It’ll soon be another month, and there’s another tag for it now as Rebecca of Bookish Beck has taken over as host of Short Story September. It’s also RIP XXI (Readers Imbibing Peril) in September/October.
I don’t know about you, but I struggle to read whole books of short stories by one author. I find they’re often just over too quickly, then it’s read and repeat for the next story. I could intersperse a book of short stories with other reads, but I fear it’d get put to the side and forgotten as I’m not good at reading several books at the same time. However, I’ve come up with a plan…
Do you remember back in 1995 when Penguin was celebrating its 60th birthday, they published several sets of ‘Penguin 60s’ – little paperbacks of short stories, novellas and essays. There was the orange-spined set, the black-spine classics set, plus a smaller children’s set. I bought both main sets, and they’ve languished in a cupboard ever since. The other day, I came across one of the classics selection that had got separated from the rest – and it was 3 Turgenev short stories. This inspired me to dig out some others for Short Story September and bearing RIP in mind too. Being extracted from collections, means I can read the whole lot in one go, and not have to worry about forgetting to finish them. Perfect… the initial ones I’ve picked out are:
- Ivan Turgenev – Three Sketches from ‘A Hunter’s Album’. (3 from 25, first published in 1852).
- Patricia Highsmith – Little Tales of Misogyny (17 really short stories of ‘simmering malice’, most just 3 or so small pages, 1977)
- Muriel Spark – The Portobello Road and Other Stories (4 in total, 1938-61)
- Poppy Z Brite – His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood (4 stories of ‘contemporary horror’ from her collection 1994 Swamp Foetus).
I can’t wait to get going on these. Are you joining in this tag?
Great idea! I haven’t seen those 2 Penguin anniversary sets for such a long time. I’ve got a couple from the latest 90’s set – thanks for the reminder that they would be perfect for Short Story September!
I do remember that! I was a bookseller and keeping the Penguin birthday table tidy loomed large. I loved the way they celebrated it, though.
Thanks for joining, and that’s a great strategy for avoiding whole collections but still chipping away at your shelves. I have a Penguin Modern standalone of a Saul Bellow story that I plan to read next month.
I do remember this series but unfortunately don’t have any and the Highsmith in particular looks great!
I loooove Sketches From a Hunter’s Album despite not being a natural short story fan either – something about the way it hangs together and has an overarching structure means that it doesn’t really feel like a story collection. I hope you really enjoy these three!
That’s a clever way to approach short stories, as they *can* get a little repetitive in a whole collection. Happy reading.
I like your idea for taking on this challenge in September. As for me, I decided to join in Shorty September and read a month of short books.
I love short stories and included a couple of collections on my list of 60 books to read this year, so am in for the tag. I’m expecting another collection in the post any day now, and that will go straight onto my reading list for the month.
I bought a couple of the Penguin shorts back in the day, it was a good way to try out new-to-me writers.
That’s a great selection. I read Turgenev’s ones a long time ago, but I recall I enjoyed them. I am thinking going for Chekhov or Kafka for this challenge.
I’ve yet to read anything by Turgenev. I really should remedy that! 😁 Maybe I’ll look up this title you have listed and add it to my TBR!