A novel by Geetanjali Shree, a novel excerpt by Susan Minot, and stories by Uche Okonkwo, Akhil Sharma, and Alejandro Zambra

~
Of course Beti had heard; the ears on one's back are rarely blocked. And indeed, her friend may or may not have been aware of the household's quirks. Whether or not the chrysanthemums heard, it made no difference to them. It was their season, they were enjoying leaping up at the slightest thing, and so continued on with this pastime. 
—From Tomb of Sand, a novel by Geetanjali Shree, translated from the Hindi by Daisy Rockwell (HarperVia, 2023). This segment is from page 29 of the hardcover. The book was originally published in Hindi as Ret Samadhi in India (Rajkamal Prakashan, 2018) and was originally published in English as Tomb of Sand in the United Kingdom (Tilted Axis Press, 2021). The translation of this novel is quite long, with a lot of wordplay and tangential flights of fancy. My favorite sections are about the chrysanthemums, the crows, and Ma's friend Rosie Bua.  

Udoka was disappointed to find that her prospective in-laws' house wasn't two stories tall, with a uniformed guard and a big gate to keep out prying eyes. But though not as impressive as Udoka had imagined, it was still a better house than her mother's. It was painted, for one, and the corrugated roof wasn't coming apart with rust.
—From "Nwunye Belgium," the opening story of A Kind of Madness, a short story collection by Uche Okonkwo (Tin House, 2024). "Nwunye Belgium" was first published, as "Our Belgian Wife," in One Story, Issue 248 (December 20, 2018) and was reprinted in The Best American Nonrequired Reading (Mariner Books, 2019).  

She did not hesitate now. She phoned Dr. Rosencrantz. But Dr. Rosencrantz was not the doctor on call, the answering service said. A Dr. Estin answered. He sounded as if he was outside. She heard a bird singing. Dr. Estin was decidedly unconcerned, and even over the phone she could tell he was bored. It was perfectly normal, he explained, to cough up a little blood after a tonsillectomy. It was nothing to worry about. He seemed irritated that she was even bothering him. 
—From "The Operation," a novel excerpt by Susan Minot, Virginia Quarterly Review, Vol. 100, No. 2 (August 9, 2024). This story also has an illustration by Michelle Thompson.

Mrs. Narayan was small, dark-skinned, oval-faced. She had a wonderful singsong voice. She'd come up to you at temple on Holi or Diwali and offer congratulations so heartfelt you'd feel as if it were the first time the day had ever been celebrated. We all liked her. She was an immigrant, too, but she didn't seem to have jangled nerves the way we did. She cooked for many of us and regularly tried to refuse payment. "This is from my side," she'd say. "A horse can't be friends with grass," we might answer.
—From "The Narayans," a short story by Akhil Sharma, The New Yorker (August 26, 2024).

The first lie Julio told Emilia was that he had read Marcel Proust. He didn't usually lie about his reading, but that second night, when they both knew they were starting something, and that however long it lasted, this something was going to be important—that night, Julio deepened his voice, feigning intimacy, and said that, yes, he had read Proust when he was seventeen, during a summer in Quintero. 
—From Bonsai, a very short novel by Alejandro Zambra, translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell (Penguin, 2022). Originally published in Barcelona, Spain, as Bonsái (Editorial Anagrama, 2006).

Short stories by Cleo Qian, and novels by Alina Bronsky, Amy Tan, John Irving, and Anne Tyler

~
Most evenings, I ordered fried chicken from the same student hot spot near campus and took the food back to my studio, where I streamed Korean TV dramas and celebrity interviews with my VPN or played Hakuoki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom until two in the morning. These were things I had done as a high schooler, and I was filled with the sickening and yet satisfying feeling of regression into immaturity. 
—From Let's Go Let's Go Let's Go, a collection of short stories by Cleo Qian (Tin House, 2023). This particular segment is from "Zeros:Ones," which appears on pages 41-54 of the book and which was originally published, possibly in a slightly different form, in The Adroit Journal (Issue 45). This specific passage appeared on page 45 of the paperback. 

