previous short story collections, Love & Hydrogen and Like You'd Understand Anyway. But You Think That's Bad is probably his best to date. One thing i like about his fiction is that he often does extensive research into a subject to write a historically realistic story that has a universal message about love, life, and death. For example, one of my favorites is is called "Happy With Crocodiles" about a US soldier fighting in Paupa New Guinea in WWII who recounts his relationship with his girl back home while fighting in the dreary conditions of the South Pacific. As he reevaluates the relationship, he realizes that has been complicated by his older brother's inclusion in the picture. In the afterword Shepard lists dozens of books that helped him with several stories in the collection. Another example can be seen in the story "The Netherlands Lives With Water," where a man tries to save his family from breaking up and the world from destruction in the near future where glaciers have melted and the flooding threatens man's survival. However, I think my favorite story in the collection was "Boys Town," about a man suffering from post traumatic syndrome, but it is the tone of the language he uses that entertained so much me throughout the story. I think there are a couple of other stories worthy of mention(that being said none of the stories felt like filler or a waste of time while reading): "Minotaur" was another crumbling family narrative about Black Ops agents trying to maintain personal lives-which almost seems like a recurring theme-the is is also the root of the problems with the Polish mountain climbers who leave there families behind to achieve glory climbing the world's tallest mountains (another story that required significant research) in "Poland Is Watching." Then there's "The Track of the Assassins" which is based on a women's journey into Persia at a time when few white men-let alone women ventured into such places, that also required significant research for accurate details. Then there was "Gojira, King of the Monsters" which was based on the life of the creator of Godzilla and blends cultural and historical knowledge with another story of family dysfunction and stands out as one o the stronger stories in the collection. If you haven't read one of his impressive short story collections do yourself a favor and get one-these are very satisfying stories that can be read in one sitting about 20 pages or less per story.(less)

like · see review

Apr 24, 2011 Boyd rated it 3 of 5 stars

Well, hurray for this guy. He was bold and ambitious in taking on the range of characters / times / places he did. I've always thought it was odd that there seem to be so few short stories set in any time period other than our own. This is an encouraging reminder that it can be done.

Nevertheless, the stories suffer from a certain sameness. Shepard's efforts to write in different registers and voices fall a bit flat, and the domestic trajectories central to virtually every story are predictable....more

2 likes · like · see review

Aug 11, 2011 nicole rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

Perfect.

My favorite was "The Netherlands Lives with Water."

(Please go read them, so we can talk about how perfectly he can sums up the human condition, the duality of how the world destructs us as we destruct ourselves, the beautiful landscapes in every one of his tales, the stories within stories, those endings - like an afterthought - that just destroy you, the way he can shift focus from one person's internal dialogue to the external conditions surrounding them, the way that no story contai...more

like · see review

Nov 02, 2010 Greg rated it 4 of 5 stars

Is there any kind of story Jim Shepard’s not capable of writing? Here is his common formula, one that always works beautifully, astonishingly, and often both: choose a time, place, or topic that few fiction writers have jumped into (for example, Tokyo film production in the 50’s, Swiss avalanche researchers in the late 30’s, the muddy agony of wartime Papua New Guinea); read exhaustively the best histories available about the selected topics; and then combine a writer’s interpretation of the tim...more

2 likes · like · see review

Dec 02, 2012 Steve rated it 4 of 5 stars

If you haven't read Jim Shepard, I highly recommend him. I discovered his work last year in a collection of O'Henry Award Winning Stories. That story, "Your Fate Hurtles Down on You" is included in this collection. It is about avalanche researchers in Switzerland in the 1930's. Shepard's incredible research and eye for detail made me an instant fan. Shepard's prose is as powerful as I have ever read, as demonstrated by the opening to "In Cretaceous Seas." I think I have read the opening to that...more

like · see review

Feb 13, 2011 Josh rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-2011, rumpus-book-club

You Think That's Bad is a collection of short stories from one of my favorite writers, Jim Shepard. There are eleven stories in the collection, ten of which were previously published in The Atlantic, McSweeney's, The New Yorker, and Electric Literature among other. It is an interesting collection of stories, taking on inadequacy, desperation, loss, heartbreak, love, and alienation.

