"The universe is not made of atoms; it''s made of tiny stories.
Featuring 62 contributors from the 14,946 contributions to the Tiny Stories collaboration on HITRECORD.ORG"-book description credit amazon.ca
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S): A tiny book indeed full of tiny stories, this book's author is officially credited (at least from what Ive seen through online stores) as Joseph Gordon-Levitt, which if you must know is a pretty famous actor known for his roles in Inception, 500 Days of Summer, Brick and a Bunch of other movies both indie and "mainstream". But back to the the book, its a compilation of works (illustrations and REALLY short lines of stories) from a whole bunch of different authors and illustrators chosen from HITRECORD.ORG, kind of like an online community that allows anyone who has any grain of creativity in them to collaborate with other artsy folk and make cool stuff. Its hard to describe, so you should check out the website http://www.hitrecord.org/
WHO THIS BOOK IS FOR: As for the book itself, it is REALLY tiny, no doubt about that. One can easily place it in their handbag or backpack and not feel its weight. Its about 64 pages, 4.5 x 6.38 x 0.7 in. The stories run from 1-2 pages, most are 1 page with 1-5 lines complete with illustration that matches the "mood" or theme of the story. Each story is extremely different from the next. You can try linking the stories together for fun, Ive tried but failed. If you're a hardcore book reader that likes really deeply plotted stories with character development, don't expect it from here, you'll just be disappointed. Instead, this book is great for those who like to read more into the lines of stories or for those who enjoy looking at pictures. I think this book would be better given as a gift to friends or family that are artsy, which from my experience are some of the hardest people to buy presents for.
PRICE TAG: At a price tag of about $15CAD online or about $19 CAD in stores (0.13% tax included) its a bit steep considering the size of the book and how long the stories actually are. HOWEVER the illustrations are adorable and the stories short enough that I managed to read it during uni (the only book I've read for the past 3 months sob), so in the end it kind of balanced it out. Again, this would be a good gift to give to people you don't know what to get, but specifically to people that are more artsy or more culturally connected to the literacy or art world in order to get the most appreciation points out of it.
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE: I bought this book because I needed to get over the free shipping if you pay over -inert price here-. Plus I'm a fan of hitrecord.org and all that they do, so I figured I should support them. Random point, all of the 62 contributors do get a cut of the money the book makes. So I got the volume 2 instead of volume 1, because volume 1 had less pages for about the same price. I got it 2-3 days later and I'm glad I bought it, definitely worth the price in my opinion.
Likes:
1. It looks beautiful on my bookshelf ,the cover and the book itself is adorable. Its hardcover, but light and doesn't take up much space, much to the relief of my soon becoming overcrowded bookshelf.
2. It took me less than 1 hour to read, but as I read it over and over again throughout my last uni term, I found the stories changed for me. Yes they had the same pictures and the same short sentences but they were short enough for me to read it in different tones from happy to sad and that coupled with the illustrations helped to let me see each story in a different light. And you can't really do this much with other books that are longer with a whole cast of characters and a twisty plotline that give you a path and map as to how you can read the book. But "The Tiny book of Tiny Stories" doesn't do that; it gives you freedom to read each story however you want, and even allow you to continue the story if you want- away from the physical constraints of the book .You can make a character up or give a character a unique background as you read the story. Whatever it is, you can do it with these short stories and that will give you some sort of "bond" with them if you will. Some stories I made huge connections too as I was able to relate to a few of them. Like this fish bowl one.
This book really helped me get through this semester of uni (which was full of stress and joy and frustration and that damn existential crisis period) which you might be thinking "OMG this girl is reading into the stories waaay to much, guuurl you need to go outside." But university has taught me to read much more deeper into things and question every little thing, so that's why I'm reading into this book a lot more. Also its freezing outside, no way I'm going out there.
3. I really like the illustrations. Nuff' said.
Dislikes:
CONCLUSION: All things said and done, I would give this book 4/5 stars. Given to the right person this book will be appreciated for all things it is. Minus 1 star because of the price; I'm a poor life science uni student okay.
Dislikes:
- The price :( I know that all the contributors end up getting money after all the publishing costs and all, but I'm a poor uni student so I'm biased against high prices.
CONCLUSION: All things said and done, I would give this book 4/5 stars. Given to the right person this book will be appreciated for all things it is. Minus 1 star because of the price; I'm a poor life science uni student okay.
