Kinna

Shorts to Get Me Through

March 2013 reading

It’s good that I love short stories!  Because, at the moment, I can’t concentrate on starting and finishing a good sized novel.  I have too much going on and if I don’t take care, my 2013 reading life will mirror my non-existent 2012 reading life!  A recap of my 2012 reading and blogging is best described as:  abysmal, sub-standard, disappointing.  If questioned, I will freely admit that I didn’t deserve the descriptors of reader and blogger.  But that is all in the past and this will be the only time that I’ll address the bad year of 2012.

Dear reader, my sincere apologies for my prolonged absence from blogging and Kinna Reads.  Thank you!

Shorts are not the whole story; I’ve also been reading novellas.  I finished Julian Barnes’  The Sense of an Ending in February.  What to make of this Man Booker Prize winner? The short answer is I really liked it.  The long answer remains:  what to make of this Booker Prize winner?  ‘Sense.. is my first encounter with Barnes, and although I tend to not read British male writers,  I will add his backlist  to my to-be-read lists.  His treatment of memory in Sense is intriguing.

Here are the anthologies and collections that are keeping me company:

  • Contemporary African Short Stories edited by Achebe and Innes
  • The Ghost of Sani Abacha by Chuma Nwokolo
  • Open Secrets by Alice Munro
  • Sudden Fiction International: 60 Short Short Stories edited by Robert Shapiro and James Thomas.

Yeah, two of these books are from last year’s reading plans but who, who is talking about last year!

I heartily recommend The Ghost of Sani Abacha.  I’m not done with the collection, but it’s that good and why wait.

You know how a writer is known to you, you’re familiar with their works but you’re  surprised to realize that you’ve never actually read anything by them? One of those writers, for me, is Alice Munro.  I’m set to remedy the situation.

So that’s my reading?  What books are on your side table?

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8 comments

  1. I’ve read Contemporary African Short stories, it’s quite good. and the diversity is beautiful. For now, I’m still postponing the reading of Pride and Prejudice and to finally finish Pilgrim’s Progress

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  3. There seems to be a lot of good short story collections to choose from at the moment, for example Still – short stories inspired by photographs of vacated spaces edited by Roelof Bakker, the short story collections by Salt publishing, even the novellas of peirene press are worth a look at.

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  4. Gooooooooooosh!! I have no books by my side-table!! I yearn to read again…I LOVED READING……..but don’t ever seem to get up to it!! I let work, school, marriage, kids,….etc get in the way…..lol!! But you sure show that’s no excuse!!

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  5. I’ve read almost all the shorts in Contemporary African Short Stories. This year my reading list is almost on Classics since I entered the Classics Club Challenge last year. My reading is also liberal, to ready anything that catches my fancy.

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  6. Kinna, don’t worry. There are years in every reader’s life when reading drought sets in. I thought you had already read Contemporary African Short stories. It’s good. I agree with you on Chuma’s work. It’s excellent. He writes beautifully.

    I read Alice Munro’s short story (or I think I did) in the 2004 Best American Short Story Anthology.

    Enjoy your books.

    I look forward to completing War and Peace this week. I will move on to read some novellas, poetry and short stories I’ve been given by completely new authors. I hope they’ll understand. It’s difficult reading e-books and internet stories when you have no e-reader (which I don’t have). At work one is expected to work and not to be reading.

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