- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Doubleday; First Edition, First Impression edition (1 April 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0385606427
- ISBN-13: 978-0385606424
- Product Dimensions: 17.8 x 12.6 x 3.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 183,084 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Jigs & Reels
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
The quirky tales in Joanne Harris' first collection of short stories, Jigs and Reels, can best be summed up in two words: malevolent and mischievous. As with many of her full-length novels, Harris manages to cleverly combine ordinary--even humdrum--situations and characters with the extraordinary and the unexpected. Tales with a twist indeed.
Harris lets her formidable imagination run riot in Jigs and Reels. This is a rich and wondrous Pandora's box of the odd, the strange, the weird and the downright wicked. Many of her protagonists wreak satisfying revenge on the unsuspecting, in both comical and cringingly gory fashion.
Long enough to get your teeth into, but short enough to read in a flash of the eye, these 22 stories are startlingly different--from pensioners with a penchant for Manolos, to a magical cookbook that bites back; from school reunions with a difference to adventure games taken seriously. And what characters pop out of their slender pages, as large and as deeply rounded as in any novel. Ladies who breakfast at Tesco's, with dark secrets to mull over; limbless swimmers who fall dangerously in love, honeymooners who fall prey to the aphrodisiac qualities of fish, authors whose long-forgotten, half-finished novels come back to haunt them and lottery winners who bet on the ultimate, impossible odds.
In her introduction, Harris says she finds the process of short-story writing slow and difficult and accepts that success is never guaranteed. In truth, not every tale here works, but when it does, it is stunning--and in the spirit of one of her literary heroes, Ray Bradbury--lingers teasingly in the sub-conscious.
Joanne Harris is an anarchic storyteller, delighting in taking her reader by surprise and leaving them reeling. --Carey Green
SUNDAY TIMES
'...tantalising and suggestive, and leave us wanting more’
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is the best thing I've read in years, and I've practically got shares in Amazon!
It's surprised me because I don't usually like short stories. I find them somehow unsatisfying, but having read everything else Joanne Harris has published, I thought I'd give it a go, and I'm delighted I did.
It's surprised me because I don't usually like short stories. I find them somehow unsatisfying, but having read everything else Joanne Harris has published, I thought I'd give it a go, and I'm delighted I did.
Chocolat is in my top 5 books AND films, and I've enjoyed Harris' other books to a lesser degree, but this collection of - often dark - short stories feels like it was written FOR ME somehow. Whether it's fantasy, dark social comment or little windows on the everyday worlds of apparently average people (no such thing in Joanne Harris' world, thank the gods), there isn't a story in this book which fails to bring it's characters to life, and to me seems to be her greatest strength. Many of the themes here are escapist, but the people are real. You've met them at school, work, walking down the street. But Joanne Harris has peered into their lives and found their humanity and it's this that makes the romantic, fantastic themes of her stories so real and gripping.
More please!
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
As far as I'm concerned, Joanne Harris can do no wrong, even in spite of the slight glitch that was "Coastliners". I love short stories, and this collection is like being given a box of your favourite chocolates all to yourself.
I appreciated the introductions to some of the tales as a glimpse into a writer's life, and thought each one was well worth the read, building up into a very attractive collection and one I would thoroughly recommend. Not quite as stunning as "Five Quarters of the Orange" (for me, Harris' best work so far), but well on the way there!
Roll on her next work!
39 of 42 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Having read all of Joanna Harris's books and having enjoyed "Chocolat" to "Three Quarters of the Orange" while despairing at "Coastliners" and "Holy Fools", I ordered "Jigs and Reels" dubiously - and only because I am a great lover of the short story. I was certainly not disappointed this time.
Gone are the cardboard figures meant to be taken seriously and plots verging on the ridiculous. Here there is a collection of remarkably diverse stories - in content as well as style: wry, uproarious, satirical, strange, sad. I found especially effective the portrayal of people declining into old age and the opening story "Faith and Hope Go Shopping" had me hooked.
These are not just twist-in-the tale pieces: each is unique, a little gem, the test being that one wants to read them again, not forget them once any surprise has been reached. They are not comparable, as a collection, to the work of anyone else - and even individual stories which may be reminiscent of Saki or Bradbury or Gordimer or Munro are entirely the new Harris I regard with the highest respect.
However, I have two quibbles: only five of the twenty-two pieces avoid the first-person narrative and the short personal authorial introductions are unnecessary.
Whether you have previously liked Harris's work or not, try this anthology, especially if the short story, such a difficult genre, attracts you.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Good, but not like the description!
I was after a nice, light reed between books when I saw this, and although it was enjoyable, it was nothing like I thought it would be. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Ms. N. Reeder
harris jigs and reels
I am a devouted fan of Joanne Harris, and have read all of her books. I must say this one was enjoyed, but is not my favourite. Read more
Published on 30 Oct 2009 by SuperWomen
Something for everyone
Joanne Harris was not a writer that had ever appealed to me before. However I was handed a copy of this with explicit instructions to start with "Waiting For Gandalf. Read more
Published on 30 Jun 2009 by Andrew Riley
Don't believe the hype
I too love short stories but didn't enjoy this collection anywhere near as much as the author's superb novels 'Chocolat', 'Blackberry Wine', 'Gentlemen and Players', and 'Holy... Read more
Published on 9 May 2009 by Captain Pugwash
Mixed Bag
A very mixed bag of short stories, from very good ones to poor ones. An attempted mix of styles too, so you might be surprised at the content. Read more
Published on 21 Jun 2008 by Mark Dickens
Eccentric, eclectic, in places excellent
As a newcomer to the work of Joanne Harris (with nothing but the film of "Chocolat" to guide me), I was drawn to "Jigs and Reels" as an easy introduction to one of Yorkshire's most... Read more
Published on 17 Feb 2008 by amboline
Jigs and Reels (review by Judy)
I'm a tweelve year old who loves reading and when I read this book it brought another level to it. It's all you want when your reading a book. Read more
Published on 13 Dec 2007 by Judy Burnett
Food for Thought
Joanne Harris has a talent for turning the usual into the unusual as can be seen from this collection of short stories. Read more
Published on 14 Sep 2006 by Elizabeth Coley
short on interest
JH should stick with the Chocolat format... I lost interest after the rather superb five quarters - Coastliners made me yawn and I couldn't get past chapter 4 - rare indeed for me. Read more
Published on 26 Mar 2006
fun
I have read chocolat and although i have all of her books i haven't actually got around to reading them. Read more
Published on 22 Jan 2006 by Ms. N. M. Siberry
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