CBR10Bingo: Not in My Wheelhouse It wasn’t always like this. In junior high I discovered Stephen King’s short stories before any of his novels. These were my road trip and summer vacation books. I loved that I could read a story or two, put the book away and do something else, and then pick it up later and start fresh with something new. Night Shift and Skeleton Crew and Different Seasons were my gateway drugs to Cujo and The Shining and Misery. I don’t know […]
Finally getting through a few story collections I have been picking at and one brand new one.
American Gothic Tales; American Supernatural Tales; Her Body and Other Parties; Honeydew by Joyce Carol Oates; ST Joshi; Carmen Maria Machado; Edith Pearlman
American Gothic Tales – Ed. Joyce Carol Oates 5/5 Stars Joyce Carol Oates knows her stuff. Her introduction to this collection her focus on the Gothic as the selection process makes this an incredibly satisfying collection because it’s not all one type of story. So while on the one had you do in fact get a bunch of ghost stories, you also get stories that are eerie or disturbing or full of murder, and you get stories that are off-putting but not directly scary stories, […]
I Feel Like I’m Taking Crazy Pills
It’s a terrible feeling to hear praise heaped upon a new book, read it yourself and…not get it. Your mind starts playing games with itself: Everyone else liked this book, what’s wrong with you? Do you just not understand it? Is that it, you idiot? You focus on the book a little harder, maybe if you squint at the freaking book, all of this praise will make sense. But still…it’s just not there for you. That was my experience with Kelly Link’s collection of short […]
Simple Math Helped Me Rate This One.
I have a feeling that this book is a case of its not you, it’s me. In addition to my goal for Cannonball (65 books this year) I’m working on the Read Harder Challenge put on by Book Riot. As part of that challenge there are 24 tasks and one of them is a short story collection. I haven’t really done much in the way of reading short story collections so this was one of the tasks that truly felt like a challenge. Late last […]
Because There’s Enough Reality Already
Short stories have never been my cup of tea. It takes so much effort to get into the groove of a story that it seems pointless to have it end so quickly. After a friend suggested short stories via audiobook, I’m starting to change my mind. In audio form, short stories become podcast-like and I adore podcasts. Kelly Link’s Get In Trouble was a great starter collection. All of the stories could be classified as magical realism (which I love already) and are extremely well-written. […]