Showing posts with label short story collection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label short story collection. Show all posts

Friday, March 7, 2025

The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted by Elizabeth Berg

 This was a fun collection of short stories that were perfect for night time reading. Berg's humor is soft and engaging, and her characters are charming, vulnerable, and a little off-beat. I was hoping it might be appropriate to share with Leslie, but sometimes the humor is dark, and so much of her stories revolve around romantic relationships and/or death, that I decided no, not this one...

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Dancing with Mr. Darcy: Stories Inspired by Jane Austen and Chawton House edited by Sarah Walters

Border's in Rapid City was closing its doors. Everything was down to 80% off. I was shopping with nine-year-old Gabriel who was disappointed the Lego sets were all gone. I saw this and thought, "Why not?" I love Jane Austen and this sounded like a way to enjoy how other authors see and interpret and mimic her. I was right! This is a delightful short story collection and I totally enjoyed all but two of them. There are twenty stories total, so those are pretty good odds.

Some of the ideas and approaches were extremely creative! Although it wasn't my favorite story, "One Character in Search of Her Love Story Role" really knocked my socks off as an idea. Characters from different novels visit and shadow each other to learn character traits! Absolutely delightful and novel. And I don't agree with the choice of "winners" but that's okay...It was interesting to read how they were chosen. One of my favorite stories is #6, "Eight Years Later."  It's a decidedly feminine book, with all of the authors, the editors, and introduction written by women. It may have benefited from a masculine influence. These stories also increased my desire to visit Jane Austen's world in England someday.