Likes, Sarah Shunlien Bynum
Likes, Sarah Shunlien Bynum
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

Likes

Author: Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

Narrator: Jean Ann Douglass

Unabridged: 6 hr 31 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/01/2020


Synopsis

"[Jean Ann] Douglass’ narration, intimate and bemused and every so often curling up with wryness at the end of a sentence, is a perfect match for Shun-lien Bynum’s delicate delights." -- Slate

A Buzz Book of Fall at Publishers Lunch * A WIRED Ultimate Summer Reading pick

National Book Award finalist Sarah Shun-lien Bynum’s highly anticipated return weaves together like and unlike, mythic and modern

In nine stories that range from the real to the unreal, strange to familiar, funny to frightening, Sarah Shun-lien Bynum reminds us why her wildly original debut, Madeleine Is Sleeping, and her masterful Ms. Hempel Chronicles have become contemporary classics--celebrated and beloved.

In a nimble dance of lightness and gravity, Likes explores the full range and contradictions of our contemporary moment. Through unexpected visitors, Waldorf school fairs, aging indie-film stars, the struggle to gain a foothold in the capitalist shell-game of work, the Instagram posts of a twelve-year-old—these stories of friendship and parenthood, celebrity and obsession, race and class and the passage of time, form an engrossing collection that is both otherworldly and suffused with the deceitful humdrum of everyday life.

For fans of Joy Williams, George Saunders, Lauren Groff, and Deborah Eisenberg, Likes helps us see into our unacknowledged desires and, in quick, artful, nearly invisible cuts, exposes the roots of our abiding terrors and delights.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux

About Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

Sarah Shun-lien Bynum is the author of the novels Ms. Hempel Chronicles, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award; and Madeleine Is Sleeping, a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize. Her fiction has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including the New Yorker, Ploughshares, Tin House, The Best American Short Stories, and the O. Henry Prize Stories. The recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award and an NEA Fellowship, she was named one of “20 Under 40” fiction writers by the New Yorker. She lives in Los Angeles.

About Jean Ann Douglass

Jean Ann Douglass is a playwright, performer, and artist living in Brooklyn, NY. She co-created The Truck Project and Human Head Performance Group with her partner, Eric John Meyer. Jean Ann received an MFA in Performance and Interactive Media Arts from Brooklyn College.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Courtney on June 30, 2020

I’ve never read anything by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum before Likes, her first short-story collection after two novels. Brandon Taylor on twitter commented how much he loved the writing, and that praise and the gorgeous cover was more than enough for me to send the NetGalley request. After how much I enj......more

Goodreads review by Michael on July 11, 2021

I was not particularly moved by these rather trite short stories. At first, they seemed to want to focus on one particular benefit for a kid's charity or something, but then they quickly diverged on other topics. Perhaps it is just the newer generation of writers and their concerns which put me off,......more

Goodreads review by Denver Public Library on December 10, 2020

I basically refuse to read short stories these days—most feel like MFA program churn-outs, and as a result the stories all run together and I can’t seem to remember a single one after I’m done—but I made an exception here since I loved Ms. Hempel Chronicles. I’m glad I did. Many of these are the pla......more

Goodreads review by Lucy on September 08, 2021

Wow. Um. Okay let me try to get my thoughts straight on this. This book varies wildly in quality. Some short stories were so, erm, bad. They were faux-literary, wandering from point to point without really advancing anything at all. I have to admit, some were so boring that I sort of skimmed them wit......more

Goodreads review by Alison on July 09, 2022

Really fun to read these short stories as the author has such a gift for inhabiting completely different characters. You get swept up into the world of an imaginative little girl, a socially climbing med student, an estranged dad, and more - each one is completely immersive. I am trying to preserve......more


Awards

  • Library Journal Best Books of the Year
  • NYPL Best Books of the Year
  • L.A. Times Book Prize - Finalist