Giller Prize FinalistAtlantic Book Award WinnerA Globe & Mail, Quill & Quire, and Amazon.ca Best Book of the YearFinalist for the Danuta Gleed Awar...
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Feb 19, 2012
An excerpt from my review of Light Lifting in The Nervous Breakdown:
MacLeod draws on a wealth of specialized information about such wide-ranging topics as parasites, running, and auto factories. But it is his understanding of our extremes of endurance, the physical as a metaphor for the spiritual, which make Light Lifting a profoundly wise book.
For the rest of the review, see: http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/sharr...
MacLeod draws on a wealth of specialized information about such wide-ranging topics as parasites, running, and auto factories. But it is his understanding of our extremes of endurance, the physical as a metaphor for the spiritual, which make Light Lifting a profoundly wise book.
For the rest of the review, see: http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/sharr...
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May 13, 2011
Ruth
rated it: 
I've heard Macleod's prose described as muscular and it is that. Perhaps I'm not being fair to him, but I was disappointed by this collection. Too many of the stories had indeterminate, abrupt endings that didn't seem to be thematically justified. I'm surprised this collection won the Giller. [But it didn't, as the commenter on this review points out - it was shortlisted but didn't win. Maybe that's what I meant - was surprised it was shortlisted? I'm not really. Thinking maybe I should read thi
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Nov 30, 2011
Paul
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Light Lifting, Causing Some Disquiet
A vow was made some time ago that my reviews would reflect things I loved, or even liked a lot. Something that caused mixed feelings were not factored in. Hence, my hesitation over Light Lifting by Alexander MacLeod.
This collection of short stories was recommended to me by my friends @kveenly and @rebeccahh95, who have excellent tastes in literature. But I can't help feel something is missing from my understanding of this volum More...
A vow was made some time ago that my reviews would reflect things I loved, or even liked a lot. Something that caused mixed feelings were not factored in. Hence, my hesitation over Light Lifting by Alexander MacLeod.
This collection of short stories was recommended to me by my friends @kveenly and @rebeccahh95, who have excellent tastes in literature. But I can't help feel something is missing from my understanding of this volum More...
Mar 20, 2011
Andrew
rated it: 
Darkness, more often than not these days, exists as the axiom of the short story. Giving us characters as fractured as broken glass, with souls as black and jagged as a hunk of coal; they lie, cheat, beat each other up, kill one another with glorious abandon, betray basic human decencies and corrupt one another with almost comical ease. Compacted fiction takes the best and worst of us and distills said elements into a mere few thousand words. With so little space to work with, it’s no wonder why
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Sep 22, 2010
A.J.
rated it:
Alexander MacLeod's debut collection of short fiction, drawn from 15 years of writing for literary magazines in Canada, tempts you to indulge in the kind of superlatives that might be counterproductive in the age of hype; just how brilliant can it really be? Well, pretty damn brilliant, actually. Among the seven longish stories that make up this collection, there is not a single misstep. This book is that good.
These stories lead in one direction, dart down a side alley, and then retu More...
These stories lead in one direction, dart down a side alley, and then retu More...
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Jan 28, 2012
Scotchneat
rated it: 
When your dad is a famous award-winning author, it must be damned hard to build your own stories and put them in print.
Alexander MacLeod's first collection of short stories is a corker. He has a great ear for family voices and is a dab hand at sketching big worlds and thoughts in small things, pop culture references, landscapes. He is also absolutely unafraid to leave you to figure out something on your own, and I appreciate that.
Windsor, ON is a character in this book. A Win More...
Alexander MacLeod's first collection of short stories is a corker. He has a great ear for family voices and is a dab hand at sketching big worlds and thoughts in small things, pop culture references, landscapes. He is also absolutely unafraid to leave you to figure out something on your own, and I appreciate that.
Windsor, ON is a character in this book. A Win More...
Apr 14, 2011
Tom
rated it:
A wonderful book of seven short stories. These are intricate stories about people overtaken by their passions or by machines or by their past leading to transformations, good and bad. "That's when it happened. An understanding, a new realization, came into her head and triggered a transformation that was almost total. Maybe this was how all learning worked in the end. The right kind of concentration deployed in the right way at the right time. If you paid attention and sorted carefully, put
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Jun 02, 2011
Friederike
rated it:
The world that Alexander MacLeod's protagonists inhabit is not an easygoing or a comfortable one, it is - a realistic one. Set in different urban milieus, many of his characters are young, struggling to get ahead in life. Some confront personal adversity, hoping for companionship or friendship, others attempt to find solace and even redemption. With his debut story collection MacLeod exhibits an exquisite writing talent that succeeds in capturing, with precision and depth, both the inner working
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Mar 02, 2011
Lucinda
rated it:
sigh... another collection of depressing short stories. well - that's my overly simplified first statement about this book.
in actual fact i am having a hard time putting my finger on the exact reasons why these stories didn't really sit with me that well. as short stories they don't really need to fit the classic element of plot ('who reads for plot anyways, right?') but still there is some aspect of how MacLeod tells his stories that is just... missing something. but there are some More...
in actual fact i am having a hard time putting my finger on the exact reasons why these stories didn't really sit with me that well. as short stories they don't really need to fit the classic element of plot ('who reads for plot anyways, right?') but still there is some aspect of how MacLeod tells his stories that is just... missing something. but there are some More...
