Story Collections Community Read-Along May 2013

This month's highlight and treat will be my ARC of the current Tartt Award-winning collection THE LOVE BOX.

I almost always love Livingston Press's books. I'm really looking forward to this one. The publisher's pretty laconic: "Winner! Tartt First Fiction Award! The Love Box is a camera, a fight, an oven, a heart. These 22 stories document the torments of young men and women haunted by unreasonable attachments to other human beings."

Not much to go on there, is there...still looking forward to it.

Maybe I'll actually read Binocular Vision or Brief Encounters with Che Guevara. Both are sitting on my bedside table.

I have just added the anthology The Best Short Stories of 1931, edited by Edward J. O'Brien, to my stack of "between books" (collections and anthologies I read one entry at a time between the full-length books I read). O'Brien's introduction, discussing the evolution of the American short story, the influences that Hemingway was having on American writers (who often misinterpret his ideas, according to O'Brien) and the difficulties young up-and-comers like Kay Boyle and Katherine Anne Porter were having getting published in the older, more established literary periodicals, makes for a fascinating bit of time travel in and of itself. I'm now reading and enjoying the first entry, "The Enigma," by Louis Adamic. Some of the more recognizable authors represented herein are Alvah C. Bessie, Boyle, Louis Bromfield, Erskine Caldwell, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald (sigh, Babylon Revisited again!), Don Marquis and Dorothy Parker.

I've also got the July 27, 1994, New Yorker Magazine Art of Fiction edition on the "between book" stack. I just read a rather pointless if somewhat humorous story called "Subsoil" by Nicholson Baker and a hilarious (and by "hilarious" I mean I was frequently laughing out loud) book-by-book walk through the NY Times Top Ten Bestsellers list by Anthony Lane.

In addition, I'm still slowly going through the Modern Library collection of Isaac Singer's luminous short stories.

I've read a couple of collections so far this year but haven't posted about them in the group. This month I'll endeavour to pick up Sue Orr's collection, From under the Overcoat. I have hesitated about reading it as I thought maybe I should first read the classic stories her collection is based on.

I am reading There is a Country, New Fiction from the New Nation of South Sudan exited by Nyuol Lueth Tong - no touchstones. It is a "supplement" (extra journal) of 8 short stories from South Sudan, all in English. It was packaged with the present McSweeney's #34 (which is up next). Got it at the AWESOME City Lights Books when I was out in SF.

I finished "There is a Country, New Fiction from the New Nation of South Sudan" and it was so-so. What I realized, is There is a Country, but it is for men only. Due to the fact that this collection could only have stories that were writtin in English (no traslated works) due to logistics, that precluded most women, who still seem not to get an education. Most of the stories evidence that fact too. So I guess I was a little soured on it all. All eight stories were written by men. I realize change is slow in any country, let alone a burgeoning one shaped by war, but still ... would LOVE to have seen some women's points of views and views on life. But if you want to learn a bit about South Sudan as it affected the men (and their women as for men and such), not a bad collection.

I didn't get to any short fiction collections in April, and May isn't shaping up as a very good reading month---too many R.L. obligations. But we shall see. Sometimes I surprise myself.

Hoping to get to an SS collection this month! *fingers crossed* All of y'alls reading is so tempting!

Found Little Disturbances of Man: Stories by Grace Paley for 1.00 on the used shelves at the library, so picked it up. A bit weird, but some say she was one of the finest short story writers ... so will give it a go. Very small book for 11 stories!

I should mention that I ditched a short story collection that I had high hopes for---Battleborn by Claire Vaye Watkins. It won all sorts of awards and I waited for it for ages from the library but...sorry to say, it just didn't engage me. I have many collections both on my shelf and on my iPad so I will pick something else up eventually.

Just finished Final Vinyl Days by Jill McCorkle. My review is here on LT.
Next up for short stories, Doghouse Roses by Steve Earle.

Blech, Grace Paley's short stories Little Disturbances of Man is SO not for me. I honestly don't even understand what she is saying sometimes - like who is talking, why, etc. A very weird style of writing with characters not engaging enough to make me work.

On to something else ...

Just received This Is Paradise: Stories by Kristiana Kahakauwila......looks like a nice collection.

That looks like a wonderful collection hemlokgang! Let us know!

On my Mom's recommendation, I started and am quickly sinking into the outstanding bunch of (long) short stories by Bernhard Schlink called Summer Lies ... what a great writer. Enjoying it very, very much (on 4 of 7).

I finished and reviewed Summer Lies by Bernhard Schlink. I give it a hearty thumbs up!

During my just concluded "between book" session (see post 3, above), I read "The Fast" from the Modern Library collection, Selected Short Stories of Isaac Singer, "Only We Are Barren" by Alvah C. Bessie from The Best Short Stories of 1931, edited by Edward J. O'Brien, and "The Albanian Virgin" by Alice Munro from The New Yorker 1994 fiction edition.

Well, this month was a bust for me. I got nothin' accomplished reading-wise. Writing went better, getting published came a cropper, and now....well, it's June and the June thread is up for good news!