When Herr Schmidt woke up early Friday and didn't smell coffee, at first he thought Barbara might have died in her sleep. It was an absurd idea—Barbara was as healthy as a horse—though even more absurd was the possibility that she could have overslept. She never overslept. But when he turned over in bed and saw that the other half of the bed was empty, it seemed to him that the most likely explanation was that Barbara had keeled over dead on her way to the kitchen.
—From Barbara Isn't Dying, a novel by Alina Bronsky, translated from the German by Tim Mohr (Europa Editions, 2023). This book was originally published in German as Barbara stirbt nicht (Kiepenheuer & Witsch: Germany, 2021). 

My sister Kwan believes she has yin eyes. She sees those who have died and now dwell in the World of Yin, ghosts who leave the mists just to visit her kitchen on Balboa Street in San Francisco.
—From The Hundred Secret Senses, a novel by Amy Tan (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1995). One of my favorite sections of this book had to do with Kwan and the owl (the cat-eagle); it starts on page 191 of the Vintage trade paperback version that I have. 

One night he saw one of the mothers standing in the baby room. She did not appear to be looking for her baby in particular; she was just standing in her hospital gown in the middle of the baby room, her eyes closed, absorbing the smells and sounds of the baby room through her other senses. Homer was afraid the woman would wake up Nurse Angela, who was dozing on the duty bed; Nurse Angela would have been cross with her. Slowly, as Homer imagined you might assist a sleepwalker, he led the woman back to the mothers' room.  
—From The Cider House Rules, a novel by John Irving (William Morrow and Company, 1985). This passage appears on page 86 of the hardcover published in 1985.   

Bonus book to read again: 

At the puppet show, in a green and white tent lit by a chilly greenish glow, Cinderella wore a strapless evening gown that made her audience shiver. She was a glove puppet with a large, round head and braids of yellow yarn. At the moment she was dancing with the Prince, who had a Dutch Boy haircut. They held each other so fondly, it was hard to remember they were really just two hands clasping each other. "You have a beautiful palace," she told him. "The floors are like mirrors! I wonder who scrubs them."  
—From Morgan's Passing, a novel by Anne Tyler (Alfred A. Knopf, 1980). 

A novel by Paul Murray, a poem by Diane Seuss, short stories by Jess Walter, and memoirs by Stephanie Foo and Frank McCourt

~
She didn't want to devalue her mother in Elaine's eyes. At the same time, she didn't know how Elaine could think Imelda had mystique. To spend time with her mother was to get a running commentary on the contents of her mind – an incessant barrage of thoughts and sub-thoughts and random observations, each in itself insignificant but cumulatively overwhelming. I must book you in for electrolysis for that little moustache you're getting, she'd say; and then while you were still reeling, Are those tulips or begonias? There's Marie Devlin, do you know she has no sense of style, none whatsoever. Is that man an Arab? This place is filling up with Arabs. Where's this I saw they had that nice chutney? Kay Connor told me Anne Smith's lost weight but the doctor said it was the wrong kind. I thought it was supposed to be sunny today, that's not one bit sunny. Who invented chutney, was it Gorbachev? And on, and on – listening to her was like walking through a blizzard, a storm of frenzied white nothings that left you snow-blind.
—From The Bee Sting, a novel by Paul Murray (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023). This segment is from page 7 of the hardcover. 

I’d just brushed the dog, there on the dog's couch.
I was wearing a black—well, to call it a gown is a criminal
overstatement—a black rag. 
—From "Gertrude Stein," a poem by Diane Seuss, The New Yorker (August 16, 2021), p. 52.

Another time, when I went into a bar near my apartment to pick him up, he raised his glass as I approached. "Another one of these," he said. I could see he had no idea who I was. 
          "Dad? I'm not the bartender. It's Jay. Your son." 
          He stared at me. He was quiet a moment. Then: "Why don't you ever bring girlfriends home?"
          So. This was to be our Sisyphean hell—me coming out to my fading father every day for the rest of his life.
—From The Angel of Rome, a collection of short stories by Jess Walter (HarperCollins, 2022). My favorites were probably "Mr. Voice" (first published in Tin House and then in Best American Short Stories 2015) and the story excerpted above, "Town & Country," which appeared on pages 149-174 in the hardcover (from Scribd Originals, 2020).

