Booking Through Thursday
Short Stories? Or full-length novels?
I am a full-length novel sort of woman. I do read short stories now and then but not very often. I find that short stories frequently leave me dissatisfied, although occasionally I find a diamond among the rough so to speak. Most often, a short story is not quite long enough for me to sink my teeth into and just when I feel like I am settling in with it, the story comes to an end. A full length novel lends itself better to character development and growth, I have found. Of course, there are always exceptions.
Sometimes all I want is something quick to fill the time without having to start a full length novel. If the short story is by a favorite author of mine, I always jump at the chance to read what they've written regardless of length.
And, what's your favorite source for short stories?
Most of the short stories I read come in anthologies, either a compilation of one author's work or that of many. For a short while I subscribed to a couple of short story journals like Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, however, they piled up so fast without me reading them that I ended up canceling my subscriptions.
Enjoyed reading your post. Well said! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks, Melody!
ReplyDeleteI agree with the Full length novel comment that you said. More often short stories tend to leave me dissatisfied too :)
ReplyDeleteHappy Booking Through Thursday! Here is Mine!
Sounds like you enjoy a good mystery! I agree that often short stuff cuts you off just as you get to know the characters. But when you find a good one? It's awesome.
ReplyDeleteMy answers are up here! Happy Thursday :-)
I agree with you on the whole novels vs. short stories question - and I do find myself enjoying collections of the latter from time to time. Have you read Interpreter of Maladies?
ReplyDeleteI also feel less than satisfied with short stories quite often. However, I have found that when my attention span is shot, they can be the perfect fix. :)
ReplyDeleteLovely post!
I feel the same way about short stories. As soon as I start getting interesting, it leaves me wanting more. I hate feeling unsatisfied. :)
ReplyDeleteI think it's a rare author who can write short stories well. If you've still got those mystery magazines, flip through and see if you can find any stories by John Floyd; he's a friend of mine who writes mostly short stories and I personally think his writing is fabulous.
ReplyDeleteBack, again! I just nominated your blog (really, you) for a Thinking Blogger Award. You can see my entry, here:
ReplyDeletehttp://tinyurl.com/yuyb4l
:)
Thank you for stopping by everyone! It sounds like a lot of us agree on this subject. :-) I hope to stop by and read the responses of the other participants sometime today--at least those I haven't gotten to yet.
ReplyDeleteLesley - I haven't yet read Interpreter of Maladies, but I recently picked up a copy. I have heard wonderful things about it and am really looking forward to reading it.
Bookfool - Wow! Thank you so much! I was just about to read your blog entry last night when my cat jumped up on my keyboard to get to his box (which sits on my desk) and made it disappear. Temporarily. Thank goodness I wasn't in the middle of writing a report for work that I had yet to save. Haha Anyhow, thank you for the nomination!
On the topic of short stories, I'll have to look through my copies of the mystery magazines for your friend. I still have many of them hanging around here, hoping someday to read them.
Mystery stories are about the only short stories I truly like. You're right, they do tend to read as a tease, but sometimes they're just really pretentious.
ReplyDeleteI tend to read longer novels as well but I am currently reading Stories and Tales by Hans Christian Andersen which is filled with all of his fairy tales which are mostly not more than 10 pages long. If you are stuck for soemthing to read I definately recommend dipping in to it.
ReplyDelete