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Title: Refund: Stories
Author: Karen E. Bender
Narrator: Meredith Orlow, Carine Montbertrand, Eliza Foss, Susan Bennett
Format: Unabridged
Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
Language: English
Release date: 12-30-15
Publisher: Recorded Books
Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 7 votes
Genres: Fiction, Short Stories & Anthologies
Publisher's Summary:
We think about it every day, sometimes every hour: money. Who has it. Who doesn't. How you get it. How you don't.
Bender uses this very powerful force to pull together a unified collection of stories that deeply explore the ways in which money and the subsequent estimation of value affect the lives of her characters. The stories in Refund reflect our contemporary world - swindlers, reality show creators, desperate artists, siblings, parents - who struggle to figure out how to obtain money, how to give it, earn it, lose it, all the while trying to answer the question: What is the real definition of worth?
Critic Reviews:
"Bender's short stories were shortlisted for the National Book Award and brilliantly weave money, economics, education, emotion, and fear into each distinct tale." (Washington Review of Books)
"The author's sharp observations and fine, crisp writing keep these stories crackling with energy and wit, while they excavate the buried secrets of 21st century America." (Miami Herald)
"Refund meets the challenge of the short-story writer to create a vivid, believable world in which compelling characters pull the reader up and over a taut narrative arc, all within the space of a few pages. Taken separately, each of the Refund stories is an impeccably constructed miniature, a ship in a bottle that makes the reader wonder how the author got all that detail, all that craft, into such a small container. Taken as a whole, the collection is a 13-stop journey into some richly imagined worlds." (LA Times)
Members Reviews:
Great investment!
I loved having my perspective mirrored and challenged by these well-crafted and deeply humanistic stories! Bender makes the strange familiar and the familiar strange. If you are somewhere in mid-life, if you ever worry about money, if you have aging parents, if you have children growing up in this brave new world, if you live in the United States, if you are married, or were, or might be -- if you can tolerate the absurdity of love -- I am confident that reading this book will mirror and challenge you, as well.
The short story as an art form
A moving account of living in the US at the end of the 1900's an early 2000's. Each story is a jewel with exceptional details that illuminate the characters and the world they inhabit. A must read for anyone interested in the short story as an art form. Meri Ney Los Angeles
Fantastic stories about ordinary people and how money defines them
One of the things you're not supposed to talk about in polite company--money, which makes it the ideal theme for a book of dark, funny, unexpected stories. Having it, not having it, wanting it, spending it, how it twists souls and drives people to do to terrible or maybe wonderful things.
A Collection You'll Re-read
Gorgeous writing, fantastic characters. The stories are funny and moving and will stay with you for a long time, even longer if like me you enjoy them so much you read them more than once.
Five Stars
superb, heart wrenching stories.