What do you think?
Rate this book
Antropologia ja sata muuta tarinaa
Antropologia ja sata muuta tarinaa on brittiläisen Dan Rhodesin esikoisteos. Se on kokoelma lyhyitä - alkukielellä kukin tasan 101 sanaa - tarinoita rakkaudesta. Lyhyydestään huolimatta tarinat ovat vangitsevia, täynnä yllättäviä käänteitä ja tapahtumia.
Nämä 101 mikronovellia kertovat, usein mustalla huumorilla höystettyinä, rakkaudesta, rakastumisesta ja tuhoontuomituista parisuhteista. Henkilöhahmot on välillä viety äärimmilleen itsekkyydessään ja sokeudessaan, mutta ovat silti samaistuttavan inhimillisiä. Rakkaus on julmaa, rakkaus on ihanaa.
Nämä 101 mikronovellia kertovat, usein mustalla huumorilla höystettyinä, rakkaudesta, rakastumisesta ja tuhoontuomituista parisuhteista. Henkilöhahmot on välillä viety äärimmilleen itsekkyydessään ja sokeudessaan, mutta ovat silti samaistuttavan inhimillisiä. Rakkaus on julmaa, rakkaus on ihanaa.
207 pages, Hardcover
First published September 5, 2000
36 people are currently reading
1176 people want to read
About the author
Dan Rhodes
14 books198 followersIt should be noted that a recent Gallup poll revealed that there are an estimated 14,000 writers worldwide who share Rhodes’ name. He is not to be confused with the Daniel Rhodes who writes books about vampires, or the Daniel Rhodes who writes books about ceramics, or the Dan Rhodes who writes books about theology, or the Danny Rhodes who writes teenage fiction, or the character Sheriff Dan Rhodes in Bill Crider’s Western detective series, or any of the many other Dan/Daniel/Danny Rhodeses out there in bookland.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 197 reviews
April 6, 2014
101 stories, 101 words each.
101 quirky little laments about lost loves, unforgettable loves, obsessive loves and just plain disturbing loves. The stories are both devastatingly sad and uproariously hilarious:
---------------------------------------------------------
Pieces
They kidnapped my girlfriend and asked for an awful lot of money before they would even think about giving her back. I was grateful for the peace and quiet, so I wasn't in too much of a hurry to settle up. After a while, they started mailing me little pieces of her, starting with one ear in a soap dish. For some reason, they weren't lowering the ransom. It doesn't make sense. They seem to think I'd pay as much for a girlfriend with no thumbs, ears, nose or nipples as I would for one with all her bits still there.
---------------------------------------------------------
Reminded me a little of 88 Lines About 44 Women, only not as dirty and a helluva lot funnier.
101 quirky little laments about lost loves, unforgettable loves, obsessive loves and just plain disturbing loves. The stories are both devastatingly sad and uproariously hilarious:
---------------------------------------------------------
Pieces
They kidnapped my girlfriend and asked for an awful lot of money before they would even think about giving her back. I was grateful for the peace and quiet, so I wasn't in too much of a hurry to settle up. After a while, they started mailing me little pieces of her, starting with one ear in a soap dish. For some reason, they weren't lowering the ransom. It doesn't make sense. They seem to think I'd pay as much for a girlfriend with no thumbs, ears, nose or nipples as I would for one with all her bits still there.
---------------------------------------------------------
Reminded me a little of 88 Lines About 44 Women, only not as dirty and a helluva lot funnier.
January 29, 2010
Dan Rhodes makes micro-fiction writing look pimps.
His lauded collection, Anthropology, collects 101 stories, each approx 101 words (the word count isn’t rigidly adhered to), and over the course of 200 pages, breaks down the bulk of a billion novels about heartbreak, obsessive lovers, hapless male losers, and pouting femme fatales into hilarious, touching and poignant mini-stories.
I have been a doubter of micro-fiction for some time, but reading this collection has opened my eyes to the possibilities of the form. How often have you written a meandering story of some 2000 words, only to realise the idea could easily be encapsulated in one tight block of brilliance?
Rhodes takes the overdone subject matter, slathers his vignettes with wit, insight and pathos, creating a tight set fit for the modern ADHD reader.
I still abhor the prevalence of micro-fiction, esp. on the net, where everyone is meant to have the attention span of a Chelsea bimbo, but a unified collection like this is inspired. Had Rhodes written one of these pieces and posted it on a website somewhere, it would have faded into insignificance quicker than a bull’s belch – locking antlers forever with the million or so other attempts at sublime cleverness and Wildeian pithiness.
However, because Rhodes has sunk his gnashers into this mammoth undertaking – this obsessive pursuit of the ultimate conciseness – this project feels as deep as a novel or a short story.
So… hurrah to Rhodes to converting me to the form and saving me from a depressing world where anyone can commit 100 words to a 'submit' box and become a four-minute interwoob sensation. He may not have the length or breadth, but he certainly has the depth.
