If/when my reading lessens (I’m hoping it does not) I will resume posting here. Until then, the regular book blog is kept up to date; please check there for updates on my reading activity.

Since I’ve gone through so many stories (and, to a lesser extent, essays and interviews – but not poetry (hopefully, dealing with poems doesn’t become one of my duties)), I’m choosing to write just this one, very vague, entry, rather than a whole bunch of them. I know what I’ve read, because I haven’t skipped any prose, and it’s nicer this way: I’ve come to the conclusion that, much as I love short stories and want to enjoy them all, I am incredibly hard to please.

My favorite, at the moment, is… I don’t know. Maybe Nancy Reisman’s “Anthony in Waltham,” from issue 39. It ends well.

Comments: Rarely do I read excerpts, but I found my bookmark next to this one, so… It started out normal, like a normal story, and the excerpt read (mostly) like a normal story. The slow start quickly became stranger and stranger, and by the end of the section, I was interested and intrigued and, to my surprise, a little bit scared. There are a number of ways I could see this story going, all of which are appealing, if unpleasant. Soon I’ll know which way it goes – I’ll be reading the book.

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Details: available in Tin House, vol 10, no 2 (2008). 15 p.

Comments: It’s been too long and I don’t remember this, but I did enjoy it. I especially liked (as I always do) the absence of names.

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Details: available in Tin House, vol. 10, no. 2 (2008). 6 p.

Comments: I have this problem: I read stories and then forget everything about them. Admittedly, that’s a large part of the reason I started this blog – to help me remember the things I want to be able to recall.

I read “Ever Again” four days ago, and already I’ve mostly forgotten it. To be fair to myself, I do remember this story as being pretty empty. It’s about two married couples whose husbands cheat on the wives, and it just sort of goes on and on about the consequences of that infidelity. Maybe if I’d ever been in a similar situation, or even been close to someone in such a situation, the story would have rung truer for me. As it is, though, I felt no emotion. It was incredibly dry and dull. That’s disappointing, but I think I’d rather count myself lucky things have (so far) worked out that way. You know what I mean?

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Details: available in Tin House, vol. 10, no. 2 (2008). 12 p.

Comments: Jack and the Beanstalk, poorly retold. There are a few good lines, but overall, this is a huge disappointment from Maguire, one of the best retellers out there.

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Details: available in The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. Pub. Viking, 2002. 22 p.