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Our Story Begins : New and Selected Stories | 
| Author: Tobias Wolff
Creator: Anthony Heald
Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks, Inc.
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $18.87
You Save: $11.08 (37%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 2557772
Media: Audio Cassette
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 10
Pages: 10
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 6.3 x 4.3 x 2.8
ISBN: 1433203979
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781433203978
ASIN: 1433203979
Publication Date: April 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New! UNABRIDGED audiobook on CASSETTE direct from the manufacturer.
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Product Description
A collection of potent new stories that, along with twenty-one classics, displays Wolffs mastery over a quarter century.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...
 Adjectives fail me. July 17, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Each of these stories has the emotional weight of a literary punch in the gut. A punch in the gut that you'll enjoy, and remember. Many of the stories are from prior collections, but there are new stories as well - and the new ones contain just as much power as the older one. I was lucky enough to have this be my introduction to Mr. Wolff, and I am deeply grateful for the opportunity.
Wolff Gold July 17, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Tobias Wolff's latest collection of short stories, written over a period of thirty years, contains twenty-one previously published in book form with ten new stories added. The characters and situations are diverse although a good many stories take place in the snow; as one character says, however-- and I tend to agree with him-- snow is much overrated. I also agree with the writer Edward P. Jones whose definition of a good short story is one that "the world, for even one character, has shifted, whether to a large or a tiny degree." These stories (at least practically all of them) would interest Mr. Jones. In some of them the shift is enormous: a bank customer is shot in the head by a robber; one hunter shoots a friend, a fellow hunter; a young man in an act of definace paints a white picket fence red; a professor, having learned that she has been duped into interviewing for a teaching position that the search committee has already decided on, veers from her canned lecture on the Marshall Plan into an extemporaneous speech about the barbarism of the Iroquois. In others the world moves inside the head of the character. In "Awaiting Orders" a sergeant realizes that he is ashamed to take a woman and her child home with him, not because he has a male lover, but because she will see that he doesn't care for the lover as much as the lover cares for him. "What he feared, what he could not allow, was for her to see how Dixon [his lover] looked at him, and then to see that he coud not give back what he received. That things between them were unequal, and himself unloving." A man at the death watch for his mother no longer knows how to be a son but can be a father.
Mr. Wolff writes about relationships, the "shakiness" of families, young love, betrayal, characters who are down and out although they seldom whine-- in a word often decent people. One of my favorite stories is "The Night in Question," a beautiful moving account of a brother and sister who had an abusive father. The siblings are worlds apart because the brother has gone off the deep end with religion but still so close because of their love for each other. It bears reading again and again.
Wolff's seamless transparent prose is for the most part free of metaphor although older people have "wintry smiles" and a "wide woman" on a bus has flesh under her arms that "swings like hammocks." These stories are not for the lazy reader for they are as subtle and complex as anything Henry James ever wrote although Mr. Wolff certainly is a master of the short story himself.
About "Our story begins" by Tobias Wolff July 12, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"I think that this is a great set of stories and it gives me - from my European point-of-view - a fascinating insight view into the lives of more or less `ordinary' American citizens. And that in a very unorthodox, `alert" style.
So every time I end one of the brilliant stories in this collection I think: "How does Mr Wolff do it, how can he make such masterly stories with the help of such a clean-cut choice of words and terms? And conversations and settings?
But then I give it up; Tim O'Brien is right: this phenomenon cannot be explained. And I? I simply go on reading these great stories."
 Masterful Writing Skills June 21, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Short stories are what I love, so I bought Tobias Wolff's latest collection and read it from cover to cover. (The ragged paper edging and beautiful typeface are something a booklover like myself notices). What I found in the "Note From the Author" at the front of the book surprised me.
Never before have I come across a prominent writer who was publishing new stories and simultaneously re-editing previously published works. Revising already published work struck me as going overboard on perfectionism, and I questioned the appropriateness of tampering with what was already printed for a wide audience.
Personally, I appreciate an artist's early works (with whatever "flaws"). They serve a valuable function by allowing new writers and serious readers the opportunity to follow the growth of a favorite writer. Original works are part of the process of publishing and they should be preserved rather than altered in light of the writer's heightened skills. For most readers this probably makes no difference, but personally, I hope it doesn't become common practice. Sharing that information at the opening of this volume demonstates both respect for readers and admirable ethics.
Wolff has the uncanny ability to slip inside the heads of his characters and weave dialogue, traits, and surroundings that feels so authentic that the reader accepts his fictional beings as real people. The wide range of settings and situations from which his stories spring distinguishes him among modern short story writers. In addition, the sensitivity with which he draws both male and female characters is unique. It is remarkable how he intuits female emotional triggers so accurately. Few writers can portray unsympathetic individuals making poor choices and still keep the reader invested in the outcome like this author does. Proof of Wolff's special talent is that even when protagonists cause heartbreak and disappointment they continue to elicit empathy from the reader. His characters frequently do unexpected things.
"Firelight", "Smorgasbord" and "Powder" are among my favorite stories. Vague endings appear frequently in Wolff's work, particularly in the newer pieces, which I found unsettling. Tobias Wolff is a writer's writer so if you have not read his work yet, definitely put it on your to-do list.
A Collection for the Ages June 14, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Tobias Wolff's newest work is a grand collection of some of his greatest and most unforgettable stories as well as ten new stories that are sure to gain the same status. The first part of the collection, "Selected Stories", contains twenty-one stories gathered from the author's previous short story collections, The Night in Question, Back in the World and In the Garden of North American Martyrs.
These stories touch on a range of subjects, from an aging woman's distaste for saying only what people want her to say in "In the Garden of North American Martyrs", to a child's compulsive need to lie even though he sees what it is doing to his worried mother in "The Liar", to a boy bonding with his father in "Powder". The first section also includes some of Mr. Wolff's widely-studied and anthologized stories such as "Hunters in the Snow" and, perhaps his most well-known story, "Bullet in the Brain".
The entire collection is an eye-opening, thought-provoking and exciting journey for new fans of Mr. Wolff's work, perhaps having read his amazing novel, Old School, or one of his memoirs, In Pharaoh's Army or This Boy's Life, but not his short stories. His new stories; however, are a great draw for readers who already have a strong appreciation for Wolff's works of short fiction.
These new stories include a young man's head-on collision with the experience of the outside world when he works as a wandering farm hand in "That Room", a poignant examination of a man's treatment and appreciation of his late wife through canine eyes in "Her Dog" and the perennial favorite subject of Vietnam veteran Wolff's; a soldier's life with a twist, in "Awaiting Orders".
The growth that any great writer goes through over the course of a twenty-seven year career is shown beautifully throughout this collection. Whether you are a long-time fan of Wolff or a reader who just picks up this book thinking it an interesting read, you are sure not to be disappointed in the powerful stories and complex characters throughout this book that definitely belongs on the list of the best books of 2008.
This and other reviews of literary fiction can be found at [...] All reviews are simultaneously published on Amazon.com.
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