His lauded collection, Anthropology, collects 101 stories, each approx 101 words (the word count isn’t rigidly adhered to), and over the course of 200 pages, breaks down the bulk of a billion novels about heartbreak, obsessive lovers, hapless male losers, and pouting femme fatales into hilarious, touching and poignant mini-stories.
I have been a doubter of micro-fiction for some time, but reading this collection has opened my eyes to the possibilities of the form. How often have you written a meandering story of some 2000 words, only to realise the idea could easily be encapsulated in one tight block of brilliance?
Rhodes takes the overdone subject matter, slathers his vignettes with wit, insight and pathos, creating a tight set fit for the modern ADHD reader.
I still abhor the prevalence of micro-fiction, esp. on the net, where everyone is meant to have the attention span of a Chelsea bimbo, but a unified collection like this is inspired. Had Rhodes written one of these pieces and posted it on a website somewhere, it would have faded into insignificance quicker than a bull’s belch – locking antlers forever with the million or so other attempts at sublime cleverness and Wildeian pithiness.
However, because Rhodes has sunk his gnashers into this mammoth undertaking – this obsessive pursuit of the ultimate conciseness – this project feels as deep as a novel or a short story.
So… hurrah to Rhodes to converting me to the form and saving me from a depressing world where anyone can commit 100 words to a 'submit' box and become a four-minute interwoob sensation. He may not have the length or breadth, but he certainly has the depth.
September 19, 2007
I'll read everything Dan Rhodes will ever publish based on the strength of this tiny book. 101 stories about love all 101 words long. Meditations on relationships and the character names keep getting weirder and weirder. Rhodes is just sick about love, deathly ill. He has a wonderfully disturbing sense of humor and a keen awareness of the thin line between love and some other awful, regrettable thing.
The characters hurt and I laugh. I laugh and it hurts.
The characters hurt and I laugh. I laugh and it hurts.
September 13, 2022
I should have known, after reading When the Professor Got Stuck in the Snow (an obvious satire on Richard Dawkins’s atheism) in 2017, that Dan Rhodes’s humour wasn’t for me. However, I generally love flash fiction so thought I might as well give these 101 stories – all about 100 words, or one paragraph, long – a go. Each has a one-word title, proceeding alphabetically from A to W, and many begin “My girlfriend…” as an unnamed bloke reflects on a relationship. Most of the setups are absurd; the girlfriends’ names (Foxglove, Miracle, Nightjar) tell you so, if nothing else.
There’s a kind of ‘nothing sacred’ approach here, with death, disability, race and gender the fodder for any number of gags. For example, in the title story the ex-girlfriend “went to Mongolia to study the gays. … It breaks my heart to think of her herding those yaks in the freezing hills, … nothing but a handlebar moustache to keep her top lip warm.” Or “Taxidermy”: “Columbine broke her neck by mistake. I took her to the taxidermist, and they delivered to my house a fortnight later. When I unwrapped the package I found the wrong girl.” I marked out a couple that I liked, “Beauty” and “Eggs,” but 2/101 is a poor return. Flippant, repetitive and ridiculous; best avoided.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
There’s a kind of ‘nothing sacred’ approach here, with death, disability, race and gender the fodder for any number of gags. For example, in the title story the ex-girlfriend “went to Mongolia to study the gays. … It breaks my heart to think of her herding those yaks in the freezing hills, … nothing but a handlebar moustache to keep her top lip warm.” Or “Taxidermy”: “Columbine broke her neck by mistake. I took her to the taxidermist, and they delivered to my house a fortnight later. When I unwrapped the package I found the wrong girl.” I marked out a couple that I liked, “Beauty” and “Eggs,” but 2/101 is a poor return. Flippant, repetitive and ridiculous; best avoided.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
June 28, 2013
I randomly picked this book up because a) it sounded interesting, b) I loved the cover and c) was in a ginormous reading slump, had the attention span of a butterfly and needed something that was either short stories or had really short chapters. Good that I picked it up, though, because the style of Dan Rhodes is absolutely amazing and did get me out of the reading slump I was in.
Anthropology consists of 101 wicked short stories about love, sex, relationships and break-ups that are very funny and witty, yet at times very sad and depressing. Although some of these stories are pretty bizarre, I guess everybody can relate to some of them in a way, as we’ve all been there at some point…
Anthropology consists of 101 wicked short stories about love, sex, relationships and break-ups that are very funny and witty, yet at times very sad and depressing. Although some of these stories are pretty bizarre, I guess everybody can relate to some of them in a way, as we’ve all been there at some point…
January 31, 2011
If brevity is, as Polonius says in Hamlet, indeed the soul of wit, then Dan Rhodes, with his turn of the millennium collection of short short stories, is a writer possessed of extraordinarily sharp perception. His stories in this collection, titled Anthropology and a Hundred Other Stories, represent the best that short comic and literary fiction can offer.
