The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories

Written by Ernest Hemingway

Narrated by Stacy Keach

The ideal introduction to the genius of Ernest Hemingway, The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories contains ten of Hemingway's most acclaimed and popular works of short fiction.

Selected from Winner Take Nothing, Men Without Women, and The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories, this collection includes "The Killers," the first of Hemingway's mature stories to be accepted by an American periodical; the autobiographical "Fathers and Sons," which alludes, for the first time in Hemingway's career, to his father's suicide; "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber," a "brilliant fusion of personal observation, hearsay and invention," wrote Hemingway's biographer, Carlos Baker; and the title story itself, of which Hemingway said: "I put all the true stuff in," with enough material, he boasted, to fill four novels. Beautiful in their simplicity, startling in their originality, and unsurpassed in their craftsmanship, the stories in this volume highlight one of America's master storytellers at the top of his form.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Mar 8, 2008
• ISBN: 9780743578103

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway was an American journalist, novelist, short story writer, and sportsman. His economical and understated style, which he termed “the iceberg theory,” had a strong influence on twentieth-century fiction, while his adventurous lifestyle and public image brought him admiration from later generations.

Reviews for The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories

[neftzger · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I had not read Hemingway for over two decades when I picked up this book at the library. I don't remember liking his work that much when I first read it, but I obviously liked his writing enough at the time to read a large portion of what he's written. His work obviously engaged or at least intrigued me, but I'd forgotten that. Revisiting this book later in life was like rediscovering the author as an old friend and appreciating his merits.The Snows of Kilimanjaro is an outstanding piece that's incredibly well written. If you read nothing else from this collection or from Hemingway, I highly recommend it. Hemingway has a distinctive style that you may not always agree with, but I'm walking away from the second reading of this book with deeper respect for his writing.

[lcoale1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book reminded me of how much I love Ernest Hemingway, who happens to be one of my favorite authors because his writings inspire me. Granted, I missed most of the deep symbolism, but I'm okay with that. Some of the short stories included in this book will be very hard to forget about, and I was quite impressed by Hemingway's writing.

[paperclips_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Never been a big Hemingway fan (but that was high school), but thought I should give it a try again. Some of the stories were very good, others I felt as if I just walked into the middle of a conversation and never got the hang of.The Good: The Snows of Kilimanjaro, A Clean Well-Lighted Place, A Day’s Wait, The Short and Happy Life, Fifty GrandThe Confusing:The Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio;In Another Country; The Killers; A Way You’ll Never BeThe first list all had well developed story-lines and could be considered an A –>B–>C type of story (sorry, I am a bit concrete-sequential when it comes to reading); the next list was a bit too scattered for me. If I was to read this again, I would bypass the stories that didn’t do it for me in the first page or two, then move on to the next.

[alanteder · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Ernest Hemingway's "The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories" is an anthology collection of 10 short stories that was first issued by his publisher Scribners in 1961 which was also the year of Hemingway's death by suicide. There isn't any reference to these being selected by Hemingway himself so we're left to speculate on how the selection was made, although the stories are described on the blurb as "Hemingway's most acclaimed and popular works of short fiction." There are 3 stories from 1927's "Men Without Women" ("In Another Country", "The Killers", "Fifty Grand"), 5 stories from 1933's "Winner Take Nothing" ("A Clean, Well-Lighted Place", "A Day's Wait", "The Gambler, the Nun and the Radio", "Fathers and Sons", "A Way You'll Never Be") and the 2 African safari stories ("The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber") from 1936 that were first collected in 1938's "The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories".Most Hemingway fans will likely have at least one or two other stories that they would expect to have seen included in a "most acclaimed" collection and I was surprised that the exquisite camping and fishing story "Big Two-Hearted River" from 1925 was missing here. However, there is an overall air of melancholy and impending tragedy and death in the stories in this collection which probably didn't suit the inclusion of the sunlight and air and cold fresh waters of the famous outdoor tale.Of the selected stories, "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" and "A Day's Wait", at 4 or 5 pages each, appear pretty slight at first glance, and yet, James Joyce is reported to have described the former as "one of the best short stories ever written," so some further close attention to each of these stories may be repaid with renewed appreciation and insight. I especially enjoyed reading this collection after having also just read Donald Bouchard's "Hemingway: So Far From Simple" which causes you to view all of Hemingway's characters and stories as metaphors for the writer and the act of writing itself. Reading "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" and thinking of the ineffectual Francis Macomber, the sometimes sensitive/sometimes cold Margaret Macomber and the mythologized great white hunter Robert Wilson as all facets of Hemingway himself and the hunt as the path of the career of writing added a whole different view to what can superficially just be read as a tale of cowardice and jealousy in the bush.

