The rules: each of the last eight decades—including the one in progress—must be represented. No one decade can be represented more than twice. Collections may contain vsf but not novellas. Collections may not be retrospective (i.e. no 'Selected' or 'Collected' stories). You have twelve picks.
I made up those rules. One of my great pleasures in life: following rules of my own making.
What's on yr list of twelve? My list of twelve goes up soon @ Ravi Mangla's new site, Recommended Reading.
4 comments:
that's great you'll be on Ravi's site.
This took me a while ...
The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway (1936)
The Aleph and Other Stories by Jorge Luis Borges (1949)
The Enormous Radio and Other Stories by John Cheever (1953)
Eleven Kinds of Loneliness by Richard Yates (1962)
A Friend of Kafka and Other Stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer (1970)
Amateurs by Donald Barthelme (1976)
Cathedral by Raymond Carver (1984)
Rock Springs by Richard Ford (1987)
The Knife Thrower by Steven Millhauser (1998)
Birds of America by Lorrie Moore (1999)
The Shell Collector by Anthony Doerr (2003)
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower (2009) … maybe I’m picking it because it’s fresh in my mind, but it really was an amazing read.
I don’t think there are any true novellas in there. My shameless favoritism of the last four decades must show how young I am.
Also - I just noticed the chapbook switch. That's big.
yeah you're the first one to notice...
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friend of kafka -- nice pick. what a kick ass year 1970 was.
i had it in my head that i had to pick between Knife Thrower and Escapes for the '90s... not easy man not easy.
great list! i hope more people do them...
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