Anthropology is a slim anthology of a hundred and one stories, each a hundred and one words strong and each narrated by an unnamed man romantically involved either currently or in the past with a woman who may also be conveniently without a name or otherwise may bear a quaint one. One such woman of the latter category is Badr-al-Budur. She is, undeniably, named after a major character (Aladdin's love interest, no less, who was Disneyfied into Princess Jasmine) in Arabian Nights, a k a One Thousand and One Nights, which was a probable inspiration for Rhodes's book. A thousand and one is too big a number, and it runs counter to the idea of infusing one's work with "the soul of wit," so perhaps after wrapping his clever head around that observation Rhodes decided to slash off a zero and settled for the resultant magic number of a hundred and one. But the similarity between the two collections goes well beyond the binary persuasion of their respective story counts, for much like the fantastical tales of thieves, sailors, princes, and genies in Scheherazade's medieval stories, Rhodes's contemporary stories populated for the most part by men who are in love and their girlfriends who are out of it take on a magical quality, often of the peculiar, twisted sort, even as they are typically grounded in reality.
Take for example the title story, which is first to appear since the stories are arranged alphabetically by title as though in an attempt to create a semblance of order amid the madness of the characters that inhabit them. "I loved an anthropologist," Anthropology begins. It's a sentence so uncommon that before the publication of Rhodes's book a Google search for the sentence exactly as it appears would have yielded a zero-result page. Besides the narrator of Anthropology, did no-one ever love an anthropologist and live to blog the tale? Or does the d in loved make all the difference? Yes, perhaps that's it. Perhaps someone -- at least someone with an Internet connection and a (micro)blogging site that can be indexed by Google -- still loves you, Borisa Yeltsin, PhD in Anthropology. As it turns out, no. But Google or no Google, anthropologists are just hard to come by, which makes the narrator's confession about his loss already -- all the more, even -- heartbreaking. The d in loved does make all the difference after all. "She went to Mongolia to study the gays," the lovelorn narrator, only the first of many, continues. "At first she kept their culture at arm's length, but eventually she decided that her fieldwork would benefit from assimilation." Now we must quickly decide whether to be amused or saddened by this development. It's a dilemma we shall encounter a hundred times more as the collection progresses, and often the easiest thing to do is what we humans (the subjects of anthropology, no less) usually unconsciously do following our own misfortunes: to be a mixture of both. And so we are further amused and saddened further when our once anthropologist-lover reports, "She worked hard to become as much like them as possible, and gradually she was accepted. After a while she ended our romance by letter. It breaks my heart to think of her herding those yaks in the freezing hills, the peak of her leather cap shielding her eyes from the driving wind, her wrist dangling away, and nothing but a handlebar moustache to keep her top lip warm." If that final imagery isn't magical, then what is?
Rhodes is a master paraprosdokianist, if only such a word exists. Fortunately, the root word paraprosdokian does. It is, Wikipedia would have us informed like no other knowledge-driven non-profit organization would, "a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part." In Rhodes's book, it's not merely a sentence or phrase whose latter part is so unexpected as to give new meaning to the first, but an entire story, albeit a bite-sized -- or in the Kindle edition, 2 KB-sized -- one. In Shipwreck, the narrator loses his girlfriend to a shipwreck, gets over her death, and finds "someone as pretty and nice as her, and eventually I invited her on a beach holiday." Right around the middle of this story Rhodes introduces a twist: They see his poor old girlfriend "washed up on the shore." And get this: "She'd been clinging to a plank for fourteen months, living on raw fish, rainwater, and her love for me." Just as we are yet again faced with our previously mentioned dilemma, the narrator "was faced with a choice." With only 21 words left to this particularly tragic story, he frankly declares, "My new girl won because the old one was skinny and bedraggled, and besides, the water had made her all crinkly." Sometimes, though, it's not the first part that requires a second look but the title itself, as is the case with Laughing, which starts and deadpans, "My girlfriend died laughing at one of my funny faces."
Anthropology and a Hundred Other Stories presents tricks as often as it does stories. (Incidentally, Trick is the title of another story in this collection, but as another reminder of Rhodes's vulpine way with words, the trick here is unlikely to be what you imagine it is.) Rhodes's true sleight of hand, however, lies not in his expertise in conjuring a hundred and one Burtonesque love stories, each made up of the same number of words, but in his ability to capture in a hundred and one nutshells such complex concepts dealing with love as dependence, illusion, impermanence, melancholy, memory, sanity, and sexuality. Rhodes recalls this ability in his sophomore collection of short stories, called Don't Tell Me The Truth About Love. Fair and brief warning: In Anthropology and a Hundred Other Stories, Rhodes already did.
--
Originally posted here: http://go.aldr.in/anthropology101.
Anthropology is a slim anthology of a hundred and one stories, each a hundred and one words strong and each narrated by an unnamed man romantically involved either currently or in the past with a woman who may also be conveniently without a name or otherwise may bear a quaint one. One such woman of the latter category is Badr-al-Budur. She is, undeniably, named after a major character (Aladdin's love interest, no less, who was Disneyfied into Princess Jasmine) in Arabian Nights, a k a One Thousand and One Nights, which was a probable inspiration for Rhodes's book. A thousand and one is too big a number, and it runs counter to the idea of infusing one's work with "the soul of wit," so perhaps after wrapping his clever head around that observation Rhodes decided to slash off a zero and settled for the resultant magic number of a hundred and one. But the similarity between the two collections goes well beyond the binary persuasion of their respective story counts, for much like the fantastical tales of thieves, sailors, princes, and genies in Scheherazade's medieval stories, Rhodes's contemporary stories populated for the most part by men who are in love and their girlfriends who are out of it take on a magical quality, often of the peculiar, twisted sort, even as they are typically grounded in reality.
