The Thing Around Your Neck

Excellent! I really enjoyed these stories. Adiche is a wonderful storyteller and brings Nigerian culture and people to life. Her characters are memorable as are the stories that they tell.

Sometimes you read a short story and appreciate it as a bite-sized nugget. The stories in this book were so rich, and the characters so interesting, I was disappointed when the stories ended. This is another excellent work by this outstanding author

This book is the 3rd one I've read by this author, and is a harrowing story, very well written in a style I find compelling. Why not 5 stars? My problem is in relating to Africa and its complicated cultural systems. I even find the characters names difficult to pronounce, which makes it hard for me to imagine them. Isn't that strange? I am obviously lacking all knowledge about the issues dividing the warring factions within this country, let alone the entire continent, all of which destroys its fluency. My fault, not the author's! At least it led me to do some reading up on African history. With this new found knowledge I will re-read it, and hopefully the background of political unrest will slot into place and provide the support I needed. And, if I spend a bit more on the audio version, I could finally hear those beautiful names pronounced correctly.

I have grown to love anything by Adichie, and this work is no different. The stories have a deeper meaning that sneak up on you and take over your thoughts until you figure out just why they struck a cord with you the way they did. This book is work a second and even third reading. The stories are short, profound, and leave you wanting more, especially the final story, The Headstrong Historian. That one, while set in Nigeria, showed exactly how Europeans used certain calculated methods to wipe out the culture of Africans and African Americans alike and turn them against their own heritage. It left me with tears in my eyes.

There are books that I can’t help skimming, skipping few paragraphs here and there. Not Adichie’s. Even if I notice my eyes were not focusing - I get back to the book with full attention. I enjoy reading Adichie’s books, though after reading Americanah and this book - I started feeling slight frustration with her harsh depiction of American life and culture. “The trick was to understand, to know that America was give-and-take. You give up a lo but you gained a lot, too”. That’s not America, that’s everywhere. When you leave your village, your city, your country - you leave behind your past, heritage and sense of security. That applies to all foreigners. I understand it’s catchy and shocking to compare the cultures, in Adichie’s case - always diminishing America, but it is getting slightly old and annoying.

Adichie can tell a long story (Americah) but she can also tighten it up and produce stories that are concentrates. Each story in this collection is the length it needs to be. Some are vignettes with closure; others are a "story" that takes some time to tell. The writing is flawless. Characters are developed exactly to the extent they need to be. "Supporting characters" are not flat but rather are interesting in their own right (though, appropriately, not as fully developed). The stories written in the second person place you right in the heart of the character because "you" are in pain or are conflicted/happy/resolved. What I will be looking for next from Adichie is venturing into new ground. She has insightfully explored the experience of cultural hyphenation. Now, perhaps she can share with us stories of people who are wholly rooted in one culture. And perhaps it is that culture which forms a tragic story... or one of hope or positive resolution.

These are beautiful, whimsical stories of culture shifting, of the intersection of differing African cultures with each other and in particular, the intersections of Nigerian culture, beliefs and experiences with that of the US. Ngozi Adichie's characters are poor, struggling housemaids, young African authors trying to make it as writers with the doubtful aid of English "African literature lovers", Big Men grown fat and over confident with power, influence and wealth, poor students trying to make their way in Western universities, retired academics waiting patiently, but without faith, for their pensions to be paid. Her best characters are the barely noticeable outsiders, those treading the at time treacherous, at times pitiful borders between Africa family and tribal norms and the consumer driven West. The wars, massacres and revolutions here are not those of Old Europe, but of Young Africa yet they have the same, stark effect of those who remember and mark their lives by these epoch-making events. These stories reward and enrich at a number of levels and provoke reflection long after the book is read.

This was the first of her books I have discovered and I couldn't put it down. My son read it at school and bought it for me for Christmas. She has an incredible ability to grip you in only a few simple pages and tells a whole tale in what might take a full novel for most authors. I hated when each story ended, as I was so taken with the characters, but got equally wrapped up in the next one just as quickly. This author is a gift.

Through Chimamanda’s stories I’ve learnt so much about Nigeria and about how it is being a black woman in this world and this is one is no exception. It’s a beautiful collection of stories and each one has something gasping and mesmerising. I was obviously highly satisfied with this books as well as I’ve been with her other books.

I love reading books by this author, she knows how to hold your attention.

Great boom

J'avais un peu peur, en achetant ces nouvelles, d'être déçue par rapport aux romans d'Adichie, qui m'avaient enthousiasmée. Crainte infondée car cette auteure talentueuse est aussi brillante sur les formats courts que quand elle raconte de longues histoires. Elle a une écriture magnifique et ses thèmes sont profondément humains. Une brillante réussite.

Genial, llegó en perfecto estado