My troop leader pulled out her guitar . . . As we sang, all the mothers became misty-eyed, stroking their daughters' hair, kissing the tops of their heads. The other girls leaned into their embraces. My mother did not touch me but stood alone and wept loudly. She cried all the time in the privacy of our home—ugly, bent-in-half sobs—but she never fell apart in public, and the sight alarmed me.
—From What My Bones Know, a memoir by Stephanie Foo (Ballantine Books, 2022). There is also an unabridged audiobook, which is narrated by the author (Random House Audio). A short excerpt from the book and a sample of the audiobook are available at the link above.

Bonus book to read again: 

My father and mother should have stayed in New York where they met and married and where I was born. Instead, they returned to Ireland when I was four, my brother, Malachy, three, the twins, Oliver and Eugene, barely one, and my sister, Margaret, dead and gone. 
—From Angela's Ashes, a memoir by Frank McCourt (Scribner, 1996). If you have the option, I highly recommend listening to the unabridged audiobook, which is narrated by the author. He was an excellent speaker, and the audiobook really captures that. 

Short fiction by Tove Ditlevsen and Hiroko Oyamada, and novels by María José Ferrada, Alina Bronsky, and Elisa Shua Dusapin

~
She closed her eyes and heard Hanne's voice from the kitchen. She was sitting drinking coffee with the children, fresh and in good moods, while the record player from her son's bedroom babbled some vacuous pop melody. All day long there was a cacophony around this difficult young woman, whom Helene was constantly on the brink of firing, though it hadn't amounted to anything yet. 
—From The Trouble with Happiness, a collection of short stories by Tove Ditlevsen, translated from the Danish by Michael Favala Goldman. This book was originally published in Danish as Paraplyen (The Umbrella) and Den onde lykke (The Trouble with Happiness) (Hasselbalch: Copenhagen, Denmark, 1952 and 1963). The English translation was first published in Great Britain by Penguin Random House (2022) and in the United States by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2022). The collection is also available as an audiobook, narrated by Stine Wintlev, from Macmillan Audio.

This segment is from my favorite story in the collection, "The Little Shoes" (pp. 142-152 in the hardcover). It was first published in Meat for Tea: The Valley Review. 

My other favorite, "The Knife," was first published in English in the Fall 2020 issue of the Apple Valley Review. This was the last issue of the journal published in our original format. "The Knife" appears on pages 95-103 of the hardcover version of The Trouble with Happiness. 

Ramón climbed up the Coca-Cola billboard near the highway one Monday. That evening, as the sun was disappearing behind the hills that surround the housing complex, he decided he would stay. Even though it was late, the air was still warm. It was a heat that seemed even drier in this patch of the city, which had missed out on its share of pavement and trees because there had not been enough to spare.
—From How to Turn into a Bird, a novel by María José Ferrada, translated from the Spanish by Elizabeth Bryer (Tin House, 2022). This book was previously published as El hombre del cartel (2021).

In Germany, Grandmother took me to the pediatrician. Actually, she explained to me on the way, this was the real reason for our emigration: to finally be able to take me to an upstanding doctor for treatment, one who could give hope to me—and more importantly, to her—that I might survive into adulthood, even if it meant Grandmother would have a millstone around her neck for decades.
—From My Grandmother's Braid, a novel by Alina Bronsky, translated from the German by Tim Mohr (Europa Editions, 2021). This book was originally published in German as Der Zopf meiner Großmutter (Kiepenheuer & Witsch: Köln, Germany, 2019). 

I arrive at my grandparents' place to find my grandmother seated on the floor in the living room surrounded by her Playmobil figures. She's removed all their hair. They smile vacantly.
—From The Pachinko Parlor, a novel by Elisa Shua Dusapin, translated from the French by Aneesa Abbas Higgins (Open Letter, 2022). This book was originally published in French as Les Billes du Pachinko (Éditions Zoé, 2018). First published in the UK by Daunt Books Publishing (2022). 

