70 Books

#57: The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories 2 by Joseph Gordon-Levitt

This is one of the most unique, sweetly melancholy and beautiful books I’ve picked up in a long time. There’s nothing like it. Each page is a tiny story with gorgeous illustrations accompanying it. Each story is so different from the one before it that I read it twice in one sitting. It ranges from hilarious to heartbreaking and I loved every minute of it. Go out and buy it right now, I demand it!

#29: I am No One you Know by Joyce Carol Oates

“For this woman was an individual wholly absorbed in selecting, leafing through, pausing to read books. You could see that this individual was a reader. One of those who reads. With concentration, with passion. With her very soul.”

Hands down my favorite collection of stories by Oates. The woman is my idol. 

#10: A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor

This is probably one of the greatest collections of short stories in existence. O’Connor was a stunning, incredible Southern writer and her stories are dark, startling and beautiful. She had a great knack for exposing the dark, cruel and shadowy underbelly of human beings. All the stories in this collection seem rather simple on the surface but the characters and stark dialogue will cut you much deeper than you’d like. Please, read it.

#5: The Girl in the Flammable Skirt by Aimee Bender

I have never read a short story or novel by Aimee Bender that I didn’t love. Each one is so unique, outlandish, hilarious but also extremely real and moving. If you haven’t read any of her books, you should start now.

#1: Nerdy Thirty by Wendy Townley

I randomly picked up this book from the library thinking it would be awesome because it was written by a nerdy girl in Omaha. I, being a nerdy girl in Omaha, was pretty excited about it. Unfortunately, it is legitimately terrible. It has brief moments (or a brief few sentences, rather) that seem like quality writing but the rest of the book feels like one of those terrible short stories you had to read in a creative writing class in high school. I also have no idea what was so inherently nerdy about any of the stories. I literally did not like a single thing about this book. Hopefully the rest of my reading adventures for 2012 will be much better.

#18: 20 Under 40: Stories from The New Yorker. Edited by Deborah Treisman.

This short story collection of twenty amazing and talented writers under forty is insane. Every one of these stories has unique and exceptional voices, and carefully carve out spots as important, influential voices of our generation. It’s impossible to read this collection without being moved, even a little bit.

#16: I Was Told There’d be Cake by Sloane Crosley

I genuinely didn’t like this book at all. It was basically like every slightly mediocre collection of short stories that I’ve ever read. It was only mildly funny and lacked any insight or uniqueness for me. Anyway. Boo.

#14: McSweeney’s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales: Edited by Michael Chabon

Shockingly enough, I didn’t really enjoy this anthology of “thrilling” tales. They were not the least bit thrilling. I honestly don’t understand why I didn’t love this. The perfect recipe was there: published by McSweeney’s, incredible writers like Aimee Bender, Dave Eggers and Neil Gaiman, and kick ass artwork meant to look like a vintage comic book. But I literally did not enjoy a single story of the 20 included. Maybe I am dead inside.

#63: The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You by S. Bear Bergman

You know how sometimes you’re at the library, innocently picking up a book from the hold shelf, and you leave with 15 other books? I do this all the time. Even as I’m parking and weaving between the teenage ruffians on the front steps, I’m thinking to myself, “Get in and get out, Meagan. You can do it. Do not utilize peripherals.” But it never works. As if magnetically, I am forced into an elevator and violently shoved into the rows of non-fiction. Then, approximately two hours later, I slip into my car breathless and shamed but wholly, embarrassingly renewed. Libraries, how do you do the voodoo you do so well? It’s a spell. Makes me wanna shoop, shoop, shoop.

Oh, and the book. It was alright.