A fun, different read from McCann who is always a library favorite with his mix of "pop-lit" and literary styles. An enjoyable experience.

We all should read more Colum McCann. Short stories are not usually a part of my reading repertoire, but when I saw the author, I knew I wanted to have this book. His stories inspire one to reflect and have greater empathy for his characters which trickle into your overall perspectives. Loss and pain are themes but they are a part of life and should be painted by an artist such as McCann.

Always in love with McCann's writing. I love the careful and deliberate weave of these four stories. I didn't like the depiction of many of the minority characters.

I am not sure that I liked this. I appreciate that it is short story oriented, but I wish it had been overall more developed. I would only be able to recommend this to a few people in my life, mostly because of how it is written.

What took me so long to read this? A memorable and powerful collection of stories that were thought-provoking and will leave a lasting impression.

I didn't know what to expect from this book, which is described as a collection comprising a novella and short stories, but enjoyed both the individual narratives and the ways they connected together. The stories are not connected by character, and the themes don't always obviously link, but I found reading each one added to my understanding of the others.

As ever I appreciated McCann's nod to Ireland in various characters, but also the way his characters inhabit very different worlds. This is a book which, as the title suggests, leads the reader to consider different ways of looking at characters and events, and this generally worked well, although I didn't feel all of the stories were on quite the same level, and at times this unifying idea seemed a little forced.

'Thirteen Ways of Looking' by Colum McCann is a brilliant collection comprised of a novella and three short stories. I found myself mesmerized by the language and rhythm of the writing.

The title novella is a day in the life of an aging judge who meets his son for dinner and the tragic events that unfold around that. The father relates events of the past and present in a stream-of-consciousness way that reflects how I know I think, and may be familiar to other readers. Each of the 13 chapters includes a stanza from Wallace Steven's poem Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.

The three short stories are about a writer on a deadline, a mother who buys her son a gift he has been wanting, and a nun sees her rapist and tormentor on television at a peace conference and has to confront her feelings all over again.

In an afterword by the author, it is told that the stories were written before a senseless attack on the author after he tried to help a woman on the street. The attack left him unconscious and hospitalized. we are fortunate to still have this voice among us. It's a beautiful collection of stories.

I received a review copy of this ebook from Random House and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.