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cover
4 

Title: Garden Party and Other Stories, The
Authors: Mansfield, Katherine
Genre: Fiction: New Zealand
Pages: 255
Year: 1932
Language: English
Description: Short stories. Sensitive revelations of human behaviour in quite ordinary situations. NZ Interest. [Small font]

Comments from Groups:

We thought the quality of the writing was amazing. Characters and the class barriers well explained. A rather sad, bitter undertow to the stories may well reflect the life of Katherine Mansfield. Auckland 271

It generated some interesting discussions on people's interpretations of the stories. Hamilton 022

Lots of us rediscovered our love of Katherine Mansfield's stories from our school days. "At the Bay" a favourite. Parnassus 001

We all loved being transported back to our days at school in the 60's and 70's when we had to read many of these short stories and luckily too as it woke many of us up to appreciating "good" literature and to our own New Zealand authors. Auckland 133

A lovely selection of short stories so full of beautiful descriptions in such a few pages. We all enjoyed it. Wonderful observations of people in many situations. Hikurangi 001

Categories: Fiction NZ, Classic, Short story/essay, Literary, Blind Low Vision library, Small font

Reviews

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By: PAUA 003 2025-05-21 13:30:15
3.5 
Strong female characters - reflecting Katherine Mansfield's own personality. Of its time. Individual stories work better than as a book. The small print makes reading hard, especially at night.

By: WELL 022 2023-07-24 12:57:01
4 
As ever there were a range of reactions to this book. All agreed on the beauty and evocative nature of Mansfield's writing, and certainly an element of wealthy N.Z. society at the time - as well as that of Europe - was captured. Her stories have an edge to them which some admired and others found cruel.

By: WHAKA 009 2020-05-06 12:42:52
4.5 
A great read - most had read it as teenagers as a set read. Had a completely different experience as an adult - thought it could have been autobiographical.

By: TIMAR 011 2020-05-06 12:39:30
3 
Most found the book light reading, but did not enjoy it that much. Because it was short stories, members had different favourites.

By: PICT 002 2020-05-06 12:38:01
4.5 
A great book for discussion.

By: CHCH 088 2020-05-06 12:37:19
4 
Animated discussion with several members most enthusiastic. Two male members not.

By: MTMA 001 2020-05-06 12:36:07
4 
Although KM had been read over the years, it was enjoyable to return once again to her world.

By: MOTUE 001 2020-05-06 12:34:39
3.5 
We all thought that 'The Garden Party' and 'At The Bay' were by far the best.

By: INVER 003 2020-05-06 12:33:46
4 
The group enjoyed the book, with its very good descriptive writing.

By: WELL 012 2020-05-06 12:32:19
4 
Most members really enjoyed this book. The stories were a revelation to those who had never read Katherine Mansfield, or who hadn't for a long time. One member was a long term KM fan, and provided lots of background information.

By: WELL 130 2020-05-06 12:24:34
4 
We loved this re-read of some pretty good short stories by one of our own!

By: PALMN 006 2020-05-06 12:23:44
3.5 
We were surprised how much we enjoyed the short stories format. K.M. really creates great characters and settings. Felt like being back in a time warp.

By: AUCK 302 2020-05-06 12:19:55
4 
A lovely collection.

 
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