Collected Stories - Tapa blanda

Salter is a writer who particularly rewards those for whom reading is an intense pleasure. He is among the very few North American writers all of whose work I want to read, whose as yet unpublished books I wait for impatiently -- Susan Sontag Sentence for sentence, Salter is the master -- Richard Ford There is scarcely a writer alive who could not learn from his passion and precision of language -- Peter Matthiessen James Salter can suggest in a single sentence an individual's entire history -- Michiko Kakutani * New York Times * Salter is the contemporary writer most admired and envied by other writers . . . he can, when he wants, break your heart with a sentence -- Michael Dirda * Washington Post * A stylist, a purist, a guy who really socks it to you, however elegantly * Observer * Books that are, quite simply, life-changingly good * Dazed & Confused * It isn't Salter's language alone that numbers him among the masters, but it is what strikes you first -- James Meek * London Review of Books * Robert Frost said that the hope of any poet is to lodge a few poems so deep they couldn't be dislodged, and James Salter has done that again and again. He has become an indelible presence in our literature -- Tobias Wolff * Observer * James Salter's writing has always provoked in me a kind of evangelical admiration. It is sheer brute magic. His prose is exquisite, sentences created with such acuity and efficacy it seems he re-forges language itself, makes it more purposeful and beautiful * Sarah Hall * One of the finest American writers of his mighty generation * Esquire * 'It's the short stories which make him one of the greatest writers of the last century and the present one, up there with Carver and Cheever, the mind-blowing Lydia Davis - who has just won the Man Booker International Prize - and the Fitzgerald of Babylon Revisited. Republished this month, the strongest of Salter's stories are shadowy and sinister with a whiff of his two favourite perfumes, sex and death, hanging over the scarifying prose . . . What makes the short stories perfect are the fully-mastered qualities . . . 'style, structure and authority.'' Financial Times

With an introduction by John Banville. From his first published story in the Paris Review in 1968, James Salter's stories have been universally acclaimed. Including his two published collections, Dusk and Other Stories (1988) and Last Night (2005), and the previously uncollected 'Charisma', this volume contains over twenty short stories by one of the finest writers of our time. Concerning men and women in their most intimate moments, struggling with loss, desire, or the burden of memory, each indelible narrative in the Collected Stories is marked by James Salter's great literary grace, his ability to show the subtleties of a character or situation with precision, and his equally assured ability to command reversals of fortune or shocking revelations. 'It's the short stories which make him one of the greatest writers of the last century and the present one' Financial Times 'Writing that is bowstring-taut and carries considerable punch' Sunday Times 'Salter's stories are masterpieces of poise and clarity, so much so that their dazzling surface stillness often blinds you to the surprisingly bold risks' Metro