Take for example the title story, which is first to appear since the stories are arranged alphabetically by title as though in an attempt to create a semblance of order amid the madness of the characters that inhabit them. "I loved an anthropologist," Anthropology begins. It's a sentence so uncommon that before the publication of Rhodes's book a Google search for the sentence exactly as it appears would have yielded a zero-result page. Besides the narrator of Anthropology, did no-one ever love an anthropologist and live to blog the tale? Or does the d in loved make all the difference? Yes, perhaps that's it. Perhaps someone -- at least someone with an Internet connection and a (micro)blogging site that can be indexed by Google -- still loves you, Borisa Yeltsin, PhD in Anthropology. As it turns out, no. But Google or no Google, anthropologists are just hard to come by, which makes the narrator's confession about his loss already -- all the more, even -- heartbreaking. The d in loved does make all the difference after all. "She went to Mongolia to study the gays," the lovelorn narrator, only the first of many, continues. "At first she kept their culture at arm's length, but eventually she decided that her fieldwork would benefit from assimilation." Now we must quickly decide whether to be amused or saddened by this development. It's a dilemma we shall encounter a hundred times more as the collection progresses, and often the easiest thing to do is what we humans (the subjects of anthropology, no less) usually unconsciously do following our own misfortunes: to be a mixture of both. And so we are further amused and saddened further when our once anthropologist-lover reports, "She worked hard to become as much like them as possible, and gradually she was accepted. After a while she ended our romance by letter. It breaks my heart to think of her herding those yaks in the freezing hills, the peak of her leather cap shielding her eyes from the driving wind, her wrist dangling away, and nothing but a handlebar moustache to keep her top lip warm." If that final imagery isn't magical, then what is?
Rhodes is a master paraprosdokianist, if only such a word exists. Fortunately, the root word paraprosdokian does. It is, Wikipedia would have us informed like no other knowledge-driven non-profit organization would, "a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part." In Rhodes's book, it's not merely a sentence or phrase whose latter part is so unexpected as to give new meaning to the first, but an entire story, albeit a bite-sized -- or in the Kindle edition, 2 KB-sized -- one. In Shipwreck, the narrator loses his girlfriend to a shipwreck, gets over her death, and finds "someone as pretty and nice as her, and eventually I invited her on a beach holiday." Right around the middle of this story Rhodes introduces a twist: They see his poor old girlfriend "washed up on the shore." And get this: "She'd been clinging to a plank for fourteen months, living on raw fish, rainwater, and her love for me." Just as we are yet again faced with our previously mentioned dilemma, the narrator "was faced with a choice." With only 21 words left to this particularly tragic story, he frankly declares, "My new girl won because the old one was skinny and bedraggled, and besides, the water had made her all crinkly." Sometimes, though, it's not the first part that requires a second look but the title itself, as is the case with Laughing, which starts and deadpans, "My girlfriend died laughing at one of my funny faces."
Anthropology and a Hundred Other Stories presents tricks as often as it does stories. (Incidentally, Trick is the title of another story in this collection, but as another reminder of Rhodes's vulpine way with words, the trick here is unlikely to be what you imagine it is.) Rhodes's true sleight of hand, however, lies not in his expertise in conjuring a hundred and one Burtonesque love stories, each made up of the same number of words, but in his ability to capture in a hundred and one nutshells such complex concepts dealing with love as dependence, illusion, impermanence, melancholy, memory, sanity, and sexuality. Rhodes recalls this ability in his sophomore collection of short stories, called Don't Tell Me The Truth About Love. Fair and brief warning: In Anthropology and a Hundred Other Stories, Rhodes already did.
--
Originally posted here: http://go.aldr.in/anthropology101.
February 13, 2020
this didn’t work for me. the majority of the stories were from the perspective of a guy who got dumped yet he’s still hopelessly in love with the girl. she finds someone new and it’s always mentioned how much more attractive the new guy is than the narrator. on more than one occasion, the narrator doesn’t forget to mention how much more “well endowed” the new guy is. it gets repetitive. this book works with only two stereotypes of women: they’re either a stone cold heartbreaker who can’t stop smoking cigarettes and the world stops spinning at how hot she is or a more ditzy version of this woman. it’s objectification, baby! both of these types love lipstick, namely red lipstick. no other color lipstick is mentioned. take all of this and then add a little bit of “quirk” to spice it up and you have the book. i don’t understand the glowing reviews. a man is kinda being creepy and borderline disturbing about women and i’m supposed to act as if that’s new or groundbreaking?
