Delicate Edible Birds: And Other Stories

I read Monsters of Templeton and loved it.  Lauren Groff can really write.  There is a reason why Monsters of Templeton was on a variety of "must read" lists for 2008 and was short-listed for the Orange Prize for New Writers. 

I wrote on how much I loved the book and her publisher read the post and sent me her next book, Delicate Edible Birds which comes out a the end of January.  So nice of her to send me the book.  This is a book of short stories.  Most of the time, I am not a huge fan of short stories but from the first sentence of each story, I was drawn in. 

The last set of short stories that I read was the Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri which I enjoyed but always felt there was a larger thread among the stories.  So in some cases I felt as I was reading the short story over again just  with a different slant. The stories written by Lauren Groff all stand on their own, all have a different meaning, all have interesting characters and in many ways all are written a bit differently.  Truly impressive.  Writing a short story is in many ways much more difficult than a novel.  You have less time to develop and then end.

Each of these stories stuck with me, some more than others.  The worst part is that I now have to wait for her next book to come out.  I hope she writes quickly.  Impressive writer.