By: Sherwood Anderson
Published: 1919
Audiobook Read by: George Guidall
My rating: Interesting
I decided to listen to this book for two reasons. First, when I listened to The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, Ray gave credit to this book as being part of his inspiration. Second, I live just fifteen minutes from the real town of Winesburg, Ohio in the heart of Amish Country. I was slightly disappointed to discover it was not about our Winesburg but was about a fictitious town that Sherwood just happened to call Winesburg. Oh well. :(
It seems that George Willard is destined to learn the strangest things about the people in his little town. As a journalist for the local newspaper, people seem eager to tell him their stories. We learn all kinds of things about the townsfolk, some of it quite interesting, some of it rather odd or even bizarre! We also learn quite a lot about George himself and get to see snapshots of him as he grows up, matures, and finally becomes a man, ready to face the wide, wide world.
This was kind of an odd book for me. I liked some of the stories but others were kind of out there. The quality of the writing is very good and I followed along quite well but now and then I found myself wondering what the point was! The picture of life in the late 1800s - early 1900s was quite interesting and as always when I listen to a book from this era I found myself wishing to live back then!
I listened to the audiobook read by George Guidall. It was a complete coincidence that he was also the one to do the last book I listened to but I was far from crestfallen! Like I said then, he has become my favorite narrator! He has a wonderful voice and is so expressive that I feel like I'm right there in the story itself!
Overall, this is an interesting book but not one I would rush out to get. If you like little "slice of life" stories, this collection might be of interest.
I have always wondered about this book. I didn't know it was a series of stories. I should be able to find it at the library. I have had some trouble finding a few of your reviewed books there. At least with this one, if you don't like a story, you can jump around.
ReplyDeleteThe only real ongoing theme in the book is that most of the stories involve George in some way but you could easily skip around and not be getting confused.
ReplyDeleteOur library will bring in books from any of the libraries in our network so, for the most part, I can find just about anything. I can go on their website and search all of the libraries and request whatever I want! It's great! I normally have anywhere from 10 to 30 items on hold since quite often I have to wait my turn for more popular titles. I'm sure you'll be able to find some good books though, it's a library, they're bound to have some! :)