December 18, 2017
Se ia o sticluţă cu esenţa dragostei. Se ia un carneţel, mic cât să vă încapă în buzunarul de la piept. Se ia o pipetă şi se aşterne câte o picătură de esenţă pe fiecare din cele 101 de pagini ale carneţelului. Rezultatul? 101 povestiri care mustesc de dragoste, fie ea obsesivă, morbidă, amuzantă sau romantică. A se consuma în doze mici, pentru o deplină savurare (zise dânsa, care le-a înghiţit pe nemestecate într-o singură oră :D).
October 9, 2023
I still don’t understand the appeal of a book made by stories, but this is the most bearable one so far.
↠ 3 stars
↠ 3 stars
June 26, 2019
Sometimes as a reader you end up thinking how much an author actually puts of themselves into their work. If some of these short stories represent Dan Rhodes as a person then you have to give this advice to women.
Run. Just fucking run.
On balance I think the author tried to be clever with the length and tone of these stories. In my eyes he failed miserably at this but the effort seemed to be there. I would never criticise anyone for trying something different and this is definitely different. Not in a good way.
Some of the stories feel like they come from the Men's Rights Activist handbook. They really are that bad and potentially damaging. Others show men to be dumb and ignorant which doesn't offer balance but just compounds the problem. There are also a couple of stories that indicate prejudice against minorities.
Anthropology: the study of human societies and cultures and their development.
This book: the study of where that went wrong.
Run. Just fucking run.
On balance I think the author tried to be clever with the length and tone of these stories. In my eyes he failed miserably at this but the effort seemed to be there. I would never criticise anyone for trying something different and this is definitely different. Not in a good way.
Some of the stories feel like they come from the Men's Rights Activist handbook. They really are that bad and potentially damaging. Others show men to be dumb and ignorant which doesn't offer balance but just compounds the problem. There are also a couple of stories that indicate prejudice against minorities.
Anthropology: the study of human societies and cultures and their development.
This book: the study of where that went wrong.
July 21, 2022
i thought i was going to like this book, until i realized almost every story was inherently sexist. i should’ve known based on the fact that it was written by a man, but the premise of every story made a woman seem like she was in the wrong. not to mention, these weren’t love stories. a majority of the stories were about breakups, and they painted the woman out to be the villain. would not recommend to anyone. most of the 5 star reviews are also written by men which is just so funny. men suck.
May 6, 2016
I'll be honest, I picked up this book in the library based on the cover alone. This is a collection of 101 pieces of flash fiction all consisting of 101 words revolving around the theme of relationships.
Overall I'm not really sure what to make of it. On the one hand, it reminded me of the strange imagery and blunt writing style that Tim Burton uses in his poetry, but on the other, I'm not entirely sure what the author was trying to say. Some of the pieces had interested themes and ideas but on the whole I found that it didn't really keep my interest and despite being extremely short, I wouldn't recommend it.
Overall I'm not really sure what to make of it. On the one hand, it reminded me of the strange imagery and blunt writing style that Tim Burton uses in his poetry, but on the other, I'm not entirely sure what the author was trying to say. Some of the pieces had interested themes and ideas but on the whole I found that it didn't really keep my interest and despite being extremely short, I wouldn't recommend it.
March 17, 2016
This is an odd yet strangely familiar collection of short stories that cover every aspect of romance from the intense highs to the all consuming lows. While each story is intense in the emotions that they portray and raise in the reader, I found the writing a little odd (can't quite put my finger on what or why), which kind of left me feeling a little meh by the end. I think if each was a little longer, each story was only a page long, it might've made more sense and engaged me more but I couldn't quite get into it as it jumped from one to another. Having said that though something about Rhodes writing appealed to me so I think I'll be looking out for him in the future.
January 19, 2020
I Red the first story. I asked myself "Am I too tired right now to understand the plot twist?".
Then I went on with the second, the third, the fourth...
I went to goodread, to see if I was not alone in my confusion... 5 stars, 5 stars, 4 stars, 5 stars...
So here I am, reading something I don't understand the purpose of. I only put a star to show that I DID rate the book... I really disliked the book but I admit I liked two stories out of the 101 there was.
I really wanted to write this for the next "me" that will, hopefully, feel less alone...
Then I went on with the second, the third, the fourth...
I went to goodread, to see if I was not alone in my confusion... 5 stars, 5 stars, 4 stars, 5 stars...
So here I am, reading something I don't understand the purpose of. I only put a star to show that I DID rate the book... I really disliked the book but I admit I liked two stories out of the 101 there was.
I really wanted to write this for the next "me" that will, hopefully, feel less alone...
August 16, 2018
Mi-a plăcut tare mult, am citit-o pe nerăsuflate. Cu toate că poveștile sunt scurte, fiecare dintre ele ascunde drame sau regrete. Toate au legătura cu iubirea și cu prietenele, logodnicele sau soțiile lui. Este o carte pe care o să o mai dau și multor altor persoane ce n-au mai făcut cunoștință cu proza scurtă sau pur și simplu, nu sunt mari fani ai cititului, însă au nevoie de un mic zvâc. Am cumpărat-o pentru că chiar m-au încântat cele cinci povestioare din Iocan #1
March 18, 2013
I'd actually give its rating as a 3.5 (I wish we could give half-star ratings on Goodreads). I read this book because I was interested in the premise ; 101 short stories, all 101 words each. Each story was straight to the point,and witty at times. Some stories were just tragic.It was a very quick read.
