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julie_reads15's review against another edition
3.0
Summary
The Best of the Lifted Brow edited by Ronnie Scott is a collection of some of the best pieces from the first five years of The Lifted Brow magazine.
The Lifted Brow is an Australian literary magazine published quarterly.
The book includes a mix of fiction and nonfiction, such as personal essays and short stories. The pieces have various themes and styles, from humour to romance.
Contributors include Australian authors such as Benjamin Law and Alice Pung, and international authors such as Heidi Julavits and David Foster Wallace.
Each piece has a distinct voice, and the language is polished and unique.
Review
Some pieces I loved, some I enjoyed and some I found hard to like, which made it difficult to give the book an overall rating.
My favourite piece was America written by Sam Cooney. He drove around America with his ex-girlfriend and they parked their van in Various Walmarts overnight. He educates the reader about Walmart in a creative way. I loved the writing style, reading about his adventures around America, and learning about Walmart in an interesting way.
I also enjoyed a number of other pieces.
Reports From the Streets of Brisbane written Michaela McGuire reports interesting stories from her job at a casino, The Santosbrazzi Killer written Heidi Julavits incorporates both dark humour and office life, and More Women of Mystery written by David Handler and illustrated by Lisa Brown is a collection of portraits and descriptions of interesting women.
I love how each piece is creative, distinct and polished. Even if I didn't like the topic of each piece, I admired the writing. Each author has a unique voice and skilful writing.
I recommend this book for anyone who's 15 years and older and is interested in reading The Lifted Brow or short well written pieces.
The Best of the Lifted Brow edited by Ronnie Scott is a collection of some of the best pieces from the first five years of The Lifted Brow magazine.
The Lifted Brow is an Australian literary magazine published quarterly.
The book includes a mix of fiction and nonfiction, such as personal essays and short stories. The pieces have various themes and styles, from humour to romance.
Contributors include Australian authors such as Benjamin Law and Alice Pung, and international authors such as Heidi Julavits and David Foster Wallace.
Each piece has a distinct voice, and the language is polished and unique.
Review
Some pieces I loved, some I enjoyed and some I found hard to like, which made it difficult to give the book an overall rating.
My favourite piece was America written by Sam Cooney. He drove around America with his ex-girlfriend and they parked their van in Various Walmarts overnight. He educates the reader about Walmart in a creative way. I loved the writing style, reading about his adventures around America, and learning about Walmart in an interesting way.
I also enjoyed a number of other pieces.
Reports From the Streets of Brisbane written Michaela McGuire reports interesting stories from her job at a casino, The Santosbrazzi Killer written Heidi Julavits incorporates both dark humour and office life, and More Women of Mystery written by David Handler and illustrated by Lisa Brown is a collection of portraits and descriptions of interesting women.
I love how each piece is creative, distinct and polished. Even if I didn't like the topic of each piece, I admired the writing. Each author has a unique voice and skilful writing.
I recommend this book for anyone who's 15 years and older and is interested in reading The Lifted Brow or short well written pieces.
eri_123's review
4.0
Collections of short stories don't tend to sit right with me because I like to binge-read, and reading several short stories in a row (as opposed to binging on a novel) makes me feel like I'm not actually giving myself time to appreciate each story. But I want to read more than one at a time because one is just not enough! Thus, conflict.
This collection contains stories of great quality. Some were funny or incisive non-fiction and some were brilliant fiction. Writing short stories is an art, a different art to longer-form stories. I can see how the short story form has amazing value (and the ones in this collection are great, if so sprawling in nature as to be disjointed), but my finicky habits restrict me from enjoying collections like these regularly.
This collection contains stories of great quality. Some were funny or incisive non-fiction and some were brilliant fiction. Writing short stories is an art, a different art to longer-form stories. I can see how the short story form has amazing value (and the ones in this collection are great, if so sprawling in nature as to be disjointed), but my finicky habits restrict me from enjoying collections like these regularly.
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