I'm embarking on a little challenge for myself; to read a short story every day.
Why I Live At The P.O. is possibly Eudora Welty's best-known story. It was first published in a collection called A Curtain Of Green and Other Stories in 1941. I own it in a book called Thirteen Stories. It is fourteen pages long.
It is a story both sad and funny. The narrator is the least-favored sister in the family. It is really awful how the others in the family believe everything the lying younger sister says about the older one. Finally, the narrator, who is the town postmistress, has had enough. I won't spoil the ending, but it is a great one.
This was an excellent beginning to my short story venture. I got the idea today from reading a post on dovegreyreader's blog. She mentioned reading some Flannery O'Connor short stories, and I began to think about how many I have on my bookshelves, and how I should read them. This is what I wrote as a comment on her blog.
One of the great joys of short stories is that you can sit down and say, "I'll read one story before getting up." There's a discipline or design or something like that which I really like. And I love the way someone can tell a whole story in a few (or more than a few)pages. You've given me an idea to read one short story each day. A little mini-challenge to myself. I won't try and read one author, but I have a houseful of short stories by many, many writers so it will be fun to choose one each day.
My children gave me a book of Ray Bradbury short stories for my birthday. Thanks for the reminder to pull it off the shelf and enjoy it.
ReplyDeleteWhat a nice idea! It wouldn't take very long to get through a lot of different authors. I'll have to look on my shelves and see what I've got.
ReplyDeleteNan what a lovely chair to sit in while you read them too! I think this will be a great way to hear about some short story collections we may all have missed too so I'll keep an eye out for your suggestions.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to see if I have a Bradbury story around the house. I must.
ReplyDeleteI'm having such fun with this, Robin.
Yes, that is my "perfect" chair. I do have some collections of many authors, and collections by one author. I didn't realize how full of short stories my house is. It's about time I read them. :<) And thanks for the idea!