October 8, 2010
I'm wondering if there's a Dan Rhodes book I won't five star now. Funny for both its accuracy and its ridiculousness, these stories are succinct, precise, touching and lethal. I was going to list some of my favourites but there's too many. I'm going to force this book on a lot of people.
June 30, 2021
Another re-read to cheer my spirits, without resorting to spirits. One of my favourite books.
I've gifted this book to so many people over the last fifteen years. I first started reading it when I was waiting for a date. The date went great; but follow up dates... not so well. The theme of the collection went perfectly with the theme of my life at the time. Girlfriends.
Anyway. The stories are an absolute blast. Perfect to read a few between bus stops. Each is only 101 words. Which must have been a fantastic challenge for the author. One that I've occasionally picked up for myself. When I've needed to distill the essence of someone down into a single, short glimpse of them.
Sort of like literary Polaroids.
It's sweet and dark and funny and touching in equal parts. I've read the author's other books, because there's a light playfulness to a lot of it that I admire. He can handle exploring characters in a way that sneaks up on you. Clocking you upside the head with a realisation that feels natural and obvious now you have all the pieces.
There's also a wonderful book called Timoleon Vieta Come Home which dips into the lives of those crossed by a dog in search of its master across Italy.
Maybe I just love short story writers. Because that's really a short story collection too, if I think about it.
Anyway. I wholeheartedly encourage you to nab a copy.
I've gifted this book to so many people over the last fifteen years. I first started reading it when I was waiting for a date. The date went great; but follow up dates... not so well. The theme of the collection went perfectly with the theme of my life at the time. Girlfriends.
Anyway. The stories are an absolute blast. Perfect to read a few between bus stops. Each is only 101 words. Which must have been a fantastic challenge for the author. One that I've occasionally picked up for myself. When I've needed to distill the essence of someone down into a single, short glimpse of them.
Sort of like literary Polaroids.
It's sweet and dark and funny and touching in equal parts. I've read the author's other books, because there's a light playfulness to a lot of it that I admire. He can handle exploring characters in a way that sneaks up on you. Clocking you upside the head with a realisation that feels natural and obvious now you have all the pieces.
There's also a wonderful book called Timoleon Vieta Come Home which dips into the lives of those crossed by a dog in search of its master across Italy.
Maybe I just love short story writers. Because that's really a short story collection too, if I think about it.
Anyway. I wholeheartedly encourage you to nab a copy.
January 5, 2025
Хумористични, рамнодушни, меланхолични, трагикомични (допиши по свое видување). Фасцинантен сто и еден расказ, секој поединечно составен од сто и еден збор. Може да ги читате кога имате краток ,,луфт" преку ден или навечер пред спиење.
Единствено ќе ви остане дилемата дали авторот зборува за една иста девојка и притоа придодава нови карактерни црти во секој следен расказ или пак, самиот влегува во друга димензија каде делумно ја прикрива тагата која се врти околу целосно комплетна личност (со сите карактеристики). Позади добар хумор скоро секогаш стои доволно издржана тага. А сепак зборот ,,доволно" носи разни дефиниции.
Единствено ќе ви остане дилемата дали авторот зборува за една иста девојка и притоа придодава нови карактерни црти во секој следен расказ или пак, самиот влегува во друга димензија каде делумно ја прикрива тагата која се врти околу целосно комплетна личност (со сите карактеристики). Позади добар хумор скоро секогаш стои доволно издржана тага. А сепак зборот ,,доволно" носи разни дефиниции.
December 10, 2017
I picked this up from the library because I happened to notice the glowing reviews from the Grauniad, the Times and, um, Heat Magazine on the cover.
Trouble is, I think it just shows up the limits of what can be done with very short stories. A few of them are quite funny, in a more or less dark way. I quite liked History:
"Nightjar told me all about her ex-boyfriends. She went through her shoebox full of photographs... When, at last, she had finished, she asked me about my romantic history. I told her I had been waiting all my life for that special someone, and how glad I was now I had finally found her. 'Ah. I see.' She rolled her eyes. 'You're one of those'"
But he doesn't really have enough ideas to keep this up over 101 101 word stories...
Trouble is, I think it just shows up the limits of what can be done with very short stories. A few of them are quite funny, in a more or less dark way. I quite liked History:
"Nightjar told me all about her ex-boyfriends. She went through her shoebox full of photographs... When, at last, she had finished, she asked me about my romantic history. I told her I had been waiting all my life for that special someone, and how glad I was now I had finally found her. 'Ah. I see.' She rolled her eyes. 'You're one of those'"
But he doesn't really have enough ideas to keep this up over 101 101 word stories...
