For a Little While

By: Rick Bass

Narrated by: Rick Bass

Length: 17 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

Long considered one of the most gifted practitioners of the short story, Rick Bass is unsurpassed in his ability to perceive and portray the enduring truths of the human heart. Now, at last, we have the definitive collection of stories, new and old, from the writer Newsweek has called "an American classic".

To listen to his fiction is to feel more alive - connected, incandescently, to "the brief longshot of having been chosen for the human experience," as one of his characters puts it.

These stories reveal men and women living with passion and tenderness at the outer limits of the senses, each attempting to triumph against fate. Bass provides searing insights into the complexity of family and romantic entanglements, and his lush and striking language draws us ineluctably into the lives of these engaging people and their vivid surroundings. The intricate stories collected in For a Little While - brimming with magic and wonder, filled with hard-won empathy, marbled throughout with astonishing imagery - have the power both to devastate and to uplift. Together they showcase an iconic American master at his peak.

©2016 Rick Bass (P)2017 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"A literary titan...Bass is, hands down, a master of the short form, creating in a few pages a natural world of mythic proportions." ( The New York Times Book Review)

"While nature figures heavily in Bass' work, in this collection it always yields the foreground to people and their difficult, sometimes devastating lives." ( San Francisco Chronicle)

"This is a rich collection of stories by a major American writer esteemed for his originality as well as for his fine prose. One of the trademarks of the Rick Bass story is the fresh perception of places and people in their relationships to each other. Never facile, Bass is able to make us see and feel in unexpected ways and his stories call out to readers to stop and consider, to explore their feelings about what has risen up from the pages." (Annie Proulx)

audible, please title the chapters right

seriously how lazy is audible? title the chapters by the short story titles. good god.

Unique, Moving Listening Experience

What a wonderful audio book—read by the author, and accompanied by original compositions. I’d never heard so much music in an audio book before, nor music influence the delivery of the stories.

I personally found the pace and content required some breaks between stories. The pace is slow; but the stories never drag. Simply the pace of the narrative with a lot of these stories is far slower and more observant than your ordinary genre fiction.

Content? These stories span a huge range—but a love for the natural world links many of them. And how the human heart interacts with that backdrop.

I listened to this book in about four chunks. So happy I stumbled into this collection! Highly recommended.

Captures Contemporary Western/Rural America

I can't say enough about how much I have enjoyed Mr. Bass's fiction and prose. I relate to the writing as an outdoorsman as he captures the moments and contemplations that can only be drawn from a life afield. I also appreciate the grassroots approach of the recording. It is read by the author both solo and accompanied by what (I'm speculating) is a score composed by musicians who have endeavored to capture the emotional underpinnings of these diverse tales.

Best audio book ever.

I’m a huge fan of this author, having read most all of his works. But this reading, by the author himself, is possibly the best audiobook I have ever listened to. It would be impossible to explain why. Just listen.