As this is the fourth edition of Shelf Life, if you’ve been reading this blog with any regularity, you probably have a pretty good idea what it’s about. If you don’t, check out past editions for more info.

I’m going to try to make this as brief as I can, as we’re almost halfway through November, and I still have to get October’s written as well.

Onward:

96. Summer of My Amazing Luck, by Miriam Toews

I read A Complicated Kindness after it won the Governor General’s Award and loved it. When The Flying Troutmans came out I devoured it and declared it my favourite read in 2009, so I was eager to read Summer of My Amazing Luck when I stumbled across it in a used bookstore.

Unfortunately, this story wasn’t up to par. I wasn’t buying Lucy, the down on her luck single mom who doesn’t know who the father of her child is, and isn’t interested in finding out.

She becomes enamoured of Lish, who seems to be the heart of the novel, but I had such difficulty with Lucy that it just didn’t work for me. She lacked personality, and I never felt like I got to know who she was, and therefore, why I should care. It sounds harsh, but I adored the first two books I read from Toews, and I’m still looking forward to reading more.

Irma Voth, I’ve got my eye on you. Continue reading »

Take your mind off the horrifying prospect of four years under Harper’s leadership with a Conservative majority with books. Lots of books. Perhaps even a few short story collections?

2011 has been declared the Year of the Short Story, and May as Short Story Month.

You know what this means, right? Yup. Another links round up:

• It’s probably best to begin with the YOSS website itself, read its manifesto, and see how you can participate, either as a reader, writer, or general evangelist.
• YOSS was the brainchild of Sarah Selecky, Matthew J. Trafford and Jessica Westhead, and you can read more about their thoughts behind it in “Who’s the YOSS” over on Joyland.
• While you’re there, check out the rest of Joyland. It’s an online journal for short fiction with a focus on several cities in Canada and the US.
• Nathaniel G Moore has written a series of posts on Open Book Toronto about the state of short fiction. Read parts I, II, IIIIV and V here.
• John Barber, writing for The Globe and Mail, believes that the revival of the short story may be central to the future of publishing.
• In the Guardian, Chris Power asks “Is the short story really the novel’s poor relation?” Raymond Carver’s response sums it up well.
• However, Matt Lapata would seem to disagree in this essay for Glimmertrain, and comes at the short story from a different angle – with a view to its real competition.
• Last year the National Post conducted a series of interviews with short story writers in honour of short story month, and they’re archived here.

Chad Pelley, of Book Madam, pledged to read eight short story collections this year, and I’m sure I can top that — I’ve already got half a dozen collections sitting in my to-read pile. Beyond that, I know I want to read more Mavis Gallant, but I’m always open to suggestions.

Who else should I be reading?

I haven’t done well with updating the blog about the book club a friend and I started since the first meeting.

A brief survey of what we’ve read since: Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient (we loved it), Robertson Davies’ The Rebel Angels (excellent), Guy Gavriel Kay’s The Summer Tree (well liked, but I felt it over-rated), Kurt Vonnegut’s Timequake (I loved it, but this had our lowest attendance), E.M. Forster’s A Room With a View (not universally loved), Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (adored and it made for great discussion).

These summaries are necessarily brief, but we’ll see about doing more complete write-ups of what we’re reading. ⁽¹⁾

Alice Munro’s Too Much Happiness: Stories was our latest book club pick. I’d not read anything by her before, but since reading this I’ve picked up more. I love her style, perhaps because she scares me.

As advertised, she’s an amazing writer who, with but a few sentences, can capture the essence of an entire relationship. Witness this scene from “Deep-Holes”: Continue reading »

Footnotes:

1. For the nerds interested in what I’ve been reading, I keep a list here. [↩]