I liked the feel of this, like short stories all tied loosely to each other through the common experience of the newspaper.

Perhaps not everyone's cup of tea, but short stories are one of my favourite things in the world. ( )

A wonderful little novel with, in many ways, a Roman newspaper as the main character. However, the novel consists of 11 short chapters where one of the newspapers' employees takes center stage, becoming the main character. What makes the novel so wonderful is just how well Rachman is able to so completely capture the life & and entire personality of his characters in these brief, sparse, and succint chapters. ( )

There was nothing wrong with this book. It was really well written, the characters were real people with real problems... I think the reason I'm only feeling three stars for this book is the structure. It's a collection of stories, linked by the story of the newspaper. I never felt 'hooked' by this story. All the same, [b:The Imperfectionists|6834410|The Imperfectionists|Tom Rachman|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1291052624s/6834410.jpg|7045390] provides a very fine snapshot of an era that may be coming to an end. ( )

[b:The Imperfectionists|6834410|The Imperfectionists|Tom Rachman|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327935648s/6834410.jpg|7045390] is both a novel and a short story collection. To me, it reads like a novel, but each chapter could standalone as a short story. It is the story of an international newspaper being published out of Italy. Each chapter takes us into the life of one of the characters associated with the newspaper. All of the characters have a relationship to the newspaper, but each one is totally unique and perfectly drawn. Every detail is necessary and so thought through. It's just beautifully vivid.

It isn't a pretty picture of humanity, but the flaws are ones that we see all around us. Who doesn't know a person who tries to avoid all their responsibilities? Or a person who is terribly lonely? Or a person whose choice of a mate seems both insane and yet somehow understandable?

In the end, I just felt that Rachman is incredibly talented. I admired what he did while also being engaged by it. ( )

Mixed feelings about the novel. It was well-written and held my interest all the way through, and was very funny in places. All the main characters had major problems, reasonable given the title. But I kept feeling that the author had a real streak of cruelty; every time I started feeling sympathetic to a character they were either shown as being worse than you realized, or something awful happened to them. I felt like the author was being heartless to his own creations.

Listened to the audiobook, the reading was ok but nothing special. ( )