Books

I read…a lot. Here’s where I ramble about books and printed media.

Stephen King on Short Stories

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I’ve always been a big fan of short stories, will happily snap up a collection from any author I know, and have often found some wonderful gems in various “Best of” collections. In the introduction to Skeleton Crew, Stephen King has a nice little bit on just why they’re so fun…

…most of you have forgotten the real pleasures of the short story. Reading a good long novel is in many ways like having a long and satisfying affair. I can remember commuting between Maine and Pittsburgh during the making of Creepshow, and going mostly by car…. I had a reading of The Thorn Birds, by Colleen McCullough, on eight cassette tapes, and for a space of about five weeks I wasn’t even having an affair with that novel; I felt married to it….

A short story is a different thing altogether–a short story is like a quick kiss in the dark from a stranger. That is not, of course, the same thing as an affair or a marriage, but kisses can be sweet, and their very brevity forms their own attraction.

You Win!

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On this day, 60 years ago, The New Yorker published “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson.

People flipped…out–cancelled subscriptions, wrote bags of hate mail. The story was banned outright in South Africa and, according to Wikipedia, ranked seventeenth on Playboy’s list of books most banned by public high schools in the U.S.

This was the only Shirley Jackson story I’d read until I met Prairie, who is a huge Shirley Jackson fan. I was probably in high school when I read it last, so I re-read it a couple of years back, and it’s still an incredibly powerful story.

If you haven’t read it, you can do so here.

(via The Slog, who really should have chosen a different title for their post — there are people who might not have read the story yet, after all.)

Birthday Presents!

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Birthday Presents!

Birthday Presents!, originally uploaded by djwudi.

A couple of birthday presents showed up in the mail today. Cool! Thanks to Phil for Mark Twain’s Roughing It and to Fernando for the sci-fi anthology The Starry Rift!

Medieval Fanfic

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A short discourse on fan fiction in the Middle Ages…

Chaucer seems to have attracted this sort of activity more than other writers–or possibly, we modern readers are more interested in tracking down this sort of thing when it’s done to a writer we admire as much as Chaucer. Chaucer left a lot of gaps in the Canterbury Tales, and other writers stepped up to fill them, writing tales for the poor Ploughman who never got one in the original, an extra tale for both the Merchant and the Cook, and a whole story about what the Pilgrims did once they got to Canterbury. Robert Henryson, a 15th-century Scottish writer, went so far as to write a sequel to Chaucer’s earlier work, Troilus and Criseyde, in which he punishes Criseyde for all the things Chaucer had her do to poor, noble Troilus.

(via Boing Boing)

Another Valentine’s Day Present

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Valentine’s Day morning, as I was puttering about the house and getting ready for the day while Prairie slept in, there was a knock at the door. When I answered, I was handed a package from Amazon by one of our landlords. This was a little confusing, as I didn’t remember ordering anything, but it was definitely addressed to me. Okay, whatever…

The Cult of MacWhen I opened it, I was quite pleasantly surprised to find The Cult of Mac, which I’d put on my Amazon Wishlist not too long ago. On the shipping invoice was a nice little note from ‘Liz in Pittsburgh,’ who reads this site and decided to send me a Valentine’s Day present — cool!

So, many thanks to Liz! I got about halfway through yesterday as I was bussing around town, and have been enjoying all the stories of the Mac über-fans (and, unsurprisingly, seeing elements of myself in more than a few of the stories). I hope your Valentine’s Day was a good one as well!

Badass Bible Verses

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Cracked has a list of the top nine ‘badass’ bible verses. Just for fun, I’ll list the verse citations here. Any guesses at what stories they’re referring to (before looking at the linked article or clicking through to the linked NIV versions, of course)?

  1. Exodus 2: 11-12
  2. II Kings 2: 23-24
  3. Ezekiel 23: 19-20
  4. Judges 3: 16-23
  5. Numbers 16: 23, 31-33
  6. Deuteronomy 25: 11-12
  7. I Kings 18: 24, 38-40
  8. Judges 15: 15-16
  9. I Samuel 18: 25-27

Silencio!

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And here begins a 48-hour-ish period of self-imposed exile from the ‘net. Due to time’s slow march around the globe, Muggles across the world are already diving into the final year of adventures at Hogwarts, and while Prairie and I will be receiving our copies tomorrow (thanks to the express owls dispatched from Amazon), due to a prior engagement (a wedding that I’m assisting with photography duties for), we won’t actually be able to read them until Sunday (as Prairie is being kind enough to wait until we can read our copies — one for each of us — together).

So — while we may check e-mail accounts — all else is off limits, to prevent any possible spoiler trolls sneaking past and ruining the fun.

Until we’re done, then…