When we got to Urabe's place, the old shop sign was still up over the door: WORLD OF WATER—RARE AND EXOTIC FISH. It was too dark to see anything through the window. There was some kind of plastic sheet hanging up on the other side of the glass. Saiki pushed the button on the intercom, then we went around the side and up the stairs to Urabe's apartment. 
—From Weasels in the Attic, a short book containing three linked stories by Hiroko Oyamada, translated from the Japanese by David Boyd (New Directions, 2022). This segment is from the first story, "Death in the Family," on p. 5 of the paperback. The stories in Weasels in the Attic were originally published by Shinchosa Publishing Co., Tokyo, in 2012, 2013, and 2014. 

Fiction by Paul La Farge, Jean Thompson, and Diane Cook; a poem by Jin Cordaro; and the new book by Allie Brosh

 ~

She also has an extensive library of self-help books, which implies that, for all her intelligence and self-possession, Dara may have some problems.  She is for sure a recovering alcoholic; one of the first things she told April P was that she doesn't allow drinking or drugs in her house.  Also, and she did not warn April P about this, Dara is a toucher.  She keeps finding reasons to squeeze April P's arm, pat her hand, give her a mini shoulder rub.  

--From "Rosendale," a short story by Paul La Farge, The New Yorker (September 29, 2014), pp. 72-77. 

He came back.  I saw him

in the grass, the white of him

glowing in the floodlight, . . .

--From "After We Buried the Dog in the Dark," a poem by Jin Cordaro, The Sun (December 2020).

My grandma usually supervised me while my parents were at work.  She'd drink screwdrivers and do the crossword, I'd run around the house and do whatever.  If she hadn't seen me in a while, she'd check to make sure I still had all my fingers, but escaping wasn't a big concern.  The doors were locked.  Just in case, there were jingle bells on the handles.

        The dog door was the single weak point in the fortress.  

--From Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh (Gallery Books, 2020).  It's essentially a sequel to her earlier book, Hyperbole and a Half.  (I referred to that one as a "tragicomic illustrated memoir," which seems about right for this one as well.)  The section above is from page 20 of the hardcover.

The bride and groom had two wedding receptions: the first was in the basement of the Lutheran church right after the ceremony, with punch and cake and coffee and pastel mints.  This was for those of the bride's relatives who were stern about alcohol.  The basement was low-ceilinged and smelled of metallic furnace heat.  Old ladies wearing corsages sat on folding chairs, while other guests stood and managed their cake plates and plastic forks as best they could.  The pastor smiled with professional benevolence.  The bride and groom posed for pictures, buoyed by adrenaline and relief.  There had been so much promised and prepared, and now everything had finally come to pass.    

--From The Year We Left Home, a novel by Jean Thompson (Simon & Schuster, 2011). 

They let me tend to my husband's burial and settle his affairs, which means that for a few days I get to stay in my house, pretend he is away on business while I stand in the closet and smell his clothes.  I cook dinners for two and throw the rest away, or overeat, depending on my mood.  I make a time capsule of pictures I won't be allowed to keep.  I bury it in the yard for a new family to discover.

        But once that work is done, the Placement Team orders me to pack two bags of essentials, good for any climate.  They take the keys to our house, our car.  A crew will come in, price it all, and a sale will be advertised; all the neighbors will come.  I won't be here for any of this, but I've seen it happen to others.  The money will go into my dowry, and then someday, hopefully, another man will marry me.

--From Man V. Nature, a short story collection by Diane Cook (HarperCollins, 2014).  This section is from the first story, "Moving On," which was originally published in Tin House. 

A graphic novel by Fanny Britt and Isabelle Arsenault, and four poems

~
My dad cries.
I don't mean right now as we speak,
even though that's probably the case.
I don't mean that my dad (noun) cries (verb) watching the sun set (adverb phrase), either.
What I mean is, my dad cries.
A dog barks.  A cat meows.  My dad cries.
Truffle thinks it's because he loves us too much.
There's some truth to that. 
But between you, me and the bus driver, 
you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that if my dad cries, 
it's first and foremost because of the wine. 
--From Louis Undercover, a graphic novel by Fanny Britt and Isabelle Arsenault, translated from the French by Christelle Morelli and Susan Ouriou (Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press, Toronto, Ontario/Berkeley, California, 2017).  First published in French as Louis parmi les spectres (Les Éditions de la Pastèque, Montreal, Quebec, 2016). 

