I just can't connect to these stories.

Review to come.

Audiobook Comments
Read by the author - love it when this happens!!


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This is a short story collection selected by David Sedaris and introduced by him also. There are five stories. Each interested or intrigued me and appeared quite different.

The first is: Where the Door is Always Open and the Welcome Mat is Out by Patricia Highsmith and ready by Cherry Jones. This story seemed to be about the relationship between sisters. One sister, presumably the younger one as she seems a bit tentative about her sibling's impending visit and possible judgment and becomes very aware of the shortcomings of her home environment.

She is overcome with remorse when she discovers that through her neglect her "geranium was nothing but a crooked dry stalk in its pot now at the extreme left of the windowsill where the sun lingered longest." And she goes on to ask herself, "Why was she always rushing so? She forgot all about doing the nice things, all the little things that gave her real pleasure."

The second story is: Bullet in the Brain by Tobias Wolff and read by Toby Wherry and appears to be about the initial event and then the aftermath of how a man receives a bullet in the brain.

"The bullet is already in the brain, it won't be outrun forever or charmed to a halt. In the end it will do its work and leave the troubled skull behind dragging its comets tail of memory and hope and talent and love into the marble hall of commerce."

The third story is: Gryphon by Charles Baxter and read by David Sedaris and is about a rather unusual substitute teacher who introduces substitute facts to a class of students. I learned a new word: fossicking, which means burrowing.

The fourth story is: In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried by Amy Hemple and read by Sarah-Louise Parker. The themes are grief, death and sign language.

"What seems dangerous often is not, black snakes for example or clear air turbulence. While things that just lie there like this beach are overloaded with jeopardy."

The fifth story is: Cosmopolitan by Akhil Sharma and is read by him also. The themes appear to be longing, love and loneliness.

"The station wagon was so old that the odometer had gone all the way around like me he thought and like Helen too. This is who we are he thought, dusty, corroded, and dented from our voyages with our unflagging hearts rattling on the inside."

They put David Sedaris's name all over this thing. It wasn't until after I had checked it out that I realized it was not just Sedaris and it was not his usual non-fiction storytelling. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is kind of like that feeling when you pick up a glass expecting it to be full and it is actually empty; a bit disorienting at first, but I eventually realized what I was dealing with and settled in.

The stories were okay. Basically just low motivation, day to day kind of stuff. A bit artsy at points. One of them was a little hard to follow. I can sum it up not by saying that they were great short stories, or that they were bad short stories, they were just short stories - nothing more, nothing less.

Do I recommend it? If you are doing a book challenge and you need to fill a short story quota, this is perfect (and not too long overall if you are not a big short story fan). If you are here reading this review because you are a Sedaris fan, definitely know that this is not typical Sedaris - his name prominently displayed on the cover is pure marketing strategy.

A challenging collection of short stories selected by David Sedaris. It may defy expectations, if one expects light humour or satire. There are some classics in here, such as "The Garden Party" (Katherine Mansfield) as well as new writers I had not previously encountered. The Alice Munro story, "Half A Grapefruit" I had recently read in the original collection, but somehow it read differently in this volume.

One or two of these pieces I basically skimmed/skipped — but let's not get into that.

Any good strong collection will hit you different ways, from different angles, and strike you in a manner you did not expect. What I learned here is that David Sedaris as an editor leans surprisingly dark — in a good way.

I'm not a regular reader of fiction, but when I find an author I enjoy, I tend to read the entire collection of his/her work. I love David Sedaris's humor and writing, so purchased this along with several of his other books. When I learned that this was "just" a collection of his favorite short stories instead of his own words, I was disappointed. That feeling of disappointment continued through about half of the stories in Hercules, some of which I had to force myself to finish, and one of which I just couldn't. There are some strong favorites here, though, by authors I will learn more about.

"Interpreter of Maladies" was wonderful.

"Where the Door Is Always Open and the Welcome Mat Is Out" appealed to me.

"People Like That Are the Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk" was exceptionally moving.

"Irish Girl" connected with me for reasons I don't understand.

"The Girl with the Blackened Eye" was horrifying and riveting.

"Bullet in the Brain" was a near-Sedaris ending to the collection that I morbidly enjoyed quite a bit.

But the book is an uneven as you'd expect such a collection of random stories and authors to be, and I can't say that I truly enjoyed picking it up every day.

A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to see David Sedaris speak at UCLA. In my haste to make sure that I had read all of Sedaris' books, I bought " Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules" on my Kindle. It turns out, that this a collection of Sedaris' favorite short stories and he edited the compilation.

I am not the slightest bit disappointed that this wasn't a collection of Sedaris stories, because the selections he picked are fantastic. In fact, this is probably the best collection of short stories that I have ever encountered. Not a bad one in the bunch. Most of them are really depressing and downright hard to read. In particular, "In The Cemetery Where Al Jolsen in Buried" by Amy Hempel and "People Like That are the Only People Here" by Lorrie Moore. Both stories deal with different aspects of cancer and both are honest and heartbreaking.

I think the only story that I had previously read, was Jhumpa Lahiri's "Interpreter of Maladies." It's such a well crafted story, that I really enjoyed a second read of it. Really, this is an outstanding short story collection and I cannot praise it enough. Read it!!!

I made the assumption that David Sedaris wrote these stories. While reading this story, I kept thinking something is wrong. This doesn't feel like David. It turns out that David Sedaris is the editior of all these other short stories. They are stories that he leaves.

I didn't laugh at these. They are more drama stories. They weren't bad stories, but they were not very memorable. They are simply stories. I much prefer David's stories. I'm a little disappointed in this one. Oh well.

