Iliana's List

I’m pretty excited about the Short Story Challenge because I always complain about not reading short stories. Oddly enough, one of my favorite reads is the short story collection Strange Pilgrims by Gabriel García Márquez. Yet I have to wonder what stops me from reading more? I think it’s just that I prefer a longer length of narrative. I want to spend hours with the same characters and being carried away to another time or place.

Still, a good short story can be powerful indeed and with this challenge I hope to read more in the genre and learn to appreciate short stories better.

Kate has several options for the challenge and I’ve decided to go with Option 5 which is the custom option. I plan to read four short story collections plus six individual short stories throughout the year. I am not sure which individual stories I will pick so those I’ll add as I read them but they’ll probably come from one of the Best American Short Story books. As for the four short story collections, here they are:

• After the Quake by Haruki Murakami
• Open Secrets by Alice Munro
• How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
• Life Studies by Susan Vreeland

Many thanks to Kate for hosting the challenge and good luck to everyone participating!