Engaging, intimate, and just a bit unusual. A recommended purchase for collections where memoirs and short story collections are popular.

Really enjoyed this overall and would love to see a second installment of it as it’s a very original idea!

Knocked a star off as I feel some of the letters didn’t fit into the section the editor placed them

Each letter is an essay from different pout a view. A great read to piece meal through a point of time. I found myself reading throughout the month.

Conceptually, Letter to a Stranger is an interesting collection. Colleen Kinder put out a call to writers to think about a stranger that touched their lives in a seemingly small way. Each letter, written in the first person, touches on the ripple effect that an action can have, even if indirectly related to someone's life. Each encounter is deeply personal to the writer who experienced it, and I think that's part of what makes this collection so excellent as well as difficult to relate to as a reader. Some of these essays really touched me; others, I couldn't wait to be done with. Some are short, some are longer, and it was the longer ones that I appreciated more as we got to really delve into the psyche of the person writing them.

With 70 total essays, there is a lot of jumping around, both in topic and in geographic locale. As a reader, I wish that I hadn't tried to read this straight through as one would do with a novel. Instead, I think the format is more successful when you dip in and out of it, reading a couple of letters.

Even if this wasn't my favorite collection, it did make me think about the effect that strangers have had on my life.

Letter to a Stranger is a terrific collection of poignant essays by writers "to the ones who haunt us," arranged according to broad and intriguing themes.

I think everyone can recall an encounter in which a stranger saves us, inspires us, frightens, intrigues or baffles us. That may in part be what makes these pieces so relatable, even though they cover the whole planet and situations we ourselves may never have personally faced.

There is great intimacy in these essays, which all contain the deep insights into human nature that only the most brilliant writers can portray and which in turn show us a piece of ourselves.

I relished the individual selections and the overall arc of this book, and imagine I will regularly open it again and again at random, to re-read the journeys, be reminded of others' experiences, and gain a new appreciation for theirs and my own.

I will be featuring this book in a longer essay in my BookLove Letter newsletter.

What a fascinating project! The form and content of the letters are perhaps as diverse as the origins of the letters themselves. Yet, at the same time, there are common themes and a universality running through all of them. All themes are ideas the reader can relate to, and all trigger an emotion. The form of the book itself triggers an emotion. Throughout this book, as I read letter after letter, strangers who touched my life come to mind.

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2022/04/letter-to-stranger.html

Reviewed for NetGalley and a publisher’s blog tour.

Thank you to Algonquin Books for the advanced digital copy of this book and the finished print copy in exchange for an honest review.

We all have the people that haunt us. The strangers that appear when you least expect them, sometimes even at the best or worst possible time. You may or may not know their names, you probably know absolutely nothing about them or their lives, but you'll never forget them. They're like an earworm, or a random scent, you see or do something & it immediately brings their face to mind.

And maybe they helped you & you didn't get to thank them, maybe they saw you in distress, maybe they were just there.

So what would you say to them now that you didn't get to? What would you tell them, what would you ask?

That's what Colleen Kinder has pulled together here - essays from all over the world of people finally putting pen to paper on what these strangers meant to them & their lives.

I'd write a letter to the waiter at a Madrid cafe that saw me eating alone and treated me like a local even though it was actually the first time I was eating alone in a foreign country; I'd write a letter to the guy I met at a rooftop party and talked to all night but never saw again; I'd write a letter to the older woman in the Philadelphia airport that helped me find the train into the city & rode with me the whole way the first time I ever traveled by myself; I'd write a letter to the homeless man in Munich that let me love on his dog as we carried out a garbled conversation in English & German.

I could keep going. You never really realize how many times strangers become part of your life.

While reading this book, I kept asking myself, is there a stranger I’ve met in my life that’s stuck with me so much I’d write them a letter. For me, the answer is no, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.

Some of the letters in this book were really meaningful and powerfully written. I liked how the book was written in sections titled symmetry, chemistry, mystery, gratitude, wonder, remorse, and farewell. It was interesting to see who these authors wrote to and why.

For me, I found it easier to read a few letters a day rather than all of them at once. Epistolary novels can be a struggle for me so this was the best way for me to be able to focus on each letter.

Thank you to NetGalley and Algonquin Books for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

Have you ever met a stranger that somehow had an unexpected impact on your life? Even a momentary connection with a person can reveal parts of yourself that you were unaware of or that can help you appreciate aspects of your life you didn’t previously take note of. These unforeseen interactions can be meaningful, magical, or even mundane – but they can indeed leave an indelible mark.

Colleen Kinder decided to offer this assignment to her fellow writers: write a letter to a stranger who haunts you. What came back were 65 letters that run the gamut of emotions – from heartfelt and humorous to intriguing and mysterious. Every writer chose an interesting moment in their lives when they were touched by the actions of a stranger (most of whom were in and out of their lives after a short period of time). My favorite part is that these stories came from all over the world – ranging from small towns in the US to Costa Rica to Antarctica.

At the beginning of this collection, I was completely drawn into the stories and it got me thinking about my own experiences with strangers who have had an impact on me. Memories were evoked and I felt drawn in by the nature and wonder of human connection (something I don’t often spend a great deal of time thinking about). But something happened about halfway through the book for me – I began to feel bogged down by the stories and a tad bored (since some of them do bring up the same types of people/experiences). I think the only way to avoid this fatigue would have been to make the collection shorter. Although the book would have had fewer stories, I think a more curated selection of only the most powerful letters would have been more beneficial to the reader.

