Teeming with life, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is a collection that explores what it is to be human. Never neatly resolved, these provocative and unforgettable stories resonate with honesty and wry humour and introduce us to a major new talent.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. Learn more. |
Book Description
Product details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Product Description
Review
"A dazzler of a debut...Packer's words sing and soar; her characters take possession of the narrative and pull the reader in. She can be exhilarating, hilarious and heartbreaking." Daily Mail; "I don't think I can remember where I last encountered a debut collection that so justified its existence, that buzzed with so much credibility and attitude... Here is a master at work." Julie Myerson, Guardian; "The kind of brilliance for narrative that should make her peers envious and her readers very, very grateful." Zadie Smith; "A writer to be reckoned with...her tales crackle with electric; energy...simultaneously slangy, elegant and graceful, this collection is seriously good." Eithne Farry, Elle; "Believe the Hype." Uncut"
About the Author
ZZ Packer is a recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award and was selected for the New Yorker's summer fiction debut issue in 2002. She was named one of Granta's Best of Young American Novelists in 2007, and her collection of stories, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, was a New York Times Notable Book and the winner of a Commonwealth Club Fiction award. A graduate of Yale, she has been a Wallace Stegner-Truman Capote fellow and a Jones lecturer at Stanford University. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, Harpers, the New York Times Magazine, the New York Times Book Review and Salon. She lives in the San Francisco Bay area.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
By Is
Format:Hardcover
It's no surprise that they have got a Zadie Smith quote at the back of this book - ZZ Packer (cool name or what!) hasn't just got zeds in her name, she's also a young, black woman who has graduated from an elite university. But that's about it when it comes to similarities between the two of them. ZZ Packer writes tense little stories about people on the outskirts, and she's got that gift of making you believe in everything she tells you. I caught myself thinking "this must be autobiographical" during most of the stories - which is of course impossible, unless ZZ has been reincarnated as a whole bunch of people.
Normally, I wouldn't read short stories, but this book has made me change my mind. The different stories form a whole - they transmit an atmosphere of run-down West Coast US cities that is so real, it almost plays like a film.
The language is mostly straight-forward - she doesn't do all those sorts of twists and gimmicks that Dave Eggers or Jonathan Safran Foer or Zadie Smith (sorry, her again) play around with. It's far from being boring though: every so often, the language is shot through with spot-on metaphors or vivid imagery. The mini-storylines don't have a really clear structure and still they keep your interest throughout, which I thought was brilliant. I mean, life doesn't really have a clear-cut structure, does it? So why should stories about life do? The fact that ZZ doesn't hammer in her point makes it only more effective - you know, understatement rather than hyperbole.
The first story, about a girl-scout camp, is probably the most conventional one in the book. Highlights for me were Our Lady of the Peace (a young woman trying to teach in a inner-city school), Geese (down and out in Tokyo), Speaking in Tongues (a religious small-town girl goes to Atlanta in search of her drug-addict mum) and... OK, better stop before I mention them all.
What can I say? Read this book, just do, it's a great experience. Oh, I almost forgot, here's my little joke: ZZ won't give you the zeds. Hehe.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By Mr. S. N. Barton
VINE™ VOICE
Format:Paperback
These are a collection of wonderful and unpretentious stories. They are so lucid, and don't ooze with metaphors and similes like other novels, but are embellished by them, seamlessly woven in by this fantastic energetic new writer. This is one of those few books that defies genre, not in its obtuseness but in its simplicity, it seems that writers are learning to just tell good, clever stories again
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I had heard/read nothing but good things about this book and so, inevitably, expected to be let down. It would be too hard for it to match up to the glowing praise it had received.
But, no, it is superb. Brilliant. I read the first fifty pages after opening it to read the acknowledgements... didn't even notice I was turning pages. It sucked me in from the start. It is incredibly easy to read - not due to simplicity but due to the writer's unforced facility with language.
I hope ZZ writes more. Much more.
But, no, it is superb. Brilliant. I read the first fifty pages after opening it to read the acknowledgements... didn't even notice I was turning pages. It sucked me in from the start. It is incredibly easy to read - not due to simplicity but due to the writer's unforced facility with language.
I hope ZZ writes more. Much more.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
›
Go to Amazon.com to see all 68 reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great writing
These stories are longer than I like and their subject matter isn't of great interest to me. But this lady can write and that's what really matters. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Cardiff Reader
5.0 out of 5 stars
a fine collection of short stories reflecting black American life
In this collection of short stories ZZ Packer presents black American characters on the whole uneasy with notions of solidarity, of race or otherwise. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Mr. Robert Marsland
4.0 out of 5 stars
brilliant
Brilliant collection of stories very interetsing and exciting, funny and insightful, each story is different and some better than others. Read more
Published on 28 July 2009 by dreamer
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exciting stories
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is one of my personal favorites. Its exploration of the characters, fascinating plot and smooth flow make for an excellent read, which is why I recommend... Read more
Published on 9 Mar 2006 by Mikhail
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