I was on the porch pinching back the lobelia
like trimming a great blue head of hair. 

We'd just planted the near field, the far one 
the day before.  I'd never seen it so clear,

so gusty, so overcast, so clear, so calm.
They say pearls must be worn or they lose their luster, . . .  
--From "Another Story with a Burning Barn in It," a poem by Lisa Olstein, on the website of the Poetry Foundation.  This is an excerpt from her collection Radio Crackling, Radio Gone (Copper Canyon Press, 2006). 


I'm six months along 
and I wonder why nobody 
told me.  I've got red wine 
in my right hand, a cigarette
in my left.  There's
a noisy party all 
around me.  I put down 
the glass and lift my shirt.
The baby's there, visible 
under my transparent
skin, a little girl, wearing
bluebird barrettes.
--From "Expecting," a poem by Meghan O'Rourke, from her collection Sun in Days (W. W. Norton & Company, 2017), pp. 39-40.  This poem was first published, as "Nightdream," in Issue 58 of Tin House.

You can only miss someone when they are still present to you.
--From "Mistaken Self-Portrait as Demeter in Paris," a poem by Meghan O'Rourke, from her collection Sun in Days (W. W. Norton & Company, 2017), pp. 84-85.  This poem was first published, as "Demeter in Paris," by the Academy of American Poets.

What you did wasn't so bad.
You stood in a small room, waiting for the sun.
At least you told yourself that.
I know it was small, 
but there was something, a kind of pulped lemon, 
at the low edge of the sky.
--From "Poem of Regret for an Old Friend," a poem by Meghan O'Rourke, from her collection Sun in Days (W. W. Norton & Company, 2017), pp. 86-87.  "Poem of Regret for an Old Friend" was first published in The New Yorker.

Poems by Danusha Laméris, David Lehman, Ada Limón, and Mary Oliver

~
You're beautiful, sister, eat more fruit,
said the attendant every time my mother 
pulled into the 76 off Ashby Avenue.
--From "Service Station," a poem by Danusha Laméris, Tin House (March 21, 2018), from Issue 75.

It's June 15, 2017, a Thursday,
fortieth anniversary of the infamous day
the Mets traded Tom Seaver to Cincinnati

--From "It Could Happen to You," a poem by David Lehman, The New Yorker (December 4, 2017), p. 54.

The road wasn't as hazardous then, 
when I'd walk to the steel guardrail, 
lean my bendy girl body over, and stare 
at the cold creek water.
--From "Overpass," a poem by Ada Limón, The New Yorker (December 4, 2017), p. 27.

Some kind of relaxed and beautiful thing
kept flickering in with the tide
and looking around. 

--From "Dogfish," a poem by Mary Oliver, from her collection Dream Work (Grove/Atlantic, 1986).

Suddenly, A Knock on the Door

~
These are from Suddenly, A Knock on the Door: Stories by Etgar Keret, translated into English by Miriam Shlesinger, Sondra Silverston, and Nathan Englander and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2012.  The collection was originally published in Hebrew as Pit'om Defikah Ba-Delet by Zmora-Bitan in 2010.

Two people were standing at the door.  A second lieutenant wearing a knitted yarmulke, and behind him, a thin officer with sparse, light-colored hair and captain's bars on her shoulders.  Orit waited a minute, and when she saw that they still weren't saying anything, she asked if she could help them.  "Druckman," the captain tossed the word, part command, part reprimand, at the soldier.  "It's about your husband," the religious soldier mumbled at Orit.  "Can we come in?"  Orit smiled and said that this must be some kind of mistake because she wasn't married.
--From "Simyon" by Etgar Keret, pp. 25-30, translated by Sondra Silverston.

