Seeing as I have short stories on the mind, I thought a little organizing might be a good idea. This might be more for me than you, but I have been wanting to begin putting things in order here in anticipation for the end of the year and my "clean slate" plans for 2015. We're getting down to the nitty gritty for December--and 2014 in general. Since there's not much time left and I should really give a little thought to which direction 2015 will be taking me.
So, first up is my short story reading. I've made my own version of an index of stories from the 2014 issues. I think I have managed to read nearly all the New Yorker stories from 2014 (save for a few here and there and the last few issues of this year which I am working on now). So a little look back to kick things off.
January 6: Antonya Nelson "First Husband"
January 13: Dinaw Mingetsu "The Paper Revolution"
January 20: Akhil Sharma "A Mistake"
January 27: Robert Coover "The Frog Prince"
February 3: Donald Antrim "The Emerald Light in the Air"
February 10: Zadie Smith "Moonlit Landscape with Bridge"
**February 17/24: Karl Ove Knausgaard "Come Together
March 3: Denis Johnson "The Largesse of the Sea Maiden"
March 10: Yiyun Li "A Sheltered Woman"
March 17: T. Coraghessan Boyle "The Relive Box"
March 24: Tessa Hadley "Under the Sign of the Moon"
March 31: Louise Erdrich "The Big Cat"
April 7: Jonathan Lethem "Pending Vegan"
April 14: Roddy Doyle "Box Sets"
April 21: Thomas McGuane "Hubcaps"
April 28: Shirley Jackson "The Man in the Woods"
May 5: Sam Lipsyte "The Naturals"
May 12: Lyudmila Ulitaskaya "The Fugitive"
May 19: Robert Coover "The Waitress"
**May 26: Alejandro Zambra "Camilo"
June 2: Thomas Pierce "Ba Baboon"
June 9/16: Summer Fiction Issue--"Love Stories" -- Meant to go back to this issue as I didn't read any of the stories, so perhaps there will be time over break?
**June 23: Maile Meloy "Madame Lazarus"
June 30: Rebecca Curtis "The Pink House"
July 7/14: Allegra Goodman "Apple Cake"
July 21: Greg Jackson "Wagner in the Desert"
July 28: Said Sayrafiezadeh "Last Meal at Whole Foods"
**August 4: Paul Theroux "Action"
**August 11/18: Cesar Aira "Picasso"
**August 25: Tessa Hadley "One Saturday Morning"
September 1: Joseph O'Neill "The Referees"
September 8: Thomas McGaune "The Motherlode"
**September 15: Danielle McLaughlin "The Dinosaurs on Other Planets"
September 22: Victor Lodato "Jack July"
September 29: Paul La Farge "Rosendale"
October 6: Kevin Canty "Story, With Bird"
**October 13: Haruki Murakami "Scheherazade"
October 20: Kirsten Valdez Quade "Ordinary Sins"
October 27: Tom Hanks "Alan Bean Plus Four"
November 3: Jess Row "The Empties"
November 10: Antonya Nelson "Primum Non Nocere"
November 17: Dave Eggers "The Alaska of Giants and Gods"
November 24: Brad Watson "Eykelboom"
December 1: Etgar Keret "One Gram Short"
December 8: Tim Parks "The Reverand"
December 15: Elizabeth McKenzie "The Savage Breast"
December 22/29: Nuruddin Farah "The Start of the Affair"
I've linked to the posts where I either wrote about the stories or mentioned them. Asterisks are next to the stories that I liked best. It's been interesting looking back over the stories and seeing which I remember best and which have faded from memory, even if I did enjoy them at the time. There are a few cases where I couldn't find the mention of a story in any of my posts, though I believe I read them, and a few cases where I didn't read the stories which I do still hope to get to.
Maybe not so curiously, I remember most vividly Thomas Pierce's "Ba Baboon" which had some striking imagery and a most unusual set up. It involved an illicit videotape, a broken affair, and a brother and sister who managed to get stuck in the food pantry of a home guarded by two rather large and vicious dogs! Needless to say it was one of the more creative stories I read this year. I think my least favorites were "The Frog Prince" and Tom Hanks's story, though it is just a matter of personal preference and nothing to do with style or technique. And my favorite of the group? A tie between Danielle McLaughlin and Haruki Murakami's stories. Both authors I had never read before but now look forward to exploring more in the coming year.
I am thinking now of next year's short story reading. I'm hoping to be inspired by something--one collection perhaps or one author to begin the year. I think I have accumulated enough story collections to easily read from my own stacks. And there should be a ghost story or two in the Big Book of Christmas Mysteries to end the year with (Christmas always needs a good ghost story, right?)!