Short Stories – Page 58 – Cannonball Read 17

Unfortunately this one falls short for me

Sakina's Restaurant by Aasif Mandvi

March 21, 2021 by faintingviolet Leave a Comment

In trying to get out of my reading slump I went back to my old Audible library to see what was hanging out there that I hadn’t listened to yet. One of the books there was Sakina’s Restaurant by Aasif Mandvi. I thought I was getting a straightforward short story not a recording of a one man show, and that effected my experience, I think. There’s a way you tell a story when you are going to be in front of an audience versus when […]

Let’s pretend this was never published

The Best of Me by David Sedaris

March 21, 2021 by Rooooomie Leave a Comment

I’ve been a fan of David Sedaris’s writing for a very long time; Me Talk Pretty One Day was the first book of his that I read, and I quickly blew through his back catalogue at the time. Since then, I’ve bought and read every new book he has released, including his latest, The Best of Me. I’ve been in a bit of a reading rut this year, so when trying to decide what to read next, I was confident Sedaris’s latest release would break […]

A Stranger World

The Doll's Alphabet by Camilla Grudova

February 22, 2021 by blauracke Leave a Comment

Women shed their outer skin to reveal their true insect self, a man with eight legs is looking for a suitable companion, two girls become obsessed with a magical sewing machine, and a wooden mermaid gives birth to a sconce after being beset by an octopus. These are just a few of the short stories in the book, and they all are cut from the same cloth: a scratchy, worn-out fabric depicting a warped reality. The world in which The Doll’s Alphabet takes place is […]

Solid four and a half stars

The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans

February 22, 2021 by lowercasesee Leave a Comment

This year I’m tracking my reading in so many ways I worry it’s unsustainable (here, Goodreads, Storygraph, and the BookRiot tracker) but one of the things I do like is that in some places I can give half stars. I’m finding that a lot of what I read is 4.5 stars. Truly excellent, but just doesn’t have that special something that tips me into obsession. Obsession is what gets you the full 5. The Office of Historical Corrections is amazing and I definitely recommend it, but […]

I read Killing Eve so you don’t have to

Codename Villanelle (Killing Eve #1) by Luke Jennings

February 19, 2021 by postcardsandbooks 3 Comments

A few months ago I finally gave in and watched season 1 of Killing Eve, and I really enjoyed it. Something about Villanelle and Eve’s twisted obsessive relationship was fascinating to me. I’m not caught up to the series, but when the book showed up on an Audible deal, I snatched it up and thought I was in for a fun ride. Turns out, not quite so. Here’s the thing: Codename Villanelle was not originally a novel (which I didn’t discover until after I finished […]

Flowering Judas and Other Stories – Katherine Anne Porter (1935)

Flowering Judas and Other Stories by Katherine Anne Porter

February 16, 2021 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

This is the second time I’ve read this collection, and for a few of the stories like “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” and “Flowering Judas” half a dozen or more. Katherine Anne Porter has a strange place in American literature, partly because of her placement in time–she was born around the turn of the century–and partly because she only wrote the one novel. She’s an absolute force in terms of the short stories, which predate figures writing somewhat similar stories like O’Connor (to a small […]

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