Reading with Style discussion

To celebrate the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere (the Winter Solstice on December 21), read a book of Short Stories.

For the purpose of this task, each story in the collection must be 99 pages or fewer.

Please post any questions or comments about task 20.8 in this thread.

Can I please have a ruling on The Atrocity Exhibition?

This is the Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atr...

There is debate on whether it is a novel or a collection of short stories, but I'm hoping that it will count as short stories because "All of the 1970 book originally appeared as stories in magazines before being collected."

What do you think?

Rosemary wrote: "Can I please have a ruling on The Atrocity Exhibition?

This is the Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atr...

There is debate on whether it is a novel or ..."

Several GR reviewers state that this is not a novel and then go on with their own descriptions of how it differs from a novel. This also has "short stories" as an MPG. I think it works.

Thank you!

Found this on my home shelf: Close Company: Stories of Mothers and Daughters. Some of the authors are: Margaret Atwood, Sylvia Plath, Alice Walker, Jeanette Winterson, and Alice Munro. I am excited to read this book that I didn't even know I owned.

Bea wrote: "Found this on my home shelf: Close Company: Stories of Mothers and Daughters. Some of the authors are: Margaret Atwood, Sylvia Plath, Alice Walker, Jeanette Winterson, and Alice Munr..."

That's a great group of authors, Bea, and some of them had rather difficult relationships with their own mothers.

Does it have to be from different authors or can be read one with a single author as well?

Either.

This noon, I started Manhattan Noir 2: The Classics, edited by (and a contribution from) Lawrence Block. He provides a wonderful introduction discussing short fiction in general. There are also several paragraphs about noir, but that is not the point of my post.

Block tells us, for example, that O. Henry had moved to New York after serving a prison sentence in Ohio for embezzling $854.08 from a bank in Austin, Texas. But after arriving in NYC, he contracted with a newspaper to provide a weekly short story at the princely sum of $100 each. This, at a time when a family could be adquately supported for $20 a week.

Block goes on that many writers of the 30s and 40s made their living turning out short fiction for magazines - slick and pulp depending on the story. Still, writers could make a living writing short fiction.

And then the bottom fell out of the short fiction market. Mass Market Paperbacks introduced longer fiction at a reasonable cost and television came into the home.

There is more of this wonderful introduction, but in the end Block conjectures that if there were more of a demand for short fiction, more would be produced. At least here in RwS, we can still give it more than lip service.

I often read a comment by someone in this group and wish Goodreads had a like button. Thanks Elizabeth, that would have scored a like 😉

:-)))

Thanks for sharing the ideas in Block's introduction with us, Elizabeth.

Apple wrote: "I often read a comment by someone in this group and wish Goodreads had a like button. Thanks Elizabeth, that would have scored a like 😉"

And I like your comment too, Apple!

Apple wrote: "I often read a comment by someone in this group and wish Goodreads had a like button. Thanks Elizabeth, that would have scored a like 😉"

Ditto! I have actually read that book, but it was too long ago to remember anything about the introduction (2016, ancient history in reading LOL)

Ok, so here is another in my trip through GR land.

Mystery Readers keep reading!

Last week sometime I learned of the CWA Short Story Dagger. The award is for an individual short story, but it appears those stories were originally published in anthologies and collections. I am in the process of adding them to the appropriate GR book pages, but all of them would work for this task.

https://thecwa.co.uk/awards-and-compe...

Click on the "View Past Winners" to access all pages. (There is a link at the bottom of each page to be able to see prior years.)

To confirm that The Heart of Princess Osra by Anthony Hope qualifies as short stories

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hea...

Yes, linked short stories work for this task.

Mary wrote: "To confirm that The Heart of Princess Osra by Anthony Hope qualifies as short stories

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hea..."

Thanks

Here is another collection of mystery stories. Average Jones by Samuel Hopkins Adams

See https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2022/07/ave...

Thanks

Is Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout considered to be a novel or short stories?

Apologies, on phone so can’t link. Dying of a headache and can’t stand to get the laptop 😭

Apple wrote: "Is Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout considered to be a novel or short stories?

Apologies, on phone so can’t link. Dying of a headache and can’t stand to get the laptop 😭"

While it says "A Novel" on the cover, we are carrying it as short stories. You may use it here.

I hope your headache is better by the time you see this!