Author: Ray Bradbury Type: Fiction, short stories Published: 1955 I read it: October 2018 In a small used bookstore in downtown Nashville I combed the shelves in the fantasy and sci-fi section, and was rewarded with this purple treat. All the Bradbury I’ve read is in used paperback, which I feel the author himself would…
Author: Stephen King Type: Fiction, short stories Published: 1978 I read it: September 2018 Now that’s the kind of paperback that’s fun to find at Goodwill! Spine-battered and yellow and smelling of age, with creepy cover art to boot (from the story “I Am the Doorway”). In continuing the pendulum swing from trying out King’s…
Author: Gillian Flynn Type: Fiction, short story Published: 2014 I read it: August 2018 I haven’t been caught off guard by opening lines like that in a while, but maybe it’s because I’ve read only one previous book by Flynn (the smash hit) and haven’t gotten used to her style and characters. I wondered if…
Author: Haruki Murakami Translator: Ted Goossen Illustrator: Chip Kidd Type: Fiction, short story Published: 2014 I read it: July 2018 “Why do I act like this, agreeing when I really disagree, letting people force me to do things I don’t want to do?” Murakami’s dreamlike story centers around the protagonist’s willingness to go along into…
Editor: Sarah Vowell (introduction) Type: Fiction, non-fiction, short stories, essays, comics, poetry, memoir Published: 2017 I read it: November 2017 If 2016 was the volume that felt like a last big inhale before American politics crashed down at the end of that year, then this year’s BANR collection is the painful exhale, reading like a…
Author: Edith Wharton Editor: David Stuart Davies Type: Fiction, short stories (anthology) Published: 1904-1937 (original stories); 2009 (this collection) I read it: September 2017 In the story “Kerfol,” which happens to be about a pack of ghost dogs, one character remarks that “you know every Breton house has its ghost-story.” This certainly seems to be…
Editors: Ann VanderMeer and Jeff VanderMeer Type: Fiction, short stories (anthology) Published: 2008 I read it: September 2017 When I first read Jeff VanderMeer, I was also reading H.P. Lovecraft for the first time. Because of that, and because of my limited exposure to authors in this vein, I over-attributed much of VanderMeer’s craft to…
