The delightful Cleo is doing a challenge this year and I'm going to hop on board too. (She does about 50 challenges. Where does she find the time?!?) This one is involves short stories and you can find her post about the rules here.
The basic idea is simple. You pick 52 short stories and then assign each of them a card from a regular deck. Each week you pull out one card and read the corresponding story. As I said, simple. She is mixing it up a bit. Instead of just short stories, she is mixing it up a bit with short stories, essays, poems and children's stories. I'm going to stick with the short stories.
I've got six or eight collections of short stories (and maybe twice that number of short stories from particular authors). I'm going to assign three suits to specific books and a fourth will be used as more miscellaneous. All 52 short stories are new to me. I probably won't blog them but I'll say something about them in my end of month readings. They are:
Clubs (From 'You've Got to Read This' a collection where famous authors suggest titles that are meaningful to them.)
Ace - A Distant Episode by Bowles
King - Goodbye my Brother by Cheever
Queen - Gooseberries by Chekov
Jack - Greatness Strikes Where It Pleases by Gustafson
Ten - Master and Man by Tolstoy
Nine - No Place for You, My Love by Welty
Eight - Penal Colony by Kafka
Seven - Spring in Fialta by Nabakov
Six - The Aleph by Borges
Five - The Flowers by Walker
Four - The Man to Send Rain Clouds by Silko
Three - The Star Cafe by Caponegro
Two - Wants by Paley
Hearts (From 'A Treasury of Yiddish Stories')
Ace - A Quiet Garden Spot by Asch
King - Competitors by Rosenfeld
Queen - Eternal Life by Aleichem
Jack - Father and the Boys by Weissenberg
Ten - Higher and Higher by Marcus
Nine - Kola Street by Asch
Eight - My First Love by Nadir
Seven - On Account of a Hat by Aleichem
Six - The Calf by Sforim
Five - The Girl by Schneour
Four - The Mad Talumdist by Peretz
Three - The Man Who Slept through the End of the World by Nadir
Two - To the New World by Metzker
Spades (From a Fantasy and Horror anthology)
Ace - Almost Home by Bisson
King - Ancestor Money by Mchugh
Queen - Harvey's Dream by King
Jack - King Dragon by Swanwick
Ten - My Sly Stops for a Cup of Joe by Bull
Nine - Silence of the Falling Stars by O'Driscoll
Eight - Study in Emerald by Gaiman
Seven - The Fluted Girl by Bacigalupi
Six - The Red Bow by Saunders
