Jan 8, 2013
All about Project Short Story; Our reading resolutions for 2013; We recommend Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter and Tenth of December by George Saunders.
Ann recently launched Project Short Story, a year-long celebration of short fiction. We’re announcing it on the podcast because we want everyone to know about it, but most of the PSS content going forward will be here on the blog and not on the podcast. Be sure you are signed up for mailing list so you’ll get notified when new blog entries are posted.
The first monthly read-along for Project Short Story is “The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu, which was announced on Monday.
This year Ann and I have each made a few Reading Resolutions. I hope to read 78 books this year (13 more than I read in 2012). Plus, I’ve identified 13 books I’ve been meaning to read, but still haven’t, most of which are titles I’m embarrassed to say I’ve never read.
In addition to committing to reading one short story every day, Ann has put Ready Player One by Ernie Cline and Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry on her “must read in 2013” list.
Eric, over at our Goodreads group, has suggested a reading challenge that he’s calling simply ALL. Pick a favorite author and read everything they’ve ever written. Given our respective love of Ian McEwan and William Boyd, Ann and I surprisingly haven’t read everything by them. Which author would you choose? What are your reading challenges for 2013?
At the end of last year, Ann read a lot of books, some of which would likely have ended up on her best of 2012 list, if she hadn’t already picked that list for the podcast! One of those was Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter, a story that connects a small Italian village in 1962, and a Hollywood studio today.
I was blown away by George Saunders’ newest collection of stories, Tenth of December, which is just out in hardcover. Saunders is a writer who is considered by many to be a master of short stories, and you need only read this collection, the title story in particular, to find that out for yourself.