Take "Minotaur," previously published in Playboy, which takes on the secret world of black operations research and d

...more

Take "Minotaur," previously published in Playboy, which takes on the secret world of black operations research and development, but at the same time takes on life and love:

Everyone involved with it obsesses about it all the time. Even what the insiders know about it is incomplete. Whatever stories you do get arrive without context. What’s not inconclusive is enigmatic, what’s not enigmatic is unreliable, and what’s not unreliable is quixotic. pg. 10

or "The Track of the Assassins," which is about a woman that leaves her family and home behind in order to travel through the Middle East:

Everyone involved with it obsesses about it all the time. Even what the insiders know about it is incomplete. Whatever stories you do get arrive without context. What’s not inconclusive is enigmatic, what’s not enigmatic is unreliable, and what’s not unreliable is quixotic. pg. 13

The stories in the collection cover a lot of ground, taking place in various countries and settings around the world and also going as far back as the 1440s in Paris. "Classical Scenes of Farewell" takes place in 1440s Paris as a young man falls under the hand of a sadistic Lord and helps murder young children.But Etienne, while trying to understand the deeds he does in the name of his Master, also struggles with love:

All I desired, morning in and evening out, was a love with its arms thrown wide. But the contrary is the common lot, everyone’s family telling him furiously that everything hurts, always. The nest makes the bird. pg. 176

You Think That's Bad is a strong collection of stories and highlights Shepard's writing very well. All of the stories are connected through common themes, but are very different from one another: black operations research and development, high altitude mountain climbing in the winter, serial killing in the 1440s, and the Netherlands as it struggles with a growing water problem.

You Think That's Bad is a selection of The Rumpus Book Club and comes out March 22, 2011 so be sure to check it out.

(less)

like · see review

Aug 24, 2011 Jesse rated it 5 of 5 stars

jim shephard continues to prove that he is one of, if not THE, best living short story writers in america. i prefer him over tobias wolff, george saunders, richard ford, etc. shephard is so protean in his approach that it shocks me every time. he has such great command over vastly different voices: from a secretive skunk works employee, to the vicious gilles de rais, to a stunningly effective futuristic take on climate change and how it's massive changes will only serve to show us familiar we wi...more

1 like · like · see review

Jan 26, 2013 Rachel rated it 5 of 5 stars

Such a fascinating and intense read. Sometimes Shepard falls a little too in love with his research (at the expense of his pacing), but I almost don't care--he takes you places you could never go, and his characters react and interact in such complicated and true ways. The Netherlands Lives With Water and Your Fate Hurtles Down at You are two of my all-time favorite short stories, and alone worth the rating. But the book as a whole, with Shepard's masterful skill at depicting characters on the b...more

like · see review

Aug 10, 2011 Aban (Aby) rated it 4 of 5 stars

My thanks to Jordan for recommending this book. I have never come across a book of short stories with such a wide range of subjects, spanning continents and centuries, and evoking a variety of emotions in the reader. The writing is sometimes humorous, sometimes beautiful, and always very dense. (I had to read some of the stories a second time, in order to truly appreciate them.)This is a remarkable book. In just a few pages, the author conjures up a richness of characters and situations that gri...more

like · see review

Jul 18, 2011 Nora rated it 4 of 5 stars

I like Jim Shepard a lot and I think all of his stories could probably be expanded into novels. He is a master of the weird and interesting premise. My complaint about this collection is that too many of the stories follow the same pattern: kind of weird guy is obsessed with his career. His marriage suffers. But several of the stories in here are knockouts so I'm giving it four stars anyway. My favorites were "Happy with Crocodiles," "Boys Town," and "Classical Scenes of Farewell," although I fe...more

