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Maxwell

https://maxdunn.carrd.co/

https://www.goodreads.com/welldonebooks

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Maxwell is Currently Reading

Maxwell is currently reading

Dead Man's Walk (Lonesome Dove, #3)

by Larry McMurtry

bookshelves: currently-reading, westerns

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progress:

(page 237 of 511)
"This is a disaster (not the book, just what’s happening hah)" — 6 hours, 26 min ago

Sep 03, 2025 08:03AM

Maxwell is currently reading

The History of Sound: Stories

by Ben Shattuck (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: short-stories, currently-reading, audiobook

Reading for the 2nd time

read in August 2024

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Maxwell said: " A perfect collection of short stories. I mean it: every single one of these stories was a hit for me. I was constantly blown away by how Shattuck was able to balance plot and character in under 30 pages, giving each story a sense of wholeness, comple A perfect collection of short stories. I mean it: every single one of these stories was a hit for me. I was constantly blown away by how Shattuck was able to balance plot and character in under 30 pages, giving each story a sense of wholeness, completeness that left you satisfied by the end.

A good short story feels like it should raise more questions than it does provide answers, while still being able to get to the heart of the issue at hand in each tale. And Shattuck does that time and time again in this collection.

These are very New England focused stories. The sense of place, clearly personal to the author, comes through in rich, but never superfluous, description. It feels lived in and loved, and yet also imbued with a complexity that comes from an entangled history, one of colonial settlers and religious influence that seeps through time and space in the artifacts and memories left behind.

I think the central question Shattuck's exploring in this book is best encapsulated in the first story in the collection, the titular "The History of Sound" (soon to be adapted into a film starring Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor). We follow two young men in the WWI era as they spend a summer traveling across the country collecting folk songs on wax cylinders. Their bond is tested by their return to normal life, and their story is mostly forgotten by history, only remnants of which is left on the cylinders which are also lost in time. How do we remember history? How do we record it and what is lost or gained in the jotting down of mere moments in time?

Connection, across time and space, in places and artifacts, is another strong theme of the collection. Many of the stories overlap in some way, whether through a brief mention of an event that's later recounted in greater detail in another story, or through the appearance and reappearance of artifacts: paintings, taxidermied animals, derelict buildings from bygone eras, Bibles, museum exhibits. Shattuck seems fascinated with the remainders of history and how they speak across eras to paint a picture, not always a clear and honest snapshot of what really happened. It's in the telling or retelling that history is made.

I loved this book. It had heart—I felt immediately sucked into each characters story and eager to see their outcome, and how they may connect to future stories. I was surprised, delighted, saddened, intrigued and compelled; a truly comprehensive reading experience that never dwindled. It's rare to find a collection that is both cohesive and varied; the stories fit so nicely into each other and yet deliver contrasting and complementary experiences (in both tone, style, and format). I can't imagine this book not being one of my favorites of the year, and arguably a new favorite of all time! ...more "

progress:

(62%)
— 1 hour, 52 min ago

Aug 06, 2024 10:10AM · see review

Maxwell’s Quotes

“I think and think and think, I‘ve thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer

tags: happiness, thinking, wisedom

2478 likes

“I regret that it takes a life to learn how to live.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

tags: close, extremely, foer, incredibly, jonathan, living, loud, safran

3725 likes

“Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.”
― G.K. Chesterton

tags: books, literature, on-fiction

2594 likes

“A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.”
― Robertson Davies

tags: architecture, books, perspective, reading, rereading

998 likes

“I hope that one day you will have the experience of doing something you do not understand for someone you love.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

2689 likes

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