I would definitely read collections like this in the future because I think the idea for it was super original. But I might be more selective about which ones get my full attention.

Book Review: To A Stranger: Essays To The Ones That Haunt Us edited by Colleen Kinder

When Walt Whitman wrote the poem To A Stranger over 160 years ago he examined the connection between people who are previously unknown to each other. This collection of essays takes it one step further and asks sixty-five writers to create a letter to a stranger from their past. Each essay is unique and authentic and leaves the reader wondering, “who are the strangers that shaped me and what would I say to that person now?”
From brief everyday encounters to longer intense interactions these essays cover everything including love, loss, collisions and dodged bullets. Where strangers were mostly kind, sometimes wise, often taken for granted and only with time was the author able to see the impact on their own life. With locations from all over the world you will definitely walk away from this book with some travel envy and I picked up some extra knowledge about people and places I was woefully ignorant on.
I highly recommend To A Stranger to memoir, essay and non-fiction fans that like reading about real people reflecting on their lives.
4 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A very interesting concept. I enjoyed some of the letters more than others ; overall I think it will appeal to those who enjoy short stories

We all have those random people that stick with us, whether it be a stranger we see on the subway or a person from the line at the grocery store, there are those people that just leave an impression. Sometimes we know exactly why we remember them- they said something memorable, there was a huge fight, someone got proposed to. Sometimes, these people become mere stories we tell our friends. But we don’t really know them, their circumstances, or even really why they stayed with us more than the hundreds of other strangers.

This book is a collection of those strangers. Of course, they’re strangers for a reason, so who knows if they’ll ever actually see these letters or even remember the person who wrote them; it’s kind of like a missed connection ad. These letters are really just shouting into the void, yelling “I saw you.” But getting them out there- isn’t that enough? Sharing their existence with thousands of other strangers?

None of the essays really answer the question of why do these people stay with us. There are just moments, spaces in time maybe, where we are more perceptible to the little things. A lot of the letters deal with travel and how at a low moment or second of second guessing, someone stepped into the author’s life and made the moment… less miserable. Whether by directly speaking to them or simply going about their life with no complaints and no questions.

Everyone has strangers like this- one day at a busy grocery store, I was trying to maneuver the overly crowded, pre-pandemic crowd and get a bag for my potatoes. Someone who didn’t need to reached over the boxes, said “Here,” and handed me a little bag. It was a fleeting moment, and I don’t remember much about the person except that they had sweatpants on, but it stuck with me. A kindness in the middle of all that chaos. It didn’t teach me anything, but it did make my sour day better, and shopping amongst all those people was suddenly not so bad as it was. I still tell my friends about this guy.

Maybe if we knew in the moment that decades later we would still be thinking about them, we would’ve tried more to remember their name, what they looked liked, where they went. But maybe part of these unforgettable strangers is that, in the moment they step into out lives, we never really know they’ll become something to us. And in today’s hyper-connected world, it’s fascinating that we can still have these missed connections; they add a little more mystery to life.

These are heartfelt letters; you wouldn’t think strangers could have this effect on you. They say: thank you, I’m sorry, I miss you, you helped me. I remember you.

Letter to a Stranger is a creative concept full of casual encounters to lifelong hauntings. It made me think about encounters I've had with strangers in my own life.

I love the concept of this collection of letters, which I treated as a short stories, reading them a few at a time over a period of days. Each author has had a moment with a stranger while traveling and clearly thought about it afterward. I wonder if writing the letters cleared their minds but I doubt it. I liked the capsule looks at cities and their residents. Often the writer tells the reader more about themself than about the stranger. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Who would you write about?

Letters to a Stranger is a book of essays/letters where writers focus on chance encounters that impacted their lives. The premise is interesting and made me think about random encounters in my own life. The execution was uneven.

Some of the essays are interesting, touching, funny, emotionally resonant. Some aren't. It's a mixed bag. Which is true of almost any anthology. I think, in the end, that what this book shows is that our encounters with people are very personal and don't necessarily make for compelling reading. The bits that worked best for me were the essays that didn't try to make a point. Just telling a story is sometimes enough.

I would suggest dipping into this book randomly. Don't try to read it all the way through. Try a story here, a musing there. Use it as a little snack rather than a feast.

A really cool premise and anthology. Filled with work by a lot of excellent writers both known and unknown. I wished some of them were longer/more in depth, but that's part of what happens when so many writers are included in a collection!

A little disappointed, I love the concept--I love people watching and wondering about strangers--but the execution was so uneven. some letters were great and some were just bad. I wish it was edited better.

The premise of this book-- writers writing to strangers from their past--intrigued me. But reading the "letters" proved to be disappointing. I wanted more detail, I wanted to know how the interactions or encounters affected both individuals, not just the writer's. Without the stranger's narrative, we're left with only half the story,

thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read this book.

I liked the theme of this book. Some essays were wonderful and others were just okay. Some essays were a little too short for my tastes.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this title. As with most essay collections, this one was a mix of fantastic essays and essays I had to skim through or completely skip. I love the concept, but found that many of the stories were more about their authors than the strangers they met. Some of the essays were a bit uncomfortable, tales of privileged white people in foreign countries, but many of them were wonderful. I particularly loved Michelle Tea's piece.