It's been a while since I read any short story, and I felt this was a good way to reintroduce myself to them. I felt conflicted toward a lot of the stories though, and rating them was difficult. Some were disturbing or weird, some had a great story but indifferent writing, some (those I didn't finish) had a boring story and uninteresting writing. A few were really beautiful, and many were thought-provoking. All were sad, two of them almost unbearably so.

After reading a few stories, I was already starting to forget them (I tend to forget books at an alarming speed, most of the time when I finish a novel I have already forgotten the beginning), so I started a log with a rating for each story and a short note to help me remember, and possibly draw from this a list of authors or magazines I'd like to read more of.

Ratings go from 1 (three stories I didn't bother to finish) to 5. Interestingly, three of the stories were initially published in the New Yorker magazine, and those are among the weakest: two of them I didn't finish, and the third I gave a rating of two, which was especially disappointing because this story is by Alice Munro, who won a Nobel prize. I had never read anything by her before, and her name was one of the reasons I bought this book. The story in her story (if you see what I mean) was good and should have been really moving, but it was told in an incredibly flat and boring way.

For what it's worth, here is the list of the stories with my ratings:

Your Duck Is My Duck - Deborah Eisenberg - Fence - 5
Sugarcane - Derek Palacio - The Kenyon Review - 4
The Summer People - Kelly Link - Tin House - 3
Leaving Maverley - Alice Munro - The New Yorker - 2
White Carnations - Polly Rosenwaike - Prairie Schooner - 3
Sail - Tash Aw - A Public Space -1
Anecdotes - Ann Beattie - Granta - 4
Lay My Head - L. Annette Binder - Fairy Tale Review - 5
He Knew - Donald Antrim - The New Yorker - 1
The Visitor - Asako Serizawa - The Antioch Review - 4
Where Do You Go? - Samar Farah Fitzgerald - New England Review - 3
Aphrodisiac - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala - The New Yorker - 1
Two Opinions - Joan Silber - Epoch - 3
They Find the Drowned - Melinda Moustakis - Hobart: another literary journal - 5
The Mexican - George McCormick - Epoch - 4
Tiger - Nalini Jones - One Story - 3
Pérou - Lily Tuck - Epoch - 4
Sinkhole - Jamie Quatro - Ploughshares - 3
The History of Girls - Ayşe Papatya Bucak - Witness - 4
The Particles - Andrea Barrett - Tin House - 5 ( )

There is something refreshing about reading a good book of short stories. It is different than reading a book of fiction and different from reading a book of nonfiction. Like eating a tray of delicious and varied horderves. You may not like every single story but with this many to choose from and with this great variety and quality, you will enjoy a lot. ( )