Vanilla Bright like Eminem Michel Faber Digital Life Books

Vanilla Bright like Eminem
by: Michel Faber

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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780151013142
ISBN: 0151013144
Label: Harcourt
Manufacturer: Harcourt
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 256
Publication Date: September 10, 2007
Publisher: Harcourt
Sales Rank: 584373
Studio: Harcourt

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Product Description:

M ichel Faber is not only a master storyteller but a daring innovator as well. Here are the pitch-perfect prose, indelible characterizations, and deep empathy for which he has been highly acclaimed. Here also is a satirical streak that depicts individuals at uncanny and all-too-familiar turning points in their lives. The alienated find sanctuary in ÒThe Safehouse,Ó their histories and diagnoses written like endless ads on their T-shirts. In ÒAndy Comes Back,Ó a man awakens after a five-year coma, only to flee his home. In ÒThe Eyes of the Soul,Ó perpetual televised beauty replaces the derelict view from a suburban picture window. In ÒFinesse,Ó a dictator holds his surgeon’s family hostage to the outcome of a risky operation. These sixteen stories move from unspeakable sadness through moments of exquisitely distilled happiness.

(07/01/2007)

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Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Happiest moments -- on a train or inside a coconut?
This is a delightful collection of short stories. Faber has a light touch, even when dealing with death, disease, homelessness and out and out boorishness (the geek who chooses video games over a girl and real connections). He's especially good at looking at middle-age male crises: a dad who wakes up from a coma to find himself a stranger in his own house; a dad who finds a brief moment of happiness when he looks at his wife and kids; and the 66 guys who head to Indonesia for a particularly unusual sexual experience. And as for the video-game geek, I'm still mad at him. This volume is worth picking up and keeping so you can revisit a few of the stories, which may turn out to be among your favorites.

Rating:

- (four and half stars) A dizzying variety of genres
I suppose anyone who has read Michel Faber's two novels - the Twilight Zonish "Under the Skin," and the historical epic "The Crimson Petal and the White," will hardly be surprised at the extraordinary array of ideas that are contained in "Vanilla Bright Like Eminem," which consists of 16 well-crafted and insightful short stories. Very briefly, here they are:

1. The Safehouse: In a future dystopian society, the homeless are warehoused in barrack-like surroundings with their histories written in code on their t-shirts.

2. Andy Comes Back: Andy, long in a semi-catatonic state,wakes up, but will he want to resume his old life?

3. The Eyes of the Soul: Trading a harsh reality for fantasy in the squalor of one's own home.

4. Serious Swimmers: A recovering junkie makes another go at the joys (and potential perils) of motherhood.

5. Explaining Coconuts: (Notable) ... Read More

Rating:

- Great book.
What can I say, I love Michel Faber and these books are well written and wonderful.

Rating:

- Unsettling epiphanies, realized or suspended
With a nod to the American market, what in Britain two years ago appeared as "The Fahrenheit Twins" now comes, after the success of his Victorian novel "The Crimson Petal and the White," as Faber's third collection of his more usual genre, the short story. If you're wondering about the similarity with his blockbuster, triple-decker, door stopper of a novel (I'm told a sequel's in the works), there's only one story, "Flesh Remains Flesh," that takes place in the mid-19c., and this was one of the weakest entries, in my opinion. However, even this macabre tale displays Faber's genial wit, his edgy sensibility of an outsider, and his fascination with the outré amidst the mundane.

These stories often depict a character out-of-sync with society, or one who shifts slightly away from the norm and finds wonders or horrors. The first two, "The Safehouse" and the slightly less successful "Andy Comes Back," present protagonists ... Read More

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Digital Life Michel Faber Average Rating:

Digital Life is all about CD's DVD's Music Video Concerts Movies and Software

Books : Vanilla Bright like Eminem Digital Life Michel Faber Average Rating:

Digital Life is all about
CD's DVD's Music Video Concerts Movies and Software

Books : Vanilla Bright like Eminem
Digital Life Michel Faber Average Rating: