#22 in Literary fiction
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
- 208
- Pages
- about 4 h
- Reading time
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Our view
George Saunders’s recognisable style is already taking shape in “CivilWarLand in Bad Decline”, his first book of stories. The pieces, a novella among them, are set in bleak theme parks and soul-sapping jobs, and their images linger. For some readers the narrators and their settings are too alike from one story to the next.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline is a book of short stories and a novella by the American writer George Saunders. Published in 1996, it was Saunders's first book. Many of the stories initially appeared in different forms in various magazines, including Kenyon Review, Harper's, The New Yorker and Quarterly West. The collection was listed as a Notable Book of 1996 by The New York Times, as well as a finalist for the 1996 PEN/Hemingway Award.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.1 across 118 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 45% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Literary fiction average of 8.1. That is how 8.1 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.9 | 7 | 6% |
| Hardcover | 8.1 | 111 | 94% |
Frequently asked
How long is CivilWarLand in Bad Decline?
It has 208 pages — shorter than 87% of the ranked books in Literary fiction.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Literary fiction — with scores between 7.6 and 8.4, closest to this book.
