To close the shortest month of the year, Wendy asked Weekly Geeks for a short post on short books, and offered several possible angles on the topic:
- Do you prefer reading short books or chunky books? Why?
- Do you enjoy novellas? Tell us about some of your favorites.
- Are you a short story reader? Tell us about some of your favorite short story authors. Is there a favorite collection of short stories you've read and can recommend?
- What makes a good short story?
- Do you shy away from short stories? Why?
- Review a book which is less than 200 pages long.
- Go through your TBR stacks and come up with five short books you can't wait to read - tell us a little about them.
- Write a unique post of your own ... as long as it in some way relates to short stories or short books.
A short story contains all the elements of a novel but in a compressed manner. A great story teller can mesmerize us and also tickle us with his short stories. I find short stories great for the in between reads as well as when there is short attention span.
Melissa Pilakowski’s recent reading has been the opposite of short:
In the past few months I’ve read The Instructions by Adam Levin, The Lay of the Land and Independence Day by Richard Ford, Anthology of an American Girl by Hilary Hamann Thayer, Tales of a Madman Underground by John Barnes, and Delirium by Lauren Oliver. All of them range from 400-1000 pages.
While I’m not about to tell Pulitzer Prize Winner Richard Ford that he should edit down his writing, I think that over-writing is an issue in many of these long stories.
Lifetime Reader noticed a common thread in some of her favorite short stories:
Occasionally it occurs to me that these authors echo the voices of my family members when I was growing up in the South...As I write this post, I also see that these three stories are all about women who separate themselves from their home--either physically or culturally--and then have to grapple with their relationship to that home. The characters see themselves as superior, but in each case there is something in the stories that knocks them off that attitude.
Lauren chose to review a book less than 200 pages long:
As a kid, I was never one for survival or wilderness stories, which is why it has taken so long for me to get around to The Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell. But when I saw the beautiful new 50th Anniversary Gift Edition, complete with gorgeous watercolors by Ted Lewin, I knew it was finally time to read this classic children’s novel.
My conclusion is this: O’Dell’s novel is a much, much better version of Daniel Defoe’s plodding stranded-on-a-desert-island novel.
Thanks to all of this week’s Geeks for keeping it short and sweet!