August 31, 2018
this was
uh
interesting
i really liked
drawing
me
and precious
precious was v sad
me was sad in a sweet way
drawing made me feel things and want a huge story about the concept so if you know of any books hmu
uh
interesting
i really liked
drawing
me
and precious
precious was v sad
me was sad in a sweet way
drawing made me feel things and want a huge story about the concept so if you know of any books hmu
January 4, 2024
“Their faces were covered in jam. They were horrible.”
😔😔😔
😔😔😔
October 1, 2024
For fear of stating the obvious, and overstating any resemblance to acquired wisdom, love, while often delightful, is rarely simple.
The beauty of this little gem lies in its way of conveying the hardships of love with humor and tenderness. For whenever you need a reminder that even in its messiest moments, through life’s kaleidoscopic creativity, and unbelievable banality, love is always worth contemplating—and celebrating.
The beauty of this little gem lies in its way of conveying the hardships of love with humor and tenderness. For whenever you need a reminder that even in its messiest moments, through life’s kaleidoscopic creativity, and unbelievable banality, love is always worth contemplating—and celebrating.
November 11, 2025
theres 2 ways you can go about this:
toxic lesbians or one freaky freaky man
(yes it took me getting to like 1/3 of the collection to realise the speaker is a man)
toxic lesbians or one freaky freaky man
(yes it took me getting to like 1/3 of the collection to realise the speaker is a man)
June 1, 2011
I wanted to hate it but I didn't really. There were only a couple of pieces that were so quirky that they nudged my gag reflex. The majority of the rest were okay and there were several gems. It was these gems nestled amongst the rest of the okay pieces that were it's saving grace. Gems such asL
"They kidnapped my girlfriend and asked for an awful lot of money before they would even think of giving her back. I was grateful for the peace and quiet, so I wasn't in too much of a hurry to settle up. After a while they started posting me little pieces of her, starting with an ear in a soap dish. For some reason they aren't lowering the ransom. It doesn't make sense. They seem to think I'd pay as much for a girlfriend with no thumbs, ears, nose or nipples as I would for one with all her bits still there."
I think the blessing in micro fiction is that if you don't like the story then you don't have time to seethe and wallow in your fury at wasting your time reading a shit story. It's over in an instant and the author has another chance to redeem him/herself on the very next page. I guess the only way you could fuck it up is if every single 'story' was shit. I don't know how hard micro fiction would be to write, it might be one of those things that look misleadingly simple. Though I have read one other collection of micro fiction that was seriously shit so perhaps it really is harder than it looks.
Also, it was so appealing to my terribly shit attention span that I couldn't not like it. Snack sized fiction for those of us unfortunate enough not to be on ADHD medication. I'm reading Nam Le's 'The Boat' now and I just keep thinking, "Now, if only he'd written this story more succinctly; sayyyy, in 100 words or less".
Also, I watch tv while I read. I don't know why exactly but I can't relax unless I have it on in the background. With shit books, I find that I end up watching the tv instead, with mediocre books I find that I watch whatever is on in between the paragraphs and with a good book - I find that I have no idea what is on the television because I'm enraptured in the book. Now that is something they could base the star rating system on.
"They kidnapped my girlfriend and asked for an awful lot of money before they would even think of giving her back. I was grateful for the peace and quiet, so I wasn't in too much of a hurry to settle up. After a while they started posting me little pieces of her, starting with an ear in a soap dish. For some reason they aren't lowering the ransom. It doesn't make sense. They seem to think I'd pay as much for a girlfriend with no thumbs, ears, nose or nipples as I would for one with all her bits still there."
I think the blessing in micro fiction is that if you don't like the story then you don't have time to seethe and wallow in your fury at wasting your time reading a shit story. It's over in an instant and the author has another chance to redeem him/herself on the very next page. I guess the only way you could fuck it up is if every single 'story' was shit. I don't know how hard micro fiction would be to write, it might be one of those things that look misleadingly simple. Though I have read one other collection of micro fiction that was seriously shit so perhaps it really is harder than it looks.
Also, it was so appealing to my terribly shit attention span that I couldn't not like it. Snack sized fiction for those of us unfortunate enough not to be on ADHD medication. I'm reading Nam Le's 'The Boat' now and I just keep thinking, "Now, if only he'd written this story more succinctly; sayyyy, in 100 words or less".
Also, I watch tv while I read. I don't know why exactly but I can't relax unless I have it on in the background. With shit books, I find that I end up watching the tv instead, with mediocre books I find that I watch whatever is on in between the paragraphs and with a good book - I find that I have no idea what is on the television because I'm enraptured in the book. Now that is something they could base the star rating system on.
November 4, 2010
It's really difficult to write a full story in 100 words, but Rhodes has accomplished that. The girls' names in each story are simply hilarious to begin with. And reading My girlfriend left me at the beginning of almost every story is another.
Although infused with comedic tragedy and quirkiness that makes you shake your head, there are themes in these love stories that apply to real life as well: cheating, having your loved ones crashing your dreams, getting over someone, dealing with their exes, obsessing over someone, being mocked and ridiculed for your shortcomings and so many other themes.
