Book #73 |
Book: One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories | Author: B.J. Novak | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Audiobook |
Pages: 288 | Duration: 08/15/25 – 08/15/25 (1 day) | |
| Rating: ★★★★★ | Genres: fiction, short stories, humor, essays | ||
| 📕10-word summary: 64, mostly playful, stories on a wide range of topics. 🖌6-word review: A couple disappointing. Most cleverly imaginative. |
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| 💭A favorite quote: “I’m 3 away, across,” said Allie. “Three away up-down 2 different ways, and 2 away diagonal. And 4 away up-down 4 different ways,” said Lisa. | |||
| Description:* B.J. Novak’s One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories is an endlessly entertaining, surprisingly sensitive, and startlingly original debut collection that signals the arrival of a welcome new voice in American fiction. Across a dazzling range of subjects, themes, tones, and narrative voices, Novak’s assured prose and expansive imagination introduce readers to people, places, and premises that are hilarious, insightful, provocative, and moving-often at the same time.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: What an interesting book! It’s a collection of 64 stories, with the shortest one being 16 seconds and the longest one being 37 minutes in the audiobook. My favorite was called “A Good Problem to Have,” a 15-minute story about the man who purportedly devised the infamous math problem — A man leaves Chicago at 12 p.m. on a train heading for Cleveland at 60 m.p.h. Another man leaves Cleveland at 1 p.m. heading for Chicago on a train going 85 m.p.h. At what time will the two trains cross paths? — and relates its origin story. Another favorite of mine was the 2-minute story called “Bingo,” from which came the snippet in my favorite quote listed above. And, finally, I thought the penultimate story in the collection, the 34-minute “J.C. Audetat, Translator of Don Quixote,” was just brilliant. | |||
See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.