like · see review

Dec 01, 2011 Katherine rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

“The map was from the Survey of India series, four miles to the inch, and manifested its inaccuracy even in the few features it cited” (21).
“For one stretch we had to unload their saddlebags and drag them by the halter ropes while Aziz shouted into their ears distressing facts about their parentage” (22).
“Dip your foot in the water and here's what you're playing with: Xiphactinus, all angry underbite and knitting-needle teeth, with heads oddly humped and eyes enraged with accusation, and ribbone...more “The map was from the Survey of India series, four miles to the inch, and manifested its inaccuracy even in the few features it cited” (21).
“For one stretch we had to unload their saddlebags and drag them by the halter ropes while Aziz shouted into their ears distressing facts about their parentage” (22).
“Dip your foot in the water and here's what you're playing with: Xiphactinus, all angry underbite and knitting-needle teeth, with heads oddly humped and eyes enraged with accusation, and ribboned bodies so muscular they fracture coral heads when surging through to bust in on insufficiently alert pods of juvenile Clidastes, who spin around to face an oncoming maw that's in a perpetual state of homicidal resentment” (34).
“But he's the kind of guy given to building tall towers of self-pity and then watching them sway” (36).
“Exasperation makes him close up shop like a night-blooming flower” (36).
“Years ago she had a traffic mirror mounted outside on the frame to let her spy on the street unobserved” (47).
“Along the new athletic complex in the distance, sapphire-blue searchlights are lancing up into the rain at even intervals, like meteorological harp strings” (56).
“The mid-day sun raised blisters on an arm in ten minutes” (67).
“We were told to splash or make noise when crossing the creek, because the aborigines said it was happy with crocodiles” (74).
“The last time we saw him he was trying to open a can of apricots with a bayonet” (76-77).
“You couldn't talk to our mom about it. She was so upset the cat refused to come out of the cellar” (78).
“Willi said it was one of those rare places where nothing could be grown or sold, that the world had produced exclusively for someone's happiness” (95).
“By May, scraps from the two missing children poked through the spring melt like budding plants...” (98).
“It's not normal. The longer you go by yourself the weirder you get, and the weirder you get the longer you go by yourself. It's a loop and you gotta do something to get out of it” (157). *This does not bode well for me.
“...Boys Town, the movie where Spencer Tracy's the priest and Mickey Rooney's the tough kid who goes straight because he gets a new baseball glove or smells some home-cooked bread or some fucking thing” (159).
*A strange collection of stories, some I found incredible (“Happy with Crocodiles” and “Boys Town”); some I wish I'd never read (“Classical Scenes of Farewell). Although I felt I was slogging though at some points, the odd turn of phrase or sentence that delighted helped make the journey worthwhile. Still, if half stars were available, I'd probably give this a 2.5.

(less)

like · see review

Mar 21, 2011 Ethel Margaret added it

Read my complete review at Full-Stop.net:

The swagger of Jim Shepard’s opening lines pulled me in at once, and the book continues with a subtle grace. Each time I set the book down, it found its way quickly into my hands again.

Many argue that art’s greatest achievement is to place us face to face with our humanity. These stories exemplify Jim Shepard’s mastery of such a lofty craft.

1 like · like · see review

Apr 15, 2012 Rayme rated it 4 of 5 stars

Almost a year after reading this two stories from the collection stick with me. The first one in the line-up, Minotaur, I initially identified with the most. I read it three times before I was done with it. But the title story, about a vet of a recent war returning to a civilian situation that is like throwing a lit match on the gasoline of his PTSD, is the one that I can't get out of my head. Especially this quote.

"You get lonely, is what it is. A person's not supposed to go through life with...more

like · see review

Apr 05, 2011 Ben Fowlkes rated it 3 of 5 stars

Jim Shepard is a master of the short story, and we know this. However, if you've read every goddamn thing he's written, as I have, this collection starts to feel a little familiar. That's not necessarily bad, and there are still some great stories in here, but it is the first collection I've read of his that feels like it's comprised mostly of stories that he decided not to use in his previous collection. Still awesome, though? Yes, obviously still awesome.

like · see review

Jul 24, 2011 Jacob rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: just-plain-good

There's just something about each of these stories that makes you want to read more and more. Each character is deep and gets fleshed out in such a way that when the stories (sometimes very abruptly) end you want to go back and reexamine them. That or go onto the next story and see what he cooked up next. All of them were engrossing in their own way. So I've picked up just about every book by Shepard to see what else he's come up with.

like · see review

Sep 28, 2011 Colleen rated it 4 of 5 stars

I don't tend to be a fan of short story collections, but if there ever was a reason to change my mind, it's Jim Shepard. Holy smokes! He is a master researcher (wowie!) and an even better writer. Each story brought me to worlds unknown and previously unimaginable before leaving me devastated and cracked right open. These are heart breakers that taunted and tantalized, worth every turn of the page.

