Breakfast at Tiffany's
by Truman Capote · first published 1956
10mentions
6recommended by
10HN commenters
2015–2026first – last mentioned
60% recommend30% neutral10% critical
Why HN recommends it
Short, fast-reading novella about an eccentric young woman in New York, praised for its vivid, chaotic characters and for being a quicker read than expected; a good pick for those who only know the film.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Published with three short stories this novella cemented Capote’s position at the forefront of American literature. It is the story of a friendship between New York neighbours, good time girl Holly Golightly and the unnamed male narrator.
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> you just limit the space to text And even then... why can't they write a novel? Or lowering the bar, let's say a novella like Death in Venice, Candide, The Metamorphosis, Breakfast at Tiffany's...? Every book's in the training corpus... Is it just a matter of someone not having spent a hundred grand in tokens to do it?
on “Opus 4.7 to 4.6 Inflation is ~45%” ↗Breakfast at Tiffany's (Truman Capote).
on “Ask HN: What book have you given as a gift?” ↗Why? Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a remarkable book. If you’ve only seen the movie you might get the wrong impression of the book. I had to turn the movie off after just a few minutes.
on “When Truman Capote’s Lies Caught Up with Him” ↗…the 1950s, in the desert of California where the drag racers line up facing the Christmas lights, a new challenger appears. He is tall with a large forehead and olive colored skin. He wants to race. * Breakfast at Tiffany's — technically a novella, but reads really fast. Different than the movie and better (in my opinion) * Flowers for Algernon — One of the classics * Country of the Blind — in the country of the blind,…
on “Ask HN: What are your favorite short stories?” ↗Just want to say that it's one of my favorite twists of history that the guy who wrote Breakfast at Tiffany's invented "true" crime.
on “When Truman Capote’s Lies Caught Up with Him” ↗…big tragic thing happens, but not because of some evil dragon - it happens because the characters are what they are. And then you have something like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, or On the Road, or Breakfast at Tiffany's. Where things happen because the characters are basically chaotic assholes, the kind of people to whom things happen and you want to read about these things.
on “How to write a novel using the snowflake method (2013)” ↗By some strange coincidence, I had decided this week to read Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's and then watch the film again. I might also repeat a famous Wilde quote: There are two ways to dislike poetry. One is to dislike it, and the other is to read Pope.
on “Ask HN: What happened to theregister.com?” ↗He means people will pay attention. You want that in a film, right? When brain-storming, you censor later. BTW In Breakfast at Tiffany's, Holly married Doc at 13. There's worse in the novella.
on “Raiders of the Lost Ark Story Conference Transcript” ↗…night I dreamt I went to Manderley again" is obvious to lots of people but for example, "I am always drawn back to places where I have lived, the houses and their neighbourhoods" doesn't exactly promise Breakfast at Tiffany's does it? By the second chapter I think you've earned a lot of leeway, either the reader is engaged and will soldier on despite your six new nouns and what might be a new word or possibly a new meaning…
on “Quote Origin: I had exactly four seconds and Google had told me it wasn’t enough” ↗I'd like Breakfast at Tiffany's without the racism.
on “World’s Oldest Torrent Is Still Being Shared After 4,419 Days” ↗