Saturday, January 5, 2008

Indextrious Reader's List

(cross-posted at Indextrious Reader)


Over the last year I've become particularly enamoured with short stories, and I know already there are a few collections I am going to be reading in 2008. So I am joining in on this very flexible challenge, and am taking Option 3 (or 4) : to read 10 collections of short fiction over the year (option 4 is to make all these by authors new to you - I'll give it a try but I know I want to read ten in either case). In my possibles listed below, half are authors new to me.

I want to read some of the collections I already own, or can pick up at the library. Here are a few I'm thinking of reading (although I know I'll be picking more up as I come across them all year) :

1. We are not in Pakistan / Shauna Singh Baldwin

2. Blackouts / Craig Boyko

3. Women's Voices in Ukrainian Literature (many volumes)

4. The Gentleman from San Francisco / Ivan Bunin

5. Drinking Coffee Elsewhere / ZZ Packer

6. The Devastating Boys / Elizabeth Taylor

7. The Stories of Nabokov / Vladimir Nabokov

8. Alice Munro - something, I'm not sure what yet

9. Pleased to meet you / Caroline Adderson (on Kate's recommendation)

10. Something gothic and ghostly for the RIP challenge this fall; either Isak Dinesen or Elizabeth Gaskell's gothic stories, or perhaps Robertson Davies' collection of ghost stories.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lots of people seem to be reading things by Alice Munro and it will be interesting to see what she is like. I would love to read more Nabokov at some point as well as I loved Lolita last year.

Chicklit said...

I highly recommend Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage for the Munro collection. There are several wonderful stories in that book.

Anonymous said...

I'm quite looking forward to the Boyko Book (Blackouts). He's been nominated a handful of times for the Journey Prize and his stories in those collections are quite striking. Could mark the beginning of a bright new Canadian talent.

Munro, of course, is fantastic - it's hard to go wrong with anything of hers.

Going international, I've always loved the short stories of Gombrowicz and Cortazar.