The stories in the collection include and written by:

Introduction by David Sedaris
Oh, Joseph, I'm So Tired by Richard Yates
Gryphon by Charles Baxter
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield
Half A Grapefruit by Alice Munro
Applause, Applause by Jean Thompson
I Know What I'm Doing About All the Attention I've Been Getting by Frank Gannon
Where the Door Is Always Open and the Welcome Mat Is Out by Patricia Highsmith
The Best of Betty by Jincy Willett
Song of the Shirt, 1941 by Dorothy Parker
The Girl with the Blackened Eye by Joyce Carol Oates
People Like That Are the Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk by Lorrie Moore
Revelation by Flannery O'Connor
In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried by Amy Hempel
Cosmopolitan by Akhil Sharma
Irish Girl by Tim Johnston
Bullet in the Brain by Tobias Wolff
Epilogue by Sarah Vowell

A really fabulous collection of stories from masters of the craft; Hempel, Baxter and Wolff's are my favorite. The audio version is extremely well done - Sedaris reading "Gryphon" was the best of the bunch. Highly recommended.

As a big fan of David Sedaris, let me just say that I am very very glad he has not been able to better emulate his writing heroes. Because for a very talented storyteller, the man has appalling taste in stories.

Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a Sedaris-edited short story collection. Sedaris makes clear in the book's introduction that these are stories by authors he particularly loves, and that he aims to be as great as he thinks they are. Oh dear.

The version I listened to is abridged--quite abridged, actually. It only contains five of the 17 stories included in the print version. The first story, Patricia Highsmith's "Where the Door Is Always Open and the Welcome Mat Is Out" (read by Cherry Jones) is one of the dullest 45 minutes I have ever spent. A plodding account of a neurotic middle-aged woman preparing for a a visit from her judgmental sister, the story seems to be intended to be farcical, but it's just. not. funny. I ended up with no feeling for either of the two characters, no laughs, no thoughts, and mainly amazing relief when it was finally over.

On the other end of the book is "Cosmopolitan," by Akhil Sharma (read by the author), and it similarly dragged and irritated me. It's the story of a newly separated Indian-American man who falls in love with his neighbor, and again I felt nothing but distaste for the characters and there wasn't actually any plot with which to get involved. Bah.

The only high point of the audio collection was Mary-Louise Parker's reading of Amy Hempel's "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried." A brief interlude into the life of a young woman watching her best friend die, the story is well-written and completely heartbreaking, and Parker's reading is excellent (better, even, than the reading Sedaris himself does of a silly story about a substitute teacher, "Gryphon," by Charles Baxter).

I like David Sedaris. I like short stories, especially in audio format. I was really, really excited about this little collection. So it's difficult to admit how much it sucked, but it really, really did. The print version may well be better (though it really seems to me that short stories are meant to be read aloud), as it includes some stories I know are of higher quality, including "The Girl with the Blackened Eye" by Joyce Carol Oates and "Revelation" by Flannery O'Connor, as well as an afterward by Sarah Vowell. However, I was so put off by this sampling I probably won't pick it up to see.

I am very happy that I borrowed this book.
Although the proceeds go to 826nyc, and that is good, the book itself is a waste of time.
The stories within are either ones I have read many times before (i.e."Revelation" Flannery O'Connor*) or are stories that made my eyes contort from boredom (i.e. "The Garden Party" Katherine Mansfield).
Sarah Vowell's epilogue explaining 826nyc is so poorly constructed I closed the book after 3 sentences.


*I really like O'Connor, but I was hoping for authors who are more obscure. Authors I wasn't forced to read as a student.

Don't get freaked out when you see two stars next to David Sedaris' name...he didn't write the book, he just edited it. But, that's why I was so surprised. It's an interesting collection and not at all what you might assume Sedaris would pick as his favorite short stories. Actually, a lot of them were about death, so not his usual fun topics like midget guitar teachers or christmas whores. But death, or almost dying. So yeah, this is actually a pretty morbid collection of stories. If I could individually star them I would give 5 stars to two of the stories: "Interpreter of Maladies" by Jhumpa Lahiri and "Gryphon" by Charles Baxter. Read those two.
Oh, but despite the two stars you should buy it because it supports 826NYC.

I gave this book to a friend for her birthday a few years ago and she mentioned that while she loved the book, it was proving to be life threatening. She was reading while walking, while eating, while riding her bike...it was an accident waiting to happen.

The thing about this collection of short stories (chosen, not authored, by David Sedaris) is that every time I finished a story I would think, "Oh definitely. That is my favorite short story EVER." Then, I would read the next story and find that I had fallen hopelessly in love with a completely different short story.

My absolute, top of the line favorites? "The Girl with the Blackened Eye" had me sobbing. The narrator uses a casual tone to discuss a traumatic event from her childhood. The story is chilling, honest, and surprising. Every time I finish this story, I end up thinking about it for weeks afterward.

In "Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk..." Lorrie Moore crafts a humorous and heartbreaking story about a woman whose child has a tumor. I know, hilarious right? Lorrie Moore managed to make me laugh and cry, multiple times.

"Bullet in the Brain" by Tobias Wolff is a very short and beautiful story about a book critic in a bank hold up. I can't say anything else about why I love this story without spoiling it. Sorry.

"In the Cemetery Where Al Jolsen is Buried" by Amy Hempel makes me cry a lot too. It's another funny and heartbreaking story about dying (Am I a little obsessesed? Maybe. So?) and is told from the perspective of the best friend. Sad pants, people. Sad pants.

I could easily talk about why I love (or have a mad crush on) all of these stories, but I will just let you read it yourself.

Plus, a portion of the money raised from the sales of this book benefits 826, which is a non-profit writing center that helps students in cities all across this great nation.