Sixty Stories
1981 · 451 pages
A balloon settles over forty-five blocks of Manhattan and New Yorkers read meanings into it. Barthelme's deadpan collages taught two generations of American writers that a story need not make ordinary sense.
★ 5.5
The Books canon
Sourced and shelved.
Every book chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 1,178 books or filter by subject, era, place, and author.
Browse all 1,178 books or filter by subject, era, place, and author.
Mythologies
1957 · 288 pages
A magazine cover shows a black soldier saluting the French flag, and Barthes explains what that image says about empire. His essays on wrestling and steak made every ordinary object readable as ideology.
★ 6.5