[edwinbcn · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I was rather disappointed to find out that The snows of Kilimanjaro, and other stories is an anthology, consisting of 18 short stories taken from various short story collections.Most stories in this collection are very short, consisting of dialogues about very down to earth topics. I enjoyed the little discussion about the merits of Hugh Walpole and G.K. Chesterton in "The Three-Day Blow".Most stories are a pleasure to read, but are hardly memorable.

[caklr650 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

An uneven collection of stories. The title story and The Short Life of Francis MacComber were very good, but most of the others were a chore to finish. Doesn't make me want to rush and read more Hemmingway just yet. A real sense of Machismo runs through the book. Men are Men when they fight in War...Against Men. Men like to hunt, in the company of men. Hmm, Does being a man also mean fostering a family value of suicide? I don't mean to be cruel but finding a man in this book who has a sensitive thought or an emotion that is not done in a shade of Red or Black is impossible. I feel like Hemmingway's prose hides behind a facade of pompous bravado. And even though we cannot expect to get the depth of character we would expect to fing in a novel, his characters, to me at least, often come off as insecure, knuckle dragging, Neanderthals who are afraid to express what they really might be feeling

[jbreedlove_6 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Hemingway's most popular short story collection includes auto-biographical material and his earliest stories that were accepted by American periodicals.

[rayski_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

A bunch of very short stories. Some good, some not.

[br77rino · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Short Life of Francis MacComber was the best of the short stories here, and was very good. A rich but gutless (?) man travels on safari to Africa with his shrewd, content and unloving wife. He is transformed by one of the experiences while hunting, and his wife is as well. A great little tale.

[rainpebble_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I quite enjoyed this slim volume of short stories by Hemingway. His words have a way of engaging the reader with the time, place and space of the story. So far I have loved everything I have read by him.The first short: The Snows of Kilimanjaro, which he titled this book after, is about a man & wife on safari in Africa under the Mountain of Kilimanjaro. He has a serious leg injury that has gone gangrene. She is attempting to keep him amused whilst they await the plane to take him to hospital. While they wait they talk and he drinks. He is not so frightened now that the pain is gone.The second: A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, is about 2 waiters in a sidewalk cafe and an aged man who comes in every evening and sits quietly drinking until 3:00 A.M. by which time he is drunk and goes home. He attempted suicide 'last' week and his niece who cares for him saved his life. The one waiter is a bit surly and wants the old man to leave so he can close up the joint. The 2nd waiter is much more laid back and sees no harm in letting the gentleman drink for that last hour.The third story: A Day's Wait, is about a little boy who becomes ill and must remain in bed for a day or two. His father reads to him and sits by his bed and talks with him. The boy does not want to sleep even though he is sleepy. He thinks that he is dying.The fourth: The Gambler, The Nun, and the Radio, is about a 2 men hospitalized with gunshot wounds. One was shot twice in the abdomen and the other one in the leg. When the police come in to question them, the men insist that it was just an accident, although they were shot by an angry card player. It was an accident because the man had shot 8 times and only hit them three but was only attempting to hit the one. Good story.The fifth: Fathers and Sons, is about a father and his son out hunting and then about the son & friends out shooting. The son, Nick, always thought of his father in the fall during hunting season.The sixth: In Another Country, is about two men, again in hospital in Milan, Italy with war wounds. They are on machines said to help with their therapy. It is rather a character study as are the others as well.There are four more, each as good as the last. Some of these are just a very few pages, but what pages. After a couple of them I had to just sit and ponder the meaning that Hemingway was possibly attempting to get to us. Also several of these are Nick Adams stories, which are always exceptionally good.I highly recommend this book and I gave it 4 stars.

[jpsnow · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is my first exposure to Hemingway since "The Old Man and the Sea" (c. 9th grade). My main reaction now is a deep appreciation for his writing style and a belief that one must have a little more life experience to truly respect what and how he conveys the essence of a situation (particularly in adult relationships). "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" gives a quick and hard message about making what you can of your talents and not letting them slip away. The moral is especially geared toward any aspiring writer. The last story in this collection was "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." It parallels elegantly with the hunting theme of the first story, and drives home equally a message about being a man. The relationship nuances were especially dominant in this story too. From "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" (p.24): "'The very rich are different from you and me.' And how someone had said to Julian, Yes, they have more money." "A Clean, Well-lighted Place" is a very short story about two waiters watching a customer they might become. "A Day's Wait" is another very short story about a boy who believes he is going to die and his unique young viewpoint that changes when the news of his mistake. "Fathers and Sons" is another Nicholas Adams story about how men in a family line are alike (also very deep into the senses of several male-oriented activities). There are also a couple stories reflective of Hemingway's experience in war and Italy. "Fifty Grand" is a joy -- simple plot, essentials conveyed elegantly, and neat ending.