Best book by Annie Proulx ?

Shipping News is GREAT. (Ignore the fact that it was made into a movie, which I haven't seen but sounded mediocre.)

To start with, though, perhaps her recent book of short stories. Some masterworks in there. I forget the title -- just a sec.

Haven't read Accordion Crimes, wasn't very impressed with reviews/ a glance-through.

OK, found the short stories:

Wyoming Stories

"Brokeback Mountain" is one of my favorite short stories, ever. POWERFUL.

I loved both Accordion Crimes and Shipping News.

Forget about the film (though it wasn't that bad). Read Shipping News. Avoid her short stories which struck me as writers' workshop exercises. I intend (hmm, an undated non-promise!) to get Ace In The Hole in paperback, read it, pass it along. When that happens, Nimh, I'll let you know and you can have it if you want.

By the way, for those who are book lovers and politics forum addicts, this book may be of interest. It had the lead review in last Sunday's NYTimes Book Review and looks like a "beach book."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/29/books/review/29MCMANUT.html

HIGHLY RECOMMEND . . .
Both That Old Ace in the Hole and Accordion Crimes are - IMHO - very, very enjoyable. Also, quite different one from the other. Proulx is a truly fine writer. Marvelous research! (Sociologists [me] are heavy into immigration and as for TOA . . . , I'm a native Westerner - the locale.) AC (hardcover) was purchased several years ago from a "remainder" table in a Borders store. TOA . . . was checked out of the local library. Twice - several months apart - a scanning of Shipping News elicted the same negative response: not for me.

Check them out of the library first! Later, you can decide whether to buy any of the aforementioned books. Enjoy!

Tartarin, I read "The Half Skinned Steer" in an anthology of short stories and enjoyed it. I'm wondering what you thought of that one?

(I LOVED it.)

Thank you all, people, for your comments (and Tartarin especially for the kind offer. This board truly is full of - nice people. Nice is an underrated value, nowadays).

Old Ace and Accordion Crimes seem, from what I gather, to be for some, and not for others ... to be considered relatively weak works but some still loved them. I postponed buying TOA for now ... but the concept really appeals to me, I mean, the topic sounds very interesting. I guess you all agree The Shipping News is pretty much her best work - but somehow, all the times I picked it up and looked at it, I never thought, oy, I gotta read this ... Hmm hm hm. I'll be procrastinating a little while longer.

Anyone read Velocity, the new book of Dave Eggers - author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - yet? I never did read AHWOSG ... but this looks good, too. (Literally, as well .

(Actually ... concerning that "literally" bit ... any of you ever bought a book simply because it lookied so beautiful, the paper, cover, font, lay-out? Or - more strangely, perhaps - not buy a book you were planning to buy, simply cause the actual book was ugly?)

Anyone read or heard of "Brick Lane", by Monica Ali?

Nimh -- Don't know about nice -- some of us are addicted to passing books along. Probably the same people who believe books should not be budgeted for but are so necessary that the fairy godmother (or Visa or Mastercard) should simple PROVIDE them on demand!! It costs a buck and a bit to send a book by "media mail" in the US, and a bit more to send a book overseas. It probably gives the giver more satisfaction than the receiver (depending on the book, of course!).

I don't remember the Proulx short stories, Hazlitt, just reading them while waiting for something and thinking them sub par. I do remember a big snow storm? I'll take a second look...

nimh, did you read "Brick Lane"? I just finished it, really impressed!! The first thing I thought when I finished was, "this is a book written by a grown-up."

Ironically, considering what I posted here back then, I never did read Brick Lane, but I did read Shipping News - and I loved it. Newfoundland, a place I didnt know anything about before, now has a marked, fond and vividly imagined place in my mind.

The only Proulx that I've read is The Shipping News, and I loved it. I also saw the movie, after reading the book, and loved that too. I recommend getting the DVD for the movie and listening to the director and screenwriter's voice-over ~ it explains so well how to make a movie from a book. Offhand, I can't remember the director, but he also directed The Ciderhouse Rules, also a movie from a novel and very well done, imo.

Interesting that you should mention Eggers, nimh. You're the only person that I know, other than myself, who has read A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Tough slogging at times, rofl funny at others, well worth it. I must try and get Velocity.

I love AHWOSG!

When I was about 30 pages into it I got really annoyed because Eggers was writing the book I always wanted to write -- the voice, the digressions, the mix of tones, the "novelistic autobiography" or whatever he called it -- and he did it first and so much better than I could ever hope to. But then I just gave myself over to it, truly masterful.

I read a section from "Velocity" in the New Yorker, I think, and it seemed a bit off, tone-wise -- in AHWOSG he was skating on the edge of being a bit too precious, off-puttingly ironic, but he pulled it off by balancing it with the sheer sincerity and emotion in the stuff with his immediate family. Seems like he didn't quite maintain that balance in "Velocity," which is about just him and a friend.

Bummer that you didn't read "Brick Lane," nimh, maybe I'll start a new thread on it, definitely want to talk about it. (Anyone else here read it?)

Oh I didnt, I didnt, I'm afraid! -> "I never did read AHWOSG"

But I was certainly intrigued by what I read about it, and after your 'testimonial' even more so.

Ooops, sorry -- you didn't read it! But you should, for all the reasons that Sozobe says (waving at soz, who did read it).

I've read a number of books heralded as the new or post-modern literature, literature that breaks the mold, etc., and I find most of it is incomprehensible or utterly boring. AHWOSG is probably the only work that I've read that comes close.

I don't know if anybody is bothering going on these threads anymore but I thought I'd add my tuppence worth anyway.

I had to read Shipping News because it was on my syllabus and at first I found the coldness of the prose to be a real problem. I can't remember how far I was into it before the storyline hooked me but by the end the struggle of the inadequate protagonist to find a way in the world [and to provide some kind of decent life for his daughters] was absolutely mesmerising.

It is worth perservering with.

Maybe I should give The Shipping News another crack.

ehBeth, the book "The Shipping News," was brilliant. The film was forgettable.

I second the thought here that her short story "Brokeback Mountain" was a masterpiece. I read it maybe ten years ago and was brought up short. I thought about it, over and over again, and sent the book of stories to a friend, highlighting that story, and never heard back. Proulx was before her time.

The film was an example of a almost-as-good-as the story. It reminded me of Lonesome Dove, that way. I saw Brokeback three times.