During the second half of September, I made a concerted effort to read more "non-genre" fiction, both book-length and in short story form. For the short stories, that meant at least trying to catch up on several months worth of stories from The New Yorker (partially successful), One Story and Library of America's Story of the Week (not successful ( Read more... )

A handful of tales from The New Yorker:

64. Pumpkin Head by Joyce Carol Oates, from the January 12, 2009 New Yorker.  As is somewhat typical of Joyce Carol Oates, this story so did not go where I thought it was going ... or perhaps it did, just not in the way I thought it would.  It is a Halloween tale mostly in that it takes place around Halloween ( Read more... )

The rest of the anthology, now that I'm off the phone.  Again, behind cuts.

( The Worst You Ever Feel )

All from recent issues of The New Yorker:

Story 254: A Spoiled Man by Daniyal Mueenuddin (Sept. 15, 2008 issue).  One of the first stories I posted about here was by this author, a Pakistani living in the US currently.  This story is about making life-choices that seem right at the time and turn out poorly later, and perhaps also about the way life ( Read more... )

I've been meaning to post these two since the beginning of the week and keep forgetting.

5. Swimming by T. Cooper from the 08/20/07 issue of The New Yorker.  This story starts out with an intriguing first line ("Everyone asks, 'Why didn't you stop when you heard something?'") and a startling admission by the narrator within the first page or so.  ( Read more... )