My reading year 2007 - best of - part 4
Short Story Collections
Before last year I haven’t read a lot of short stories. I tend to favour longer novels, because I am quite a fast reader and with short pieces of writing I feel it’s hardly worth starting them. I have learned meanwhile, though, that sometimes short stories not only are quite practical (if you only have short periods of reading time), but also sometimes stay with you for longer than some novels with which you have spend way more time.
So here are the ones I read last year:
Ok, these are not exactly short stories in the proper sense of the word. It’s just a collection of articles and essays for newspapers, magazines and radio. Nothing exactly earth-shattering, but quite entertaining and funny. I especially liked the Donald Trefusius essays.
It’s not a book to be read in one sitting, though, because not only does all of it kind of swim together in your head after a while, but it tends to get a tad repetitive as well. Considering the fact that these pieces were written over a long period of time and where never intented to be grouped together in one book, that is forgiveable, though.
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5. Margaret Atwood “Good Bones”
This was the first of Margaret Atwood’s books I have read and actually enjoyed for the most part. I think she is a truly terrific writer, but for me she is an aquired taste. Her style is so sparse and dry that it takes a while to get used to it and develop a liking. At least it does for me.
On the other hand, I am impressed enough by her writing to not give up on her and I aim to give all her books a try at least once. This collection of short stories was surprisingly accessible and funny. Her re-telling of old and well-known fairytales certainly makes you look at them in a whole new way.
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4. Joanne Harris “Jigs and Reels”
Those scrumptious, delicious, fabulous covers of Harris’ books never fail to capture me. And so far I didn’t get disappointed by her novels (well, except for “Sleep, Pale Sister”, that one wasn’t too thrilling). So I guess it was inevitable that sooner or later I would get my hands on this collection of short stories as well.
And again, I wasn’t disappointed. Suburban witches, defiant old ladies, ageing monsters, suicidal Lottery winners, wolf men, dolphin women and middle-aged manufacturers of erotic leatherwear - how she comes up with some of that stuff is beyond me, but it definitely makes for compelling reading. Some of the stories are outright disturbing, others are funny or touching. It was not what I was expecting from Joanne Harris. The tone of these stories is very different from her novels, but they are all highly readable.
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3. Connie Willis “Impossible Things” and “Fire Watch”
Yep, there are 2 books by Connie Willis in this list. I couldn’t decide which one I liked better, so they both get third place.
Connie Willis popped up on my radar when I read “To say nothing of the dog”, which might just be the funniest book I have ever read. She is an amazing writer and has a secured place on my all-time top ten list.
These two collections have only cemented my opinion of her talent. She can do strange and disturbing just as easily as laugh-out-loud funny. One of the stories, “The Last of the Winnebagos”, had me in tears for hours. Just thinking about it makes my eyes go all misty again. Others like “At the Rialto” or “Spice Pogrom” were hilarious and thinking about them makes me start giggling. I especially like the fact that each story has a short foreword explaining how Willis got the idea to write it, which is interesting all of its own.
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2. Saki “Tobermory and other stories”
When I started to read this book I had no great expectations, because as I said I am usually not a big fan of short stories. But it turned out to be a pleasant surprise. I liked almost all of the stories and many of them made me laugh out loud (especially “Louise”, “The Sheep”, “The Schwartz-Metterklume Method” and some others).
But Saki is not only funny, or satiric, but really quite mean sometimes. And this is exactly what I liked most about him. The obvious comparison with Oscar Wilde is therefore not quite fitting, because Wilde, even though he could be very sarcastic, was never quite as bitingly honest as Saki. It is a pity that he died so young.
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1. Michael Marshall Smith “What you make it”
Did I already mention that I love, love, love Michael Marshall Smith? So much so that I want to crawl inside his brain and take up permanent residence there. This guy has a seriously strange and twisted kind of imagination. His mind would certainly not be a very comfortable place to live in, full of monsters and frightening things shortly glimpsed in dark corners, but I can’t help but love the way he thinks. He just draws you into his world.
These stories take a look at seemingly familiar things, but seen through his eyes everything becomes surreal, frighteningly off kilter and just plain strange. Nothing ever turns out like you’d expect it t, instead your expectations get turned around and thrown in your face.
Some of these stories are hard to stomach - definitely not for the faint of heart - some of them actually made me a bit sick, but I couldn’t stop reading anyway. Every time I told myself I would only finish this story and then put the book down, but in the end I always started to the next one right away, because I just couldn’t wait to see what he would come up with next.
I can’t wait to read the rest of his books. Some of them are not easy to come by, though. His other short story collection, called “More Tomorrow & Other Stories” seems to be out of print and is available on Amazon only used - priced between 255 - 300 Pounds! That’s so ridiculous that it’s not even funny anymore. 
Needless to say I will keep trying to get my hands on a copy anyway.
