Shaken and Stirred: Intoxicating Stories
Edited by Diana Secker Tesdell
Published by Alfred A Knopf, 2016
Print: $16
Ebook: Unavailable
Shaken and Stirred is an anthology in which every story has something to do with alcohol from authors spanning the last 200 years. All of the usual classic writers are here like Dickens, Poe, Fitzgerald, O. Henry, Cheever, and others. All of them considered members of the Western classic canon. You're not going to find any Stephen King or Danielle Steel in here. As with any compilation of stories, the works in this book range from bad to great. They also vary greatly in mood and tone ranging from comedy to tragedy and everything in between.
I don't know, I'm always kind of suspicious about anthologies with a theme because whatever authors they include, it's because of the subject matter and not based on how good the story is. So these stories are not neccesarily representative of the authors. Some of them I loved and some I couldn't finish. I also didn't understand why there were a couple of novel excerpts in this volume. I totally skipped those because they weren't short stories. Why would I want to read an excerpt from a novel with no context whatsoever just because it has to do with drinking?
As with all the Everyman's Pocket Classics, the print in the book is pretty small. So if you have problems seeing small print, you'll want to steer clear.
I don't really know who this book is targeting. People that like to read drinking stories? It's almost more a "gift book" that you would accompany with a bottle of wine to one of your hipster sophisticate friends on their birthday. And they'll probably just put it on their shelf and never read it.
I guess for what it is, this book works.
My Grade: B
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