The Nature of Things

This one has been on my "to be read" list for months. I kept skipping over it thinking the time wasn't right or I wasn't in the mood for it. Then, last week it was announced as the Man Booker Prize winner for 2017. The time was not going to get any more right; time to read. I had read countless professional reviews of the book and they were all raves. Moreover, the reviews on Goodreads, which normally represent a diversity of opinion, were almost universally five-star. I was intimidated before I even opened the cover, thinking that I had to love the book - or else! Then I read it and I didn't love it.  I didn't hate it. It's difficult to put into words my reaction to the book. It is undeniably a creative and poetic telling of a tragic story. One would have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by the scenes of Abraham Lincoln with the weight of a country at war on his shoulders grieving over his recently deceased greatly loved 11-year-old son, Willie. B...

My rating: 2 of 5 stars Okay, let me confess my prejudice right up front. I am really not a big fan of short stories. There. Now I have marked myself as a Philistine. (Except, of course, the Philistines weren't. They actually had quite a highly developed and sophisticated culture, but, in the end, they were defeated, and the victors got to write the histories. Thus, the Philistines have gotten a bad rap for all the years since.) But, short stories. Perhaps my objection to them is based in the fact that I feel short-changed by them. I like to get to know fictional characters over the length of 300-400 pages and several hours of reading. If their story can be told over a period of a few pages and read in a few minutes, it just feels incomplete to me. On the other hand, maybe I'm simply lacking in imagination and sophisticated taste. In other words, maybe I'm a Phil...er, an unimaginative, unsophisticated reader. When George Saunders' latest book of short stories, Tenth of...