#15 in Short stories
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
- 159
- Pages
- about 3 h
- Reading time
- 20th Century's Greatest Hits: 100 English-Language Books of Fiction
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Our view
“What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” is a slim collection whose pull lies in Raymond Carver’s stark, pared-back prose. Readers praise the writing even when the book as a whole does not win them over. Some find the stories uneven, abruptly ended and quick to fade, and the bleakness wearing; others love exactly that discomfort.
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
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love is a 1981 collection of short stories by American writer Raymond Carver, as well as the title of one of the stories in the collection. Considered by many to be one of American literature's most ambitious short-story collections, it was this collection that turned Raymond Carver into a household name in the publishing industry.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.0 across 189 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 56% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Short stories average of 7.8. That is how 7.9 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.6 | 19 | 10% |
| Hardcover | 7.9 | 170 | 90% |
Frequently asked
How long is What We Talk About When We Talk About Love?
It has 159 pages — shorter than 76% of the ranked books in Short stories.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Short stories — with scores between 7.8 and 8.0, closest to this book.
