Lisa at ANZ LitLovers has just announced a new reading event – Short Story September.
I don’t read many short story collections – mainly because there’s usually a handful in a collection that are stellar and the rest feel like filler – but that said, some short story collections have crept into my annual favourites list.
I’ll be hot off #20BooksofSummer and giving this one a go. I browsed my TBR stack, and this is what I’ll be selecting from:
- Single Carefree Mellow by Katherine Heiny
- Flights of Love by Bernhard Schlink
- Portraits of a Few of the People I’ve Made Cry by Christine Sneed
- Other People We Married by Emma Straub
- Middle-Aged Boys and Girls by Dianne Bracuk
- Difficult Women by Roxanne Gay
- Florida by Lauren Groff
- Eleven Kinds of Loneliness by Richard Yates
- Collected Stories by Richard Yates
- Liars in Love by Richard Yates
- Homesick For Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh
- Grand Union by Zadie Smith
- Show Don’t Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld
- Walk the Blue Fields by Claire Keegan
I’m leaning toward starting with Sittenfeld’s latest and something by Yates – thoughts?
Head over to ANZ LitLovers for all the details.
Oh, oh, oh, I can’t wait to see what you make of the Claire Keegan!
Thanks for the support:)
It’s the only one of hers that I haven’t read, so will be looking forward to it.
I’ve read it. They’re really good! But I think she’s better with the slightly longer novella format. Of course, that could be just me.
The Sittenfeld is a treat. (As a heads-up, the three stories of Help Yourself are included in Show Don’t Tell, so you’ll just want to read the latter.)
Florida is one of my all-time favourite collections. Groff is excellent at short stories, and underrated, I feel. I’ve rated both of her collections 5 stars, and she has a new one coming out next year.
I’m partway through the Heiny at the moment and it’s good but a little lite compared to her novels, with lots of the same sorts of characters and situations repeating.
I didn’t know Straub had a story collection! I’ll have to seek that out.
Thanks for the heads-up re Sittenfeld. I suspect I bought Help Yourself after her last short story collection (which was outstanding), and of course I had Show Don’t Tell on pre-order, hence the doubling up…
I’ve enjoyed Groff’s novels. Most of the books on my short story TBR list are by authors that I love, and I read everything they’ve written and grind to a halt when I get to the short stories! (hence the Heiny, Groff, Yates and Sittenfeld).
If those are all collections (and obviously some of them are), that’s a lot of reading for one month. If I participate (not sure, because several other events are coming up in September, October, and November, and I try not to get involved with too many), I’d be more inclined to pick out individual short stories. I have a Dostoevsky collection on my desk, so I might read one or two of those.
I won’t come close to reading them all! Likely to get through two or three collections.
Oh, I see. It’s your list of possibilities.
You certainly have plenty to choose from! The only one Ive read is Walk the Blue Fields by Claire Keegan, which I liked but not as much as her other collection, Antarctica.
The Richard Yates’ ones will be good. I’ve read a couple of his novels and loved them.
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I would read some of these just because of the titles! 😉
– Portraits of a few of the people who I’ve made cry.
– Other people we have married.
– Middle-aged boys and Girls.
They sound intriguing. I could almost use the titles to prompt me to write a short story.
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