Review: The Complete Stories of Truman Capote

The Complete Stories of Truman Capote
By Truman Capote
Random House
September 2004
400pp

The Short of It:

This is a wonderful collection of stories. Meaningful and thought-provoking. Perfect for this time of year.

The Rest of It:

I really enjoy Capote’s writing. A book group friend of mine brought this for a book exchange one year, and it ended up in my lucky hands. I’ve been reading bits of it here and there for over two years now. It’s the type of book that you can pick up and put down and not really lose anything from it. Open to any page and you will be swept away. Some of the stories included are:

A Tree of Night
A Christmas Memory (my fave)
The Thanksgiving Visitor

You can actually purchase A Christmas Memory on its own and it would make a wonderful gift for a loved one. It’s about the love shared between two friends and is largely autobiographical. It’s touching and sad but wonderful too. It’s a gentle reminder of what’s special about Christmas. It’s my favorite story. I love it.

If you aren’t sure what to get for that picky reader this year, pick up this collection. You can’t go wrong. There is something for everyone here.

Source: This little beauty was won in a book exchange.

14 thoughts on “Review: The Complete Stories of Truman Capote”

Ti, so glad to hear you liked this a lot. It has been on my wish list. (Love the cover too).

This sounds like a wonderful book – off to the TBR list it goes!

In Cold Blood is such an amazing book. After that I would read anything buy this guy. I honestly had never heard of this. Thanks Ti!

I haven’t read this, but it definitely sounds like something I would like to read at some point.

What a wonderful book, thasnk you for bringing it to my attention. I really enjoy Truman Capote, he’s quite a character. I”ve read “In Cold Blood” and “Brekfast at Tiffany’s” which is wonderful. This is going on my tbr list and I hope to read it soon. I also like Reynolds Price quite a bit so I’m happy to see the Introduction is his!

I’m not familiar with Capote’s writing, but I after reading Capote in Kansas by Kim Powers, I decided that I’ll have to read some of his work at some point. Glad to hear this one is good.

–Anna

Sounds interesting. I’m like Amy, all I’ve read is In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I enjoyed both of them, so I’d probably enjoy this too.

Having just discovered that I can actually like short stories, this sounds promising. The only book I ever read by Truman Capote was “In Cold Blood” …and this sounds quite different.

Wishing you a very happy holiday.

This sounds like a wonderful collection of stories. I’ve only read Capote’s true crime book so far, but I’ve been wanting to read more by him–I just love his writing.

Sounds like something I should read. Capote became so widely known as a character that we forget, sometimes, that he really was an accomplished author.