Not everyone likes to go shopping on their lunch hour or spend the time working out at the local gym. For some the time is best spent in the park under a shady tree with their favorite lunchtime short stories. It can be easier to stuff these into a purse or tote than a full length novel. You can only read a chapter or two of a novel anyway. People who love to read often scour bookstores for old classics written by favorite authors.
Margaret Atwood is best known for her novels, but she wrote a great quick read called "Stone Mattress". The protagonist is Verna, a serial husband killer, who recognizes an old boyfriend at a pre-cruise function. It turns out he is the same boy who got her pregnant and then humiliated her. Verna decides to eliminate him once and for all using a billion year old fossil as the murder weapon.
Love him or hate him, Ernest Hemingway was a brilliant prose writer. "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" is a good short story whether you like the author or not. In it Harry, a jaded writer, along with his wife, Helen, have fled Paris for Africa. Dying from gangrene, Harry reminisces about his loves lost and opportunities squandered.
"Three Questions" is Leo Tolstoy's parable of a king in search of answers to the most important questions in life. He seeks out a hermit and winds up nursing a would be assassin. In the end, the king finds the answers he was looking for had been with him all along.
"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" was Mark Twain's first success. This is a cynical tale of a man who would bet on anything. Jim Smiley went in search of the best jumping frog and found Dan'l Webster. He met a stranger who easily tricked him and took off with Jim's money. Twain wrote the story in an attempt to win a bet of his own against a group of fellow story tellers.
The Jazz Age was the background for much of F. Scott Fitzgerald's work. Tragic stories of easy money and tortured souls made him famous. "The Diamond As Big As the Ritz" is in this vein. John Unger meets Percy on a prep school campus and is quickly made to understand that Percy's family is the wealthiest on the planet. It seems they are sitting on a diamond as big as the Ritz Carlton.
James Joyce was an Irishman who wrote about Ireland and the dynamics of Irish family life. "Eveline" is a fine example of that. Eveline finds herself having to choose between a brutish father and the life she knows and a lover who wants her to run away with him to another country. Her final decision is sad, but realistic.
People who love to read easily get lost in good stories. They don't have to be long and complicated to engross a book lover. Well written stories come in all shapes and sizes.
Margaret Atwood is best known for her novels, but she wrote a great quick read called "Stone Mattress". The protagonist is Verna, a serial husband killer, who recognizes an old boyfriend at a pre-cruise function. It turns out he is the same boy who got her pregnant and then humiliated her. Verna decides to eliminate him once and for all using a billion year old fossil as the murder weapon.
Love him or hate him, Ernest Hemingway was a brilliant prose writer. "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" is a good short story whether you like the author or not. In it Harry, a jaded writer, along with his wife, Helen, have fled Paris for Africa. Dying from gangrene, Harry reminisces about his loves lost and opportunities squandered.
"Three Questions" is Leo Tolstoy's parable of a king in search of answers to the most important questions in life. He seeks out a hermit and winds up nursing a would be assassin. In the end, the king finds the answers he was looking for had been with him all along.
"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" was Mark Twain's first success. This is a cynical tale of a man who would bet on anything. Jim Smiley went in search of the best jumping frog and found Dan'l Webster. He met a stranger who easily tricked him and took off with Jim's money. Twain wrote the story in an attempt to win a bet of his own against a group of fellow story tellers.
The Jazz Age was the background for much of F. Scott Fitzgerald's work. Tragic stories of easy money and tortured souls made him famous. "The Diamond As Big As the Ritz" is in this vein. John Unger meets Percy on a prep school campus and is quickly made to understand that Percy's family is the wealthiest on the planet. It seems they are sitting on a diamond as big as the Ritz Carlton.
James Joyce was an Irishman who wrote about Ireland and the dynamics of Irish family life. "Eveline" is a fine example of that. Eveline finds herself having to choose between a brutish father and the life she knows and a lover who wants her to run away with him to another country. Her final decision is sad, but realistic.
People who love to read easily get lost in good stories. They don't have to be long and complicated to engross a book lover. Well written stories come in all shapes and sizes.
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