like · see review

Apr 04, 2011 Jess rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: short-stories, fiction

So, sure, Shepard hasn't lost his freakish ability to see straight into other people, an extraordinary form of imaginative ventriloquism. But here too often, once you strip away the accoutrements (phrasing, description, historical details), you're left with the same basic story: one man competing with another for the love of a woman, including Mom.

like · see review

Jul 05, 2012 wade rated it 3 of 5 stars

Short story collection with each one standing on its own. Wide variety of characters and subjects from global warming, historical child abuse (at the time of Joan of Arc), mountain climbing and avalanches etc. Most are very good but the shorter ones not so much. I regretted that some of the stories were not novels as I wished for more.

like · see review

Oct 17, 2011 Clari rated it 4 of 5 stars

There is a huge variety of setting in this book, from France in the 1400s to the Netherlands in the near future, but there is a similar vein running through all the stories, of characters balancing dangerously on the edge.
It is a well crafted and thought provoking collection that prompted me into doing some research of my own.

like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 35 36 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

Recommend it | Stats | Recent status updates

combine
Other Editions (5)

More editions...

Genres

Short Stories

38 users

Literary Fiction

5 users

Adventure

4 users

Action

4 users

Literature > American

3 users

Contemporary

2 users

Short Stories > Short Story Collection

2 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

About Jim Shepard

Shepard was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He received a B.A. at Trinity College in 1978 and an MFA from Brown University in 1980. He currently teaches creative writing and film at Williams College. His wife, Karen Shepard, is also a novelist. They are on the editorial board of the literary magazine The Common, based at Amherst College.[1]
[edit]Writing

Shepard's work has been published in McSween...more Shepard was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He received a B.A. at Trinity College in 1978 and an MFA from Brown University in 1980. He currently teaches creative writing and film at Williams College. His wife, Karen Shepard, is also a novelist. They are on the editorial board of the literary magazine The Common, based at Amherst College.[1]
[edit]Writing

Shepard's work has been published in McSweeney's, Granta, The Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, Harper's, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Ploughshares,[2] Triquarterly, and Playboy. His short story collection — Like You'd Understand, Anyway — won the Story Prize in 2008, and was nominated for a National Book Award in 2007. The novel Project X won the 2005 Massachusetts Book Award. Along with writing novels and short stories, Shepard has also drafted two screenplays, one about Kenneth Donaldson and the O'Connor v. Donaldson case, and the other a movie adaptation of Project X.
Several features characterize Shepard's writings, including a tendency to finish his stories with what Charles Baxter called an "in medias res ending", or an ending in the middle of the plot's events; a thematic focus on what Shepard calls the "costs of certain kinds of ethical passivity"; and a preference for events-driven plots that fight against what Shepard terms "the tyranny of the epiphany", referencing the more psychological, less active plots popularized by short story writers such as James Joyce. Additionally, Shepard writes from the point of view of characters of a wide variety of nationalities.[3]
Shepard's stories often rely on substantial historical research based on real events. His recent collection, Like You'd Understand Anyway, includes stories about the Greek playwright Aeschylus, the Chernobyl disaster and the 1964 Alaska earthquake. The collection acknowledges over sixty non-fiction works that helped to shape the historical detail in the stories. Similarly, Shepard's 2011 collection You Think That’s Bad also cites an extensive bibliography, including Avalanches and Snow Safety, The Japanese Earthquake of 1923, Climate Changes and Dutch Water Management, and Satanism and Witchcraft. "Non c'è ritorno" (66thand2nd) is a previously unpublished collection of JIm Shepard's short stories for the Italian market.[3](less)

More about Jim Shepard...

Books by Jim Shepard

Love and Hydrogen: New and Selected Stories

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About You Think That's Bad

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

Quotes from You Think That's Bad

“First you hope you come up with something. Then you hope that it leads to something else. Then that that something else doesn't bore you. Then that you're not just entertaining yourself.” — 1 person liked it

More quotes…

title link	preview: You Think That's Bad
avg rating	preview: You Think That's Bad Goodreads rating: 3.85 (336 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8792511-you-think-that-s-bad?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320499102l/8792511.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8792511-you-think-that-s-bad?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]You Think That's Bad by Jim Shepard[/url]

You Think That's Bad

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website