I know a guy who fantasizes all the time.  I mean, this guy even walks down the street with his eyes shut.  One day, I'm sitting in the passenger seat of his car and I look over to the left and see him with both his hands on the wheel and his eyes shut.  No kidding, he was driving like that on a main street. 
--From "Shut" by Etgar Keret,  pp. 31-33, translated by Sondra Silverston.

Then one Thursday a fat, sweaty guy walked into the cafe and smiled at him.  Miron was caught off guard.  The last person to give him a smile was Maayan, just before she left him, five months earlier, and her smile had been unmistakably sarcastic, whereas this one was soft, almost apologetic.  The fat guy gestured something, apparently a signal that he'd like to sit down, and Miron nodded almost without thinking. 
--From "Healthy Start" by Etgar Keret, pp. 34-39, translated by Miriam Shlesinger.  "Healthy Start" is available online in Tin House. 

The man who knew what I was about to say sat next to me on the plane, a stupid smile plastered across his face.  That's what was so nerve-racking about him, the fact that he wasn't smart or even sensitive, and yet he knew the lines and managed to say them--all the lines I meant to say--three seconds before me.  "D'you sell Guerlain Mystique?" he asked the flight attendant a minute before I could, and she gave him an orthodontic smile and said there was just one last bottle left.
--From "Mystique"by Etgar Keret, pp. 58-59, translated by Miriam Shlesinger.

The first story Maya wrote was about a world in which people split themselves in two instead of reproducing.  
--From "Creative Writing" by Etgar Keret, pp. 60-65, translated by Sondra Silverston.

When the new great depression began, NW was hardest hit.  Its merchandise was meant for the affluent class, but after the Chicago riots, even the wealthy stopped ordering, some of them because of the unstable economic situation, but most of them because they just couldn't face their neighbors.
--From "September All Year Long" by Etgar Keret, pp. 142-145, translated by Sondra Silverston.

There are conversations that can change a person's life. 
--From "Joseph" by Etgar Keret, pp. 146-148, translated by Sondra Silverston.

There's a theory that says there are billions of other universes, parallel to the one we live in, and that each of them is slightly different.  There are the ones where you were never born, and the ones where you wouldn't want to be born.  
--"Parallel Universes" by Etgar Keret, pp. 153-154, translated by Miriam Shlesinger.

Four poems and two short stories

~
The daughter wakes to a world
encased in ice--
the pine trees stiff with it.
--From "Still," a poem by Meghan O'Rourke, from her collection Once (W. W. Norton & Company, 2011), pp. 85-87.

It is a green landscape, houses stalwart
as circus ponies, American houses, wet
kids moving through them in Spandex bathing suits; 
inside, sandwiches with crusts cut off, 
windows flung open and striped awnings rolled out; 
family portraits on the walls and generic
medicines in the cabinet: the middle classes.
--From "Twenty-first Century Fireworks," a poem by Meghan O'Rourke, first published in The Kenyon Review and reprinted in her collection Once (W. W. Norton & Company, 2011), pp. 17-18.

Who will remember us
when the light breaks
over the western valley 

and the trash stirs, 
the flood having come
with its red waters

and washed our graves away?
I was a person, 

once, I believe. . . .
--From "Churchyard," a poem by Meghan O'Rourke, first published in Tin House (Issue number 49, Fall 2011) and reprinted in her collection Once (W. W. Norton & Company, 2011), pp. 45-46.

There was once a young wife, the apple of her husband's eye.  She was beautiful and charming and intelligent, and had been to college as well, a rare achievement for women in those days.
--From "The Maid Servant's Story," a short story by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, from her collection Arranged Marriage (Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1995), pp. 109-168.

Did you folks have a quarrel, asked the policeman, looking up from his notepad with a frown, and the husband looked directly back into his eyes and said, No, of course we didn't.  
--From "The Disappearance," a short story by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, from her collection Arranged Marriage (Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1995), pp. 169-181.

I am staying at a house with a screened-in back porch.  
--From "This Is Classy Because I Say So," a poem by Meg Johnson, published in Bear Review (Volume 2, Issue 1), p. 10.

