Heather's list

Hieveryone!

I was already planning out a list of short story authors I wanted to read next year so I'm ecstatic about this challenge!! I think I'm going with Option 3 from the list of possibilities. I will try to read 5 different author collections. AND I’m going to try to do it from books I already own. So, without further ado…my list!

• The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty
• Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories by Angela Carter
• The Collected Works of Flannery O’Connor
• Waifs and Strays by Charles de Lint
• The Collected Stories of Ernest Hemingway

Of course, I reserve the right to substitute at will, especially given how big that Hemingway is! :) And who knows, I may add more!

krin's list

Hi! I'll be reading five short story collections for this challenge. Here they are (in no particular order):

Harlan Ellison. Paingod and Other Delusions
Robin McKinley. A Knot in the Grain and Other Stories
Worlds That Weren't
Powers of Detection: Stories of Mystery and Fantasy
Murder in Baker Street: New Tales of Sherlock Holmes

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.

Eva's List

I thought I'd start by sharing some awesome short story collections I've read. If I've reviewed them on my blog, I've linked that. :)
Blackbird House by Alice Hoffman: this collection focuses on the same house, located in a small New England fishing town, and the people who live in it through the centuries.
Seven Gothic Tales by Isak Dinesen: she uses an old-fashioned style to tell these delicious gothic stories; the best two in the collection (imho) were "The Dreamers" and "Supper at Elsinore."
Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman: his first short story collection, this contains two of my favourite short stories ever: "Snow, Glass, and Apples" and "A Murder Mystery."
Thirteen Problems by Agatha Christie: the format is a Tuesday murder club, where each participant tells a murder story and the others must guess the killer; since Miss Marple is present, one guess on who's always right! ;)
Little Black Book of Stories by A.S. Byatt: described as fairy tales for adults, I read this over six years ago and the stories have stuck with me; my favourite was "The Thing in the Woods."
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri: when I read it, I didn't realise it'd won the Pulitzer, but it was well deserved. The characters in all of these stories seem very, very real. If I had to pick one, I'd go with "A Temporary Matter."
A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain by Robert Butler: this collection (another Pulitzer winner) about Vietnamese immigrants adjusting to America was written by a Vietnamese linguist who served in the war. It's full of humanity and great one-liners, and it introduced me to a culture I know next to nothing about. My favourite was "Mr. Green."
Reasons to Live by Amy Hempel: another collection that focuses on people and their struggles; both "Nashville's Gone to Ashes" and "Beg, Sl Tog, Inc, Cont, Rep" have stayed with me for a long time.
And, of course, the collection of Chekhov's short stories translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (they're the truest to his style). So simple, yet so good!

Now on to my plans. :) Late last year, I started bookmooching a ton of short story collections in my quest to read more of them (since I always really enjoy short stories when I do read them). I'm taking option four, and I have a pool of books to choose from:

The Lost Stories of Louisa May Alcott
Bliss and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield
Miguel Street by V.S. Naipul
Dressing Up for the Carnival by Carol Shields
The Red Passport by Katherine Shonk
Ship Fever by Andrea Barrett
The Girl in the Flammable Skirt by Aimee Bender
A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You by Amy Bloom
Get Down by Asali Solomon
Stained Glass Elegies by Shusaku Endo
Pack of Cards by Penelope Lively
The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty
God Lives in St. Petersburg by Tom Bissell