I was recently sorting through my bookshelf and I realised I have built up quite a few collections of short stories/ anthologies. I feel like I don’t hear about them very often so I thought I’d share my five favourite things about short story collections!
- The variety
This is the most obvious point, but the variety of stories in these collections is such a treat to read. I always love looking at the table of contents and picking a story that fits my mood at that moment. It just feels so freeing to have so many fun options to choose from!
- They are great for commutes
In my opinion short stories are the best reading option for shorter commutes. My daily commute is about 20 minutes by bus and I find that it isn’t enough time to fully immerse myself into a traditional book. When I try and read novels I often have to stop in the middle of a chapter and I usually I forget key plot points. But short stories are just about perfect for this time period, I often have enough time to read and enjoy a story fully!
- You get to discover great new authors!
I have found so many new authors that I love through anthologies! I tend to read horror anthologies and it is such a nice introduction to an authors work! You get a wonderful story in a genre you know you enjoy and the opportunity to follow up with more if you liked their style, it’s really the best of both worlds!
- They are great for reading in-between classes
In my undergrad there were so many times when my professor would finish class early and I’d be so excited to leave class, only to realise I had 20 minutes to get to my next class. There isn’t much that you can do in that amount of time, so I’d often just browse Instagram or reddit. Until I realised that this could be optimal reading time! I ended up reading several books in this free time and I really enjoyed it!
- They are just so fun to read!
This is more of a personal opinion and I’m not sure how true it is, but I often think that when authors are writing short stories they are able to be a bit more fun and silly than compared to a novel. I am really thinking of Ray Bradbury’s work here. Both of his books The Martian Chronicles and The October Country are just so absurd and silly it is just wonderful reading experience. I laughed out loud so many times and was smiling through most of theses books! I really got the sense that he was writing exactly what he wanted, and it is delightful!
That’s it, those are some of the reasons I love collections of short stories! As I mentioned some specific books here I thought I’d also share a few of my favourite short stories!
Some of my favourites are:
I really love Joe Hill’s writing and there are some wonderfully spooky stories in here!
I bought this book at a local market second hand and I really loved all the stories. It just has such a wide variety of different interpretations of witchy stories that are so fun to read!
If you like silly fantasy/ science fiction you need to read this book. It is absolutely hilarious and such a great reading experience!
If you love autumn and Halloween you will love this book! I am very excited to re-read this book again once fall begins!
If you also love short stories I’d love to hear why! I’d also love to read more short stories so if you have any suggestions I’d love to hear them!
Cant wait to read Joe Hills collection!
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I hope you enjoy it! 🙂
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I’ve never been a big short story reader. Reading your post, though, perhaps I should give it a try!
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I’m so glad! 🙂
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I love short stories! Truthfully, I’d rather read a short story collection than a novel! 🙂 I recently read a wonderfully strange collection called Visions by an early 20th century Russian author named Leonid Andreyev. I’m also a huge fan of Flannery O’Connor’s and Truman Capote’s short stories.
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I’m glad you agree! I’ll have to check those two out! Thank you for the recommendation! 🙂
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I have a love-hate relationship with short stories. I love when I find a good one and then hate that there’s not more of it 🙈😄
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That is a very good point! I’ve definitely felt the same! :p
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Leigh Bardugo’s The Language of Thorns is a great collection of fairytales set in the GrishaVerse. The stories have that classic fairytale vibe–so plenty of spells, witches, sirens!–but updated with modern sensibilities (the tagline is “Love speaks in flowers. Truth requires thorns.”) And the illustrations in the hardcover are divine.
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ooh I knew I’d seen the title before but I’d never taken a closer look. I just looked it up because of your wonderful description it sounds and looks amazing! 🙂
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I nominated you for The Three Day Quote Challenge!
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Lovely post! I never used to like short stories then I started reading one a week and doing my Short Stories Challenge and now I really like them. Like you said I’ve found so many new authors because of it. I’m reading 20th Century Ghosts at the moment, I love Joe Hill!
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Thank you so much! I’m glad you agree! 20th Century Ghosts seems like very appropriate reading for Friday the 13th! 🙂
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I agree with all of these points! I also really love anthologies that are centered around a certain theme and then see how each story handles that theme, because I’m always amazed by how unique they are and how different each author approaches it. 🙂 I especially agree with they’re nice when you only have short bursts of time, because then you know you’re not leaving off on a cliffhanger or getting too engrossed to set it down.
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Thanx for d recommendations. I’m constantly lookin out for sci-fi short stories and horror ones other than Poe’s works😁
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