A few stories by Miranda July and Aimee Bender

~
One looked like a woman but was too tall, or maybe it was just that the other one was so small, like a little boy.  I saw them around Portland all the time that summer.  Were they young or old?  Couldn't tell.  Were they from the present, or another era; i.e., time-travellers?  Wasn't sure.  They were in black and white, neckties and knickers.  A little dirty.  Always leaning on each other.   

--From "TV," a story by Miranda July, The New Yorker (June 9, 2014). 

 

I met Arlene in college, in the freshman dorm.  We were not roommates but suite-mates in the corner section of a squat brick house at the center of a small college campus in the middle of Ohio.  We both had moved from opposite coasts with the desire for a personalized liberal-arts college experience and had become friends due to proximity and availability more than compatibility.  For example, we had nothing in common.  She: Blue Ridge Mountain town.  Me: central Californian suburbs. She: declared international-relations major with three eclectic minors.  Me: not yet totally decided.  The men she liked were brutish jocks; I had located within two weeks every single soulful gentleman on campus who wrote poetry.  I found them by the length of their hair or the wear of their jeans.  She liked big-budget romantic movies; I saw every documentary I could find at the library, and if I’d had any retention ability, I would’ve stored a great deal of knowledge about the world.  She had a perpetual perm, because she felt it added volume to the thinness of her hair and gave her a look of energy; I was hard-pressed to use a brush because I preferred a ponytail, and part of trying to attract those poet-men was to look a little like I had wandered onto campus by accident after having spent ten years with the wolves behind some farmhouse, living off scraps and reveling in the pure air like a half-girl Mowgli, half-woman Thoreau. . . .

--From "Bad Return," a short story by Aimee Bender, published by One Story (Issue 158, January 2011) and reprinted in her collection The Color Master (Doubleday/Random House/Anchor Books, 2013), trade paperback edition pp. 99-129.  

 

I can't remember the words of things.  The words for words.  I have lost my words.  What's this from?  Is it the Internet?  Texting?  E-mail?  I see it in kids, too; it's not an aging thing.  An aging issue.  I do know that at the supermarket yesterday, I asked the guy where the weighing thing was, the thing that weighs other things, flailing around with my hands, indicating, and he crumpled up his forehead and said, "You mean the scale?"

     "Yes"--I said, beaming, pumping his hand--"the scale!"  As if he was the winner of an SAT prize giveaway.  . . .

--From "Wordkeepers," a short story by Aimee Bender, published by McSweeney's (Issue 41, July 2012) and reprinted in her collection The Color Master (Doubleday/Random House/Anchor Books, 2013),  pp. 153-160.   

 

I was at the Bev with Sylv and we were eating Chinese food takeout from Panda Express . . . she was going on about how she'd checked her messages and Jack hadn't called even though he said he would but maybe he was caught in traffic.  Even though he has a phone?  But I'd never say that out loud.  Sylv's the first friend I've had in a long time who really is way high on the friend pyramid, and the way she dances!  She bops around really energetically but she's also still.  Like she's moving her torso but her feet don't move, and then sometimes she'll take one step, and it feels like a thesis statement.  Like it is a topic sentence about her butt.        

--From "Lemonade," a short story by Aimee Bender, published by Tin House (Issue 33, Fall 2007) and reprinted in her collection The Color Master (Doubleday/Random House/Anchor Books, 2013), pp. 85-97.   

The Hunger Games trilogy and two stories from BASS

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The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay, novels by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic, 2008, 2009, and 2010, respectively). Not that the books in this trilogy need any additional publicity, but they are remarkable.

"The Ambush," a short story by Donna Tartt, first published in Tin House (Vol. 7, No. 2, Winter 2005/2006) and reprinted in The Best American Short Stories 2006, edited by Ann Patchett and series editor Katrina Kenison (Houghton Mifflin, 2006, pp. 30-42).

"So Much for Artemis," a short story by Patrick Ryan, first published in One Story (No. 53, March 10, 2005) and reprinted in Send Me by Patrick Ryan (Dial, 2006) and in The Best American Short Stories 2006, edited by Ann Patchett and series editor Katrina Kenison (Houghton Mifflin, 2006, pp. 70-90).