I loved many of the stories. Face and Pumpkins and Spirit...But my favorite one was Faithful:
"My girlfriend died. I was heartbroken and vowed to remain faithful to her memory. At first I had no difficulty; my distress was so great that I couldn't even contemplate kissing anyone else. But, after a while, another girl started showing an interest. I resisted her advances. 'You're very pretty,' I told her, 'but it's too soon. I'm sorry.' She wouldn't give up. She kept gently touching me and fluttering her mascara-coated eyelashes. Eventually I yielded and fell into her arms. The man asked us to leave. He said our rustling, slurping and giggling was upsetting the other mourners."
Although infused with comedic tragedy and quirkiness that makes you shake your head, there are themes in these love stories that apply to real life as well: cheating, having your loved ones crashing your dreams, getting over someone, dealing with their exes, obsessing over someone, being mocked and ridiculed for your shortcomings and so many other themes.
I loved many of the stories. Face and Pumpkins and Spirit...But my favorite one was Faithful:
"My girlfriend died. I was heartbroken and vowed to remain faithful to her memory. At first I had no difficulty; my distress was so great that I couldn't even contemplate kissing anyone else. But, after a while, another girl started showing an interest. I resisted her advances. 'You're very pretty,' I told her, 'but it's too soon. I'm sorry.' She wouldn't give up. She kept gently touching me and fluttering her mascara-coated eyelashes. Eventually I yielded and fell into her arms. The man asked us to leave. He said our rustling, slurping and giggling was upsetting the other mourners."
February 6, 2017
Dan Rhodes scrie o carte bizară: 101 povestiri, fiecare având doar o pagină, format mic, așezate în volum în ordinea alfabetică a titlurilor. Ba, mai mult, în orginalul englezesc, fiecare povestire are fix 100 de cuvinte.
Bizară și pentru modul de tratare, de multe ori amuzant, alteori destul de morbid, de multe ori și tragic, al relației unui bărbat cu femeile care au trecut prin viața lui. Fiecare povestire înseamnă ceva și are un mesaj distinct și ar fi de preferat ca să existe o pauză după fiecare povestire.
O carte ce merită atenția voastră zilele astea, s-ar putea să vă facă deseori să zâmbiți.
Bizară și pentru modul de tratare, de multe ori amuzant, alteori destul de morbid, de multe ori și tragic, al relației unui bărbat cu femeile care au trecut prin viața lui. Fiecare povestire înseamnă ceva și are un mesaj distinct și ar fi de preferat ca să existe o pauză după fiecare povestire.
O carte ce merită atenția voastră zilele astea, s-ar putea să vă facă deseori să zâmbiți.
May 24, 2014
I have never heard of Anthropology before browsing for books on the internet. I was intrigued by the premise: 101 love stories composed of exactly 101 words each. So, I bought it.
Rhodes' work, which resembles microfiction, is odd, heart-breaking, with bits of witty humour and, at times, even dirty. With names like Skylark and Hummingbird, "his girlfriends" are something different. They literally die laughing,they get pregnant in two years time and sometimes they resemble Mount Fuji.
Although some leave much to be desired and are repetitive at times, the rest are incredibly good.
In the end, the good outweighs the bad, making this collection of really short stories worthy of a 3.5.
Rhodes' work, which resembles microfiction, is odd, heart-breaking, with bits of witty humour and, at times, even dirty. With names like Skylark and Hummingbird, "his girlfriends" are something different. They literally die laughing,they get pregnant in two years time and sometimes they resemble Mount Fuji.
Although some leave much to be desired and are repetitive at times, the rest are incredibly good.
In the end, the good outweighs the bad, making this collection of really short stories worthy of a 3.5.
January 13, 2011
This is a clever, but slight, collection of short musings on the nature of love and infatuation. The majority are concerned with 'over-loving' the object of your affections. Many of the funniest relate to being the object of over-attentive affections. It's a clever device, I can imagine these as a regular feature in a satirical magazine. They are a great insight into the savage humour of Rhodes, which comes out in his fiction, and are not below-par in writing terms. However, he has given himself a narrow canvas on this occasion, hence 3 stars rather than the 4 stars I would routinely award his writing.
October 19, 2013
Tarinakokoelma kuin macaron-lajitelma: maistettuaan kymmeniä on edelleen pakko ottaa vielä muutama pieni herkkupala, jos niissä olisi jotain eroa. No ei ole, kaikki maistuvat samalta, mutta kohta tarjotin on tyhjä. Kitalaessa kihelmöi mantelin karvas kitkeryys ja hampaissa tuntuu tahmainen sokeri. Ällöttää vähän, vähää enemmän. Ja aina maistellessa miettii, että tällaisia voisi tehdä itsekin, mutta ne epäonnistuisivat kuitenkin. Macaronit sopivat esimerkiksi cocktailkutsuille, joissa yhteen ihmiseen ja tarinaan jaksaa keskittyä kerrallaan vain muutaman haukkauksen verran. Lyhyt katsaus rakkauteen: naura, älä kysy lisää, jätä tilaa mielikuvitukselle.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 197 reviews