Dedicated short story writers make choices with every sentence. Short stories aren’t novels that ended too soon. They’re not short because there’s a paper shortage or a deadline. Short fiction is short on purpose. So, when a writer like Mavis Gallant chooses her words, it’s a deliberate process. Last
My planning for a year’s reading always involves looking back at the previous reading year. In 2019, I’d planned to focus on series reading. In the previous year, 25% of my reading had revolved around various series, moving ahead or finishing. In 2019, only 18 of the books I
Before I settled on some other reading projects for 2020 (more on that tomorrow), I entertained the possibility of making a simpler goal than usual: choosing half of my reading from my own shelves and half from the library’s shelves. The idea being that I have tended to read
Flickering and Imprecise: the first words I jotted down, while reading this Mavis Gallant story. It struck me that perhaps one of the reasons that her stories have endured is that her style is uncluttered and direct: there aren’t a lot of adjectives or adverbs, so when something –
As always, GoodReads does a nice job of summarizing my reading (Amazon-owned, even so). This year GR points to 317 books and 82,619 pages. (Fortunately it doesn't point to the unfortunate amount of grime on the ceiling fans and behind the radiators. Or how, sometimes, I forget birthdays and anniversaries.)
