Possibly the greatest writer who has ever lived. Nobody writes like he does. Such a beautiful and moving story, I savoured every last word on the page. Gorgeous.

A great and entertaining set of short stories. Some of them were fantastic and others I struggled to connect with, but still a well written collection with strong characters and important themes

A mystery: why didn’t he name the collection after the best story, ‘Sonny’s Blues’?

‘The Rockpile’ also has distinction and shows off Baldwin’s talent.

Thanks to NetGalley etc.

I’ve been wanting to read Baldwin for a while now and this was a great opportunity for me to dive in and what an excellent first place to start. Baldwin is an excellent, evocative writer. I so clearly saw the scenes being set around me and felt the emotions entangled with those time periods and the social and political landscape. The writing was so honest and so brutal and so brilliant.

The only reason why I’m not giving it a 5 is sometimes I got lost within the narrative structures of the short stories — I had to reread parts several times trying to figure out what’s going on and how we got to one part from the last bit. That was my only issue,

I can’t wait to read more Baldwin. I think he’s an excellent writer and there’s a lot to be learned from him.