The Moth

These are adapted from Moth spoken word stories and translate surprisingly well to the page.

Good condition, arrived on time. Great book. I love listening to the Moth Radio Hour, and I also am enjoying this book of stories told by all kinds of different people.

This is a great book and I enjoyed it. In the best story telling tradition it gives a view into the lives of people at a special or significant time. The sections are not long and they are reader friendly. I have just learn about the Moth collective and this was a wonderful look at the kinds of stories that are told on their stages. Buy this book, it is worth your time.

Fact. I love The Moth Radio Hour. The book has some of the stories I heard on my iPhone, but I believe the choice of stories to publish was based on the authors being well-known as opposed to being the best stories. There have been times when hearing stories I have laughed so hard I cried. None of those are in the book. None of the stories I replayed for my husband because they were so good were in the book. I can’t be the only one disappointed by the choices. This doesn’t mean it’s not a good book. It just could have been ever so much better.

The Moth has already mastered performance storytelling. Still, some folks like me would rather read a great, true story than hear it declaimed -- and if that's you too, well, you're in for the read of your life.Start at the beginning. Start at the end. Read the paperback or the Kindle version. Sit up or recline. It doesn't matter how you approach this book, it will reach out and grab you and you will not be able to put it down.If you're a Studs Terkel fan, you already know what can be done with oral history in the hands of an expert editor. Now, add the storytelling arc, and enjoy the most satisfying read you've experienced in years. You'll be transported into the worlds of 50 people with the courage to confess the sometimes raw, nearly always funny truth, and you'll find yourself caring deeply about every last one of them.If I could give it 6 stars I would.

I particularly liked the one told by the MIT graduate who wanted to become an astronaut and the one about bull fighting, really bull fighting. This book gives you short, really, really personal stories. I used it as a bedside book to help me when I would wake up in the middle of the night. I would get into trouble and stay up all night if I was reading a junk romance novel. This is so much more touching and tangible. I really, really enjoyed it. Wish some day to get to the actual Moth meetings, but in NYC they are ALWAYS sold out, so in the meantime I am satisfied with this. Hopefully we will get more volumes. This is such a GREAT idea. Story telling at its best. Some of the stories are kind of awful, but isn't that the truth about life anyway?

Excellent, as are the other Moth collections. I do skip the self-serving intros byself-elected experts who think they know oh! so very much about choosing the bestof the available stories. A Preface, an Introduction, and a Forward by three separate self-elected, “experts”?This is the embarrassingly self-serving portion of the collection.

I wasn't sure how well the radio show that I love would translate into reading the stories (I thought the stories could fall flat without the voice of the storyteller to bring the story to life). I enjoyed reading the stories as much as I enjoy listening to them on the radio show. I truly loved this book. It's a great gift too. I first got it as a Christmas gift for a friend who had never heard the radio show. He called me a couple days after getting the book, all excited, and exclaimed, "I'm really loving this book." He then proceeded to read one of his favorite stories to me from the book. That's when I decided I'd get the kindle version for myself to read. I do wish though that I'd gotten the paperback version so I could dogear my favorites.

The Moth is a storytelling platform and this volume collects 50 diverse pieces by these writers/orators. There is an oratory element to each of these tales that gives an immediacy and rawness without the polish of a written story, and rightly so because they all originated from standup storytelling sessions.In Neil Gaiman's introduction, he explains one of the basic tenets of the Moth: "Honesty matters. Vulnerability matters. Being open about who you were at the moment in time when you were in a difficult or an impossible place matters more than anything."Each storyteller chooses a moment in their own lives as basis for the content of their stories and they tell it as it is; except that they don't. These are stories, not fact. And being honest and "leaving out things you don't need" is not the same as not embellishing them with your own perspective, distorting accounts to highlight or tune out aspects of the situation accordingly. And that's what makes this collection enjoyable. You develop a relationship with each storyteller in those few moments that you listen to (or in this case, read) his or her tale, empathising, being wowed by, and at the same time learning more about the teller, because his or her personality inevitably slips through. Whether it is the high class socialite who tells about her trysts with the Brunei prince and his brother in his harem unabashedly, the junkie who falls in love with a fellow rehab patient who was suffering from AIDS and finds a moment of grace that he is forever unable to repeat, or the death row inmate who was wrongfully accused and spent eighteen years in prison, they all have a confession or some learning to share.Some stories work well, and some not as well, but what is captivating about them all is the way they appropriate the feeling of a campfire sharing session, and whether you are totally engrossed by the story or distracted by your burning marshmallow, you feel the warmth of the fire and the intimacy of the baring of souls.

Some of the stories are downright indulgent and shameless self promotion. Some of the stories are extremely underwhelming it’s like watching paint dry. There are only a handful of stories in either book which are actually worth the time but yeah I strongly recommend it not buying the books. I wouldn’t buy these books I would borrow from someone who owns one.

All kinds of people tell true stories from their own lives. Laugh out loud, feel moved to tears, saddened, and overall inspired - bu5 not in some pious way, but because this is people telling it like it is.The title was a little offputting for me, but don't let it do so - it's because of "The Moth" events, where people do a kind of stand-up, conceived from the idea of people sitting on a porch,with the moths fiuttering in the lamp-light, as they tell their stories.The short format of about 5 pages each makes it easy to read. Having read one, you'll want to read more.

Listened to the podcasts and thought this would make a great gift for a friend.

I am thoroughly enjoying reading this on my Kindle and as it is a collection of individual stories it does make for very interesting reading as every story is unique in its own way. Most of them seem to be about true characters so the little bit of information at the end of the story is fascinating.