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An exquisite new collection of short stories from award-winning author Simon Van Booy.
Over the past decade, Simon Van Booy has been listening to people's stories. With these personal accounts as a starting point, he has crafted a powerful collection of short fiction that takes readers into the innermost lives of everyday people. From a family saved from ruin by a mysterious benefactor, to a downtrodden boxer who shows unexpected kindness to a mugger, these masterfully written tales reveal not only the precarious balance maintained between grief and happiness in our lives, but also how the echoes of personal tragedy can shape us for the better.
"Van Booy succeeds more often than he falters, making this a vivid collection. Fans of heartfelt stories with a hint of science fiction will find much to enjoy." - Publishers Weekly
"[Van Booy's] latest collection is full of surprises… some stories are grounded in realism, but others contain elements of magic." - Booklist
"Winner of the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award for Love Begins in Winter, Van Booy was often inspired here by stories people told him, so the sparkle is nicely balanced by a conversational, down-to-earth tone with broad appeal." - Library Journal
"A slim collection featuring tales of loneliness and longing based, largely, on real people." - Kirkus
This information about The Sadness of Beautiful Things was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Ken Browar
Simon Van Booy is the award-winning, bestselling author of more than a dozen books for adults and children, including The Illusion of Separateness and The Presence of Absence. Simon is the editor of three volumes of philosophy and has written for The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Washington Post, and the BBC. His books have been translated into many languages and optioned for film. Raised in rural North Wales, he currently lives in New York where he is also a book editor and a volunteer E.M.T. crew chief.
Link to Simon Van Booy's Website
Name Pronunciation
Simon Van Booy: van boo-ee
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