Monday, February 11, 2019

The Birds and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier

Author: Daphne du Maurier
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 Verità
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 

6 comments:

  1. 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. :)

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  2. I'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/

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    Replies
    1. Thank 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.

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  3. I love the movie version of the Birds and should really read this short story!

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    1. The 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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