From the Bookshelf of Never too Late to Read Classics…

Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

Truman Capote

Start date: February 15, 2017

Finish date: March 15, 2017

Discussion: "Let us Chat a Moment!"

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"Let us Chat a Moment!"

* (❛‿❛?)) Daily Happenings!
By Lesle , Appalachain Bibliophile · 4044 posts · 657 views

last updated Sep 14, 2025 07:11AM

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What Members Thought

Aug 26, 2014 Chrissie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, fiction, shorts, 2014-read, usa, audible-us, love, humor, relationships

I enjoyed every minute spent listening to this audiobook. I laughed and laughed and laughed. Pay attention - I have put it on my humorous shelf. The only reason it doesn't get five stars is that it was too short.......I like long books. I didn’t want it to end. I want more and more and more.

So who will love this book? People who love Holly will love this book. So who IS Holly? Now that is the central theme of the whole book so I can only tell you a bit. Holly is a free spirit. The Holly we know ...more

23 likes · Like · see review

Nov 27, 2009 Laura rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audio-books, read-2009, 1001-books-you-must-read-before-you, book-and-movie, novellas, contemporary-fiction

Truman Capote's abridged novel about a young New York writer and captivating 1940s girl-about-town Holly Golightly

Now I must read In Cold Blood. ...more

11 likes · Like · see review

Nov 03, 2011 Jenna Scribbles rated it liked it · review of another edition

This review is based on the first story in this anthology - Breakfast at Tiffany's. After reading this short story I had a lot of questions about Truman Capote. I will admit, I know nothing about him. I've never read any of his other works and I've never seen the movie, "Breakfast at Tiffany's".

The reason I want to know more about Capote is this - I feel this story is not great. It's a mad dash of thoughts, an essay and outline of sorts about an extreme character - Holiday Golightly. We read abo ...more

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Dec 11, 2020 Douglas Beagley rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Breakfast at Tiffany's is literature: its plot is not the point; the precision and calculation of each word and sentence surpass what I'm capable of; and most people won't get anything out of it, but you'd be surprising how many will if they give it a shot. The book is a short, colorful, ramble, depicting real qualities of people in ways that are surreal and unlikely.

While reading, I think I'm sliding down a light, laughing, somber romp--yet behind all the dancing, the book portrays a kind of c Breakfast at Tiffany's is literature: its plot is not the point; the precision and calculation of each word and sentence surpass what I'm capable of; and most people won't get anything out of it, but you'd be surprising how many will if they give it a shot. The book is a short, colorful, ramble, depicting real qualities of people in ways that are surreal and unlikely.

While reading, I think I'm sliding down a light, laughing, somber romp--yet behind all the dancing, the book portrays a kind of casual racism, sexism, classicism, hidden depression, and homophobia that were particular to a time and place. These are all presented in ways that might be mistaken for frankness and progressive acceptance. Or perhaps not. (I can't separate out what opinions are the author's and which are the narrator's.) Was this book scandalous in its time? I don't want to know. Brave, perhaps? There's a lot in here: stereotypes made, broken, and remade; bisexuality prodded and questioned; outright pedophilia hidden behind curtains; wildly, it even includes a minuscule brush with explaining dominance and submission in a relationship--just a tiny dusting on these topics, as if we can think about these things only in passing, because it's time for lunch. And a martini.

The most magnetic (in that it pulls on you but is all-but invisible) aspect of Breakfast at Tiffany's is the portraiture of the relationship between the narrator and the main character, Holly Golightly--this relationship is painted in strokes around itself, mostly, crafted with negative space. I am very glad that the author never really jammed it home. There are other parts of the book that might distill to treacle--like the frame narrative, the neatly matching edges of the paper coming together just so--but sentimentalism is not a bad thing in small doses.

Literature sometimes destroys itself by trying to be deep. "Oh, one of those books where the author tries to be deep." That's avoided successfully, I think. This is a perfect little lozenge of a book. It dissolves on your tongue, has unknown and perhaps suspect medicinal qualities, but it makes one feel pulled forward into something brighter, fizzier, truer, or at least sweeter, even as you know the feeling is illusory.

Recommended. ...more

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Mar 09, 2008 Becca rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction

From what I remember of the movie, it only stops like, halfway through this book. Capote does an amazing job of creating such a loveable, entrancing unreliable character!

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