Sep 01, 2011
Alexander
rated it: 
Shortlisted for both the 2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize and 2011 Commonwealth Prize, Alexander MacLeod's collection of short stories, Light Lifting, comes by its praises honestly. It is the author’s debut collection (although the stories had already appeared in various literary magazines). One newspaper reviewer called MacLeod "an unexpectedly physical writer" and "an explorer of gritty masculinity and adrenalin-fuelled anger ... he can also be surpassingly delicate".
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Apr 01, 2011
Dot
rated it:
I have enjoyed the novels of Alistair MacLeod so I was keen to try this collection of short stories by his son Alexander Macleod and I have not been disappointed. The stories are all about ordinary people involved in ordinary situations and are beautifully crafted so that the mundane is made interesting. MacLeod offers a window into the soul of his characters so that the reader temporarily enters the world of different people whether it is a line worker in an auto plant, or an athlete preparin
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Jan 17, 2011
Tamara
rated it:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
To view it, click here
Oct 15, 2011
Brian
rated it:
Evaluations are difficult--even when you're comparing apples to apples. MacLeod's collection is certainly even in both its style and content, but Light Lifiting is a different fruit than a novel.
I was in awe of a number of things in all the stories. There is a sense of timing that makes each page dramatic. MacLeod has a feel for when to shout and when to whisper, when to run and when to linger. And there's depth. How does he know all this stuff? I expect it in a novel, to have More...
I was in awe of a number of things in all the stories. There is a sense of timing that makes each page dramatic. MacLeod has a feel for when to shout and when to whisper, when to run and when to linger. And there's depth. How does he know all this stuff? I expect it in a novel, to have More...
Aug 14, 2011
Pooker
rated it:
Christmas booty!
I asked for this book because everybody was raving about it. And for exactly that reason I was reluctant to read it.
I love short stories. They are my favourite thing to read. I'm not sure why. I'm just a self-indulgent reader not a critic. I don't have to know why something works or doesn't. I am often an impatient and totally undisciplined reader. I'll devour whole collections in a sitting, as if at a smorgasbord. I like to read a story from a new writer More...
I asked for this book because everybody was raving about it. And for exactly that reason I was reluctant to read it.
I love short stories. They are my favourite thing to read. I'm not sure why. I'm just a self-indulgent reader not a critic. I don't have to know why something works or doesn't. I am often an impatient and totally undisciplined reader. I'll devour whole collections in a sitting, as if at a smorgasbord. I like to read a story from a new writer More...
Dec 05, 2010
Alexis
rated it:
I did not love this book the way everyone else did. I think it was actually overhyped for me. I've read 15 short stories collections this year, and I think that had an influence on my enjoyment.
That said, there is a lot that is right with this collection. I like the sheer physicality and some of the stories were great. However, I disliked his over use of sentence fragments and listing. I could appreciate some of the technical aspects of the stories in this collection, but I didn't li More...
That said, there is a lot that is right with this collection. I like the sheer physicality and some of the stories were great. However, I disliked his over use of sentence fragments and listing. I could appreciate some of the technical aspects of the stories in this collection, but I didn't li More...
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Jun 10, 2011
A.
rated it:
Dynamite short stories that never fail to surprise. I loved his characters and settings. At times his tales are a bit dour, but his prose spurs you on to finish them even when you want to turn away. I thought Adult Beginner was the strongest tale of story in the book. It's about a woman who learns to swim as an adult and finds herself jumping off a building into a river. MacLeod does an excellent job of weaving in the back story of her fear of water with the current scene on top of the building.
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Mar 02, 2011
captivating, but depressing. I really enjoyed the story about the track stars, but found the story about the couple with lice difficult to follow. Enjoyed the Macleod's writing style, which was more like a conversation, but did not enjoy the short story format. I would just get into a story and be interested in the characters and something tragic or drastic would happen and it would be over. I find that when I read stories like that I just can't start a new one; I have to digest it and think
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Feb 13, 2012
An assured debut of a terrific writer. As I read each story, I thought to myself that it had to be the best tale in the collection but this impressions was regularly exploded by the one that followed. The last image from the final story in the collection is unforgettable.
In 2010, I heard the author read from 'Miracle Mile' and it made a strong impression on me. Revisiting the same passage when I read the book last week (Feb 2012), it had lost none of its power.
In 2010, I heard the author read from 'Miracle Mile' and it made a strong impression on me. Revisiting the same passage when I read the book last week (Feb 2012), it had lost none of its power.
Dec 30, 2010
Barbara
rated it:
This is a collection of 7 short stories that rival the best of the form. MacLeod centers them around people and situations that almost all of us think we know but he gives us the details that take us deeper. At times, I laughed out loud and, at others, I raced through the pages because I was so worried about the central character that I had to see what happened. Highly recommended.
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Oct 31, 2011
Morgan
rated it:
Light Lifting is the best short story collection I've read in a while. There were no stories I found noticably weaker than the others--in fact, there wasn't a single story I would call weak, period. It's not easy to choose a favourite, but if pushed, I would probably go with "Adult Beginner I", which kept me awake and reading far longer than I'd intended one night, because I simply could not stand to put it down before I found out how it ended. And the ending was a fine example of the
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Nov 07, 2010
Nykea
rated it:
Beautiful and tragically realistic short stories, putting on display all the faults of human nature. A swimmer afraid of water narrowly averts sure death to awake to another tragedy, contractors lose their cool after barely being able to contain their anger for years, a father deals with guilt over killing his wife and son in a car accident....
Shortlisted for the Giller, 2010
Shortlisted for the Giller, 2010
Mar 15, 2011
Evelyn
rated it:
This book of short stories was recommended by a Maritime book store owner as one of the top 10 books of 2010. The stories were all very different, but the common theme was, in my opinion, an "unsettled" ending. Not really a book that I would recommend to my friends, but it was an interesting read.
Mar 13, 2011
Krista
rated it:
I can't say that I was a fan of the way that most of the stories would end. I have an alright imagination, but it's the authors job to tell their characters stories. I felt left out in the cold with a few of the ones included in this book.
That being said, I still enjoyed MacLeod's writing, and some of the stories really touched me, like "The Number Three".
That being said, I still enjoyed MacLeod's writing, and some of the stories really touched me, like "The Number Three".
Aug 20, 2011
Carolyn
rated it:
"Light Lifting","Alexander MacLeod",
This Giller nominated book consists of 7 short stories which are dark and often filled with dread. Several I would rate 5 stars, as they were concise, and filled with suspense. A characteristic was the abrupt ending of the story just when the person seems certainly doomed. I couldn't give all the stories a 5 star rating, as the writer sometimes seemed to meander and stray from the main story plot, but the best stories were very good
This Giller nominated book consists of 7 short stories which are dark and often filled with dread. Several I would rate 5 stars, as they were concise, and filled with suspense. A characteristic was the abrupt ending of the story just when the person seems certainly doomed. I couldn't give all the stories a 5 star rating, as the writer sometimes seemed to meander and stray from the main story plot, but the best stories were very good
Apr 18, 2011
Steph
rated it:
I really enjoyed these stories. You could really get into the characters' heads even in the short time. I also enjoyed reading about Windsor since I went to school there. I definitely recommend this one.
Oct 12, 2011
Michelle
rated it:
I love MacLeod but I found this mix of short stories a bit off. Some I quite enjoyed while others I skipped over at the halfway point because I just couldn't get into them.
Mar 10, 2011
Zoom
rated it:
You know how some short stories just kind of end and you're not really sure what happened or why they ended where they ended? Well, these stories are not like those stories.
The endings are delicious. Every single one of them. There's always a surprise on the last page, and even though you come to expect the surprise, you're still surprised.
The endings are delicious. Every single one of them. There's always a surprise on the last page, and even though you come to expect the surprise, you're still surprised.
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Feb 22, 2011
Sarah
rated it:
This book is more like a 3.5, but I'm rounding up to give it 4 stars because it doesn't deserve 3. I don't usually like short stories because of their lack of endings, but I was surprised at how good this book was.
Jan 20, 2012
Andrea
rated it:
I would have rated certain stories a 4. I liked this book for its deep familiarity. The stories are set in Windsor, Ontario where I grew up and the landscape and even details of people's lives dredged up lots of memories. The writing itself was consistently good and really amazing in places. Some of the stories had frustrating unresolved endings but in general I would recommend this book of short stories.
Mar 20, 2011
Dorianna
rated it:
I really enjoyed this collection of short stories. The stories were just a little bit creepy and very elegantly written.
