Short Stories – Page 96 – Cannonball Read 17

My baby is two hundred pounds in a wheelchair and hard to push uphill but silent all the time.

The Outlaw Album by Daniel Woodrell

January 22, 2019 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

This is a story collection by the Missouri writer Daniel Woodrell, best known for Winter’s Bone, which of course brought Jennifer Lawrence into our lives. I feel like anytime you mention an American Southern writer–and yeah it gets complicated when you’re talking about Missouri, I know–you are compelled to mention what state they’re from. That’s why we all know Faulkner is from Mississippi along with Larry Brown and Eudora Welty; we know that Georgia gave us Flannery O’Connor and Alice Walker; we think of Zora Neale […]

“Of course I do,” returned Arthur, a little irritably. “You mean that it is a double-bedded room, and that one of the beds is occupied?”

The Dead Hand and Other Stories by Wilkie Collins

January 21, 2019 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

This is a collection of shorter pieces by Wilkie Collins, author of The Woman in White and The Moonstone. I recently read his early novella A Rogue’s Life. These stories are for the most part from the same era as that novella. The lead story here is “The Dead Hand” and at first I thought it was going to be a kind of cheap thrill of a story. A man goes to a hotel off the main road and is offered a solid, if suspicious, […]

Get the chest; don’t bother about the head.

Octopussy, The Living Daylights, and Other Storie by Ian Fleming

January 21, 2019 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

So this is an odds and sods collection of leftover James Bond stories published after Ian Fleming died, and a few years into the movie series. It includes two stories that “became films” in the sense that their titles became titles of films. The story “The Living Daylights” forms part of the movie version, but “Octopussy” bears little resemblance to that movie. “Octopussy” is a good short story in the same way that several of Agatha Christie novels are good. Rather than put James Bond […]

What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky – Short Story Perfection

What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah

January 21, 2019 by cheerbrarian 1 Comment

If you don’t yet know about the LeVar Burton podcast, “LeVar Burton Reads” let me have the distinct pleasure of being the one to tell you about it. LeVar Burton, he of Reading Rainbow and Star Trek: TNG reads you short stories. AND IT IS THE BEST THING EVER. He is an amazing reading and storyteller and just brings a big ol’ story to my face. Each episode is 45 minutes to about an hour, and he reads you the story and at the end, […]

Hopefully, there’s nowhere to go but up!

Three Dates with Mr. Darcy by Elizabeth Ann West

January 20, 2019 by crystalclear Leave a Comment

This is a book of Pride and Prejudice variations by Elizabeth Ann West. I am not particularly pleased with any of them, although the first at least has an ending of sorts. (And there are no actual ‘dates’ like we think of today. Title fail.) Hopefully my journey through P&P variations gets better from here. “Much to Conceal” In this story, Elizabeth reveals to Jane in London what happened with the disastrous proposal in Hunsford a week prior. Jane and their Aunt Gardiner plot to […]

Drop-kick That Magic Lamp into Mount Doom

The Djinn Falls in Love and Other Stories by Mahvesh Murad and Jared Shurin (editors)

January 17, 2019 by allisonata 1 Comment

Short story collections are like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates: you have to gnaw some nuts and chews to eventually find that chocolate truffle. That said, The Djinn Falls in Love is phenomenal. Six of the twenty-one stories are among the best short stories I have read. Ever. (Jhumpa Lahiri, I’m sorry to report that you’ve been bumped.) The editors’s international ensemble of authors clearly did their research, populating their confident tales with every manner of djinn, jinn, and genie. Some lie in wait in […]

Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

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