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This short story collection has been sitting on my kindle for WAY too long. I loved it so much - the style and the small, precise observation of small dark details and working class lives.

Tomorrow I‘m getting up at godawful o‘clock to fly to Oslo for my first solo holiday 😬 (it‘s not technically my first but the actual first got ruined by being sick, so this one is going to count). I am excited but I‘m also very nervous. Traveling on my own will probably be super fun but I‘m a bit nervous about how to fill the time on my own and manage everything! I‘m pleased I‘ve got #scarathlon2022 games and activities to keep my brain occupied

I hadn't read short stories for so long that I had to get used to them again.
What I liked the most was the author"s ability to bring all the character to life.

Very good but very dark.

I loved Lucia Berlin‘s writing.

This sharply written short story collection shook every one of my senses. It‘s funny, gritty & haunting. Some stories were tough to get through, especially those about incarceration, addiction & abuse. But Lucia‘s gripping writing style kept pulling me back in. This manual reads almost like a memoir. But as Lucia‘s son revealed, “Ma wrote true stories, not necessarily autobiographical, but close enough for horseshoes.” 😉
#ReadingwithMaja
@maich

I sometimes grow weary of contemporary writerly advise that says language must be stripped to the bone to be any good, but when it's done well - and I can't think of anyone who does it better than Lucia Berlin - the results are undeniable. This is the funniest, most moving short-story collection I've ever read, all the more cutting for how spare it is, trusting in the power of its images without the need for embellishment. A true masterpiece!

Our mother wondered what chairs would look like if our knees bent the other way. What if Christ had been electrocuted? Instead of crosses on chains, everybody'd be running around wearing chairs around their necks.

The last one had been Hannah. The (support) group convinced her to go to Weight Watchers, to Rancho del Sol spa, take bossa nova lessons and then to get liposuction and a face-lift. She looked wonderful but was in two new groups now. One for women who had face-lifts but were still depressed and another for "Women Who Love Too Much." Ruth sighed, "Hannah's always been the kind of woman who has affairs with stevedores."

We arrived at the Sheraton at four thirty. The dining room was closed. What to do? He had parked the car. We went into a Denny's next door.

"Denny's is where one ends up," I said.

?

The Campus laundry has a sign, like most laundries do, POSITIVELY NO DYEING. I drove all over town with a green bedspread until I came to Angel's with his yellow sign, YOU CAN DIE HERE ANY TIME.

🤣

Yes, hype on this collection was ⬆️ & yes, the stories live up. Written 1960s-80s, 40 or so confessional, smart, funny, compassionate short stories on motherhood, sisterhood, work, travel, alcoholism, marriage, sex, laundromats. Breezy, easy tone belies the depth of CRAFT. Yes, subjects sometimes repetitive (often drawn from her own life) but who cares when they are this good. Like dip into perfect diary. “My Jockey”= single-page masterpiece. 2016

#fridayfunwith451 @451Degrees

If I'm honest, I suppose my own book 🙂 (Memoir of a Doomsday Prophet, scheduled for publication in April 2021).

As far as reading, I rarely read anything immediately after it's published. I recently bought A Manual for Cleaning Women, by Lucia Berlin, and We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin, so I suppose those.

Raw, honest, real, unapologetic short stories echoing the author's real life; no wonder her work has at times been referred to as autofiction and metafiction. The author is such an admirable observer of her inner life

I signed up for Chirp‘s newsletter ages ago, but never bought anything. Tonight though I finally spent time exploring the site and bought the tagged book as well as My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me by Jason B. Rosenthal.

A collection of Berlin‘s 40+ short stories. They are mostly about girls/ women, many faces alcoholic problems in close relations, many work as nurses, and most are set in El Paso.

From what I read in the introduction and forward, Berlin wrote about what she knew and her stories are autobiographical.

I bought this book back in 2016 when everyone was talking about and after having read it I‘m sorry it took me so long to read it

#BookReport

📚 Read short stories from A Manual
📚 Finished S&S
📚 Finished The Drowning
📚 Read and finished everything else pictured

🎧 Did some hours of the seventh Department Q book

From the short story “Dear Conchi”

There‘s hardly any references to authors in this short story collection. So to have a Austen reference at the same time that I‘m reading her is funny.

#BookReport

I‘ve finished all of the books on the left and Good Talk (already returned to the library)

The tagged book, S&S, Convenience Store Women and The Hanging Girl, are all still in progress.

Except for Good Talk and Actress, all were read over the weekend for #CYOReadathon
I didn‘t read as much this weekend as I hope to, I got distracted by the last episodes of Miss Fischer series and film, and the Normal People series

Today‘s mood. Staying positive and focusing on positive moments like reading in bed with a delicious cup of coffee.

Tu cuerpo desaparece, por la ingradivez, pero al mismo tiempo tomas profunda conciencia de él.

Cuando fallecen tus padres has de afrontar tu propio final.
-Ah, entiendo lo q quieres decir... Entonces ya no queda nadie para protegerte de la muerte.

What a great collection of stories! It's obvious in discovering this collection that Lucia Berlin was a very talented writer. Her stories about everyday life, inspired by her own life and experiences, are engaging. What is captivating is not really the subject of the short stories, but how they are told. There is a certain rhythm, a total honesty, and some humor in this book. While reading it, I also felt compassion transpiring from the writing.

So far this is a great read. Nice little short stories that really make you contemplate daily life and the daily struggles. It puts beauty in the mundane.

#GratefulReads Day 22: A new #FavoriteAuthor. She has transformed each of her mundane experiences into tiny fables, distilled sketches of people whom the reader would love to meet. They are portraits of vulnerability but always with admirable dignity even with the degradation of addiction. Lucia has birthed her tragedy in the mud, she lies in it, covered in muck, but still with glowing eyes, iridescent, beautiful. My review https://wp.me/pDlzr-kqY

This may be the single best collection of short stories I have ever read. Berlin is raw in her honestly, stark in her truth, and tender in her treatment of brutal situations. She never turns away, or sugar coats things, even if the result of this decision is that it may not always paint a flattering picture of her protagonist/self. And yet she does all of this without ever being bitter. Truly amazing. I am in awe of her talent and humbleness.

Easily the best collection of short stories I have encountered since I first discovered Dorothy Parker in my twenties.

Tagged book is my current read.

Vivid, mundane, extraordinary. I am loving this collection of short stories surfaced from Berlin‘s inner life. It is good that our library has 3 physical copies of the book - returned the one I had (because due date is up), & borrowed the other identical title I scoured from the shelves. I am delightfully discovering so many outstanding female authors, thanks to our #WomenReadWomen2019 reading theme. Millefeuille pancakes, too, for Mother‘s Day!

Perfection in writing I think, the way Lucia Berlin arranged the short stories in this book. Each sentence is beautiful in its own. So much so that it at times distracted me from reading the stories as a whole.
Together they tell the lives of ordinary women who have lived the hard life.
A book to read very slowly - which I didn‘t have the patience for, so I may have to read them again one day.

#ReadingUSA2019 #NewMexico
(Pic: Girona, Spain)

What Fridays should (more or less) look like. How‘s your Friday shaping up? #WomenReadWomen2019

#SpringIntoReading Day 7: What my #SelfCareSunday looks like, alongside an unexpected library find.

Lucia Berlin‘s stories have a slice-of-life quality that feels compelling in its tedium.

Up next.

I've never heard this thought articulated before but it rings so true. Going to be thinking about this one for days.

I‘m not a huge short story fan so perhaps that colored my feelings here but while the writing is well done, it felt repetitious. Full review at http://booknaround.blogspot.com/2018/08/review-manual-for-cleaning-women-by.html

Finished this last night. I highly recommend it, especially if you like your short stories gritty and your characters downtrodden—even more so than Raymond Carver‘s.

Seventh grade, my first dance. My mom made me a dress of lavender dotted Swiss, which I had totally forgotten about until I read this.
I am finding Lucia Berlin to be an amazing writer, even though short stories aren‘t usually my thing.

This book is not included in the Litsy database yet - it's the brand new Lucia Berlin short story collection with 22 additional texts, out in November. Funny and sad, authentic and imagined - I wish the author was still alive to witness her success! #LuciaBerlin #EveningInParadise #Netgalley #arc #fsgbooks

Boyfriend and I had plans to go to yoga. Ended up eating a whole loaf of bread filled with passion fruit and creams cheese, putting pjs and reading in bed.

This is how I am finishing my Sunday afternoon

My plan for tonight.

There are good suicides. Good reasons. Many times like terminal illness, pain. But I‘m more impressed with good technique. Bullets through the brain. Properly slashed wrists. Decent barbiturates. Such people, even if they don‘t succeed, seem to emanate a peace, a strength, which may have some from making a thoughtful decision. It‘s the repeats that get to me. The forty penicillin capsules....

WCW goes out to Lucia Berlin, whose collection of short stories is both riveting and witty. #writercrushwednesday #wcw | https://buff.ly/2J2vosZ

Mrs. Armitage had been different, although she was old too. That was in NYC at the San Juan Laundry on 15th St...I was a young mother then and washed diapers on Thursdays. She lived above me. One morning at the laundry she gave me a key and I took it. She said that if I didn‘t see her on Thursdays it meant she was dead and would I please go find her body. That was a terrible thing to ask of someone; also then I had to do my laundry on Thursdays.