McSweeney's Quarterly Concern Volume 15 -- Hipster Book Reviews

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McSweeney's Quarterly Concern Volume 15
Editor: Dave Eggers
Published: 2005 | Pages: 200

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This, of all the McSweeney's editions I've read, is the least memorable. Despite that, I was actually a little surprised at the quality of the Icelandic stories that were included, and essentially comprised the second half of the issue. I didn't think Icelandic would translate all that well into English, and that I'd have to spend a couple hundred pages slogging through stories about whale blubber and the forty-seven different Icelandic words for snow. (I just love showing my ignorance with statements like that.) These stories were far from the Eskimo (sorry, Inuit) tales that I thought I might encounter, and in fact could have taken place in just about any medium sized city in the entire world. And, yes, I know the difference between Iceland and Greenland, thank you. Most of these tales center around Reykjavik, and are thoroughly modern in scope. There are exceptions, of course, but even those tales could have easily taken place in the old west. Despite not being overjoyed with the compilation as a whole, the overall quality was solid. There weren't any experimental stinkers in there that made me want to toss the book out the window. There were no highs and now lows, just a bunch of solid stories that as a whole neither thrilled nor disappointed.

Other titles by Dave Eggers:
What is the What
You Shall Know Our Velocity
McSweeney's Quarterly Concern Volume 14 (edited by)
McSweeney's Quarterly Concern Volume 16 (edited by)

Other titles by McSweeney's:
McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories
McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales