Winner Take Nothing

By Ernest Hemingway

Book Overview

Ernest Hemingway's first new book of fiction, since the publication of A Farewell to Arms, contains fourteen stories of varying length. Some of them have appeared in magazines but the majority have not been published before. The characters and backgrounds are widely varied. "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" is about an old Spanish Beggar. "Homage to Switzerland" concerns various conversations at a Swiss railway-station restaurant. "The Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio" is laid in the accident ward of a hospital in Western United States, and so on. Ernest Hemingway made his literary start as a short-story writer. He has always excelled in that medium, and this volume reveals him at his best.

• Format: Board book
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684718103
• ISBN13: 9780684718101
• Release Date: January 1966
• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

A guidebook to the imagination

Ernest Hemingway, Winner Take Nothing (Scribner's, 1933)Arguably Hemingway's finest book of short stories, Winner Take Nothing contains fourteen relatively short and always spare looks at various stages of life. What seem, upon first reading, to be nothing more than frameworks or outlines take on more meat upon reflection. Hemingway lets the reader fill in the small details, guiding his imagination rather than manipulating it. This does mean that the onus is on the reader more than usual with this book; Hemingway's work is meant to be thought-provoking rather than escapist. If you can make it to the end of "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," the second story in the book, and reflect on it without feeling anything, then the book's probably not for you. Those who approach it with the proper mindset, however, will find it to be full of opportunities to plumb one's own imagination. ****

Gain nothing, lose nothing

This was the first Hemingway book I have read and I was surprised. I always imagined his books were boring and completely symbolibic to the point that you don't understand it. However I enjoyed this book and all the short stories involved in this. All the stories were interesting and connected the theme that the "winner takes nothing" in different situations. I enjoyed the fact that since he probably wrote this in Europe, Hemingway weaved French and sometimes German into the dialogue. Also in one story Fitzgerald is mentioned as a wild child. "Winner take nothing" is an easy book to understand and follow, and the stories are original.