Original title: The Birds and Other Stories
Pages: 336
Edition Language: Russian
Series: no
Format: e-book
Genres: Contemporary,
Goodreads
Blurb:
The idea for this famous story came to du Maurier one day when she was walking across to Menabilly Barton farm from the house. She saw a farmer busily ploughing a field whilst above him the seagulls were diving and wheeling. She developed an idea about the birds becoming hostile and attacking him. In her story, the birds become hostile after a harsh winter with little food -- first the seagulls, then birds of prey, and finally even small birds -- all turn against mankind. The nightmarish vision appealed to Hitchcock who turned it into the celebrated film.
Stories in the collection:
The Birds
Monte VeritÃ
The Apple Tree
The Little Photographer
Kiss Me Again, Stranger
The Old Man
My thoughts:
I am not a great short story reader, but loved this book. The most favorite is Apple Tree, I loved how the paranoia of the main character was escalating. Least favorite is Monte Verita: the story was developing beautifully, but I hated the ending... it was so lifeless and perfect.
Rating:
4/5 
4/5 
I don't love reading short stories, either, but I did enjoy reading these. Her other collection of short stories--The Doll: The Lost Short Stories-- is good, too. :)
ReplyDeleteoh, I have never heard of this one. Thank you!
DeleteI'm not into short stories either, but I really love this author, so I should try them. I know she was mad at Hitchcock, because he took his inspiration in actually several of her stories, without giving her any credit for it. I read this fascinating book on her life: https://wordsandpeace.com/2017/06/05/booktube-daphne-du-maurier/
ReplyDeleteThank you for the link, I will definitely check it out. I just started to discover Daphne du Maurier, but hope her novels will be as great as people talk about them.
DeleteI love the movie version of the Birds and should really read this short story!
ReplyDeleteThe movie is really great, and I thought that there will be really a lot of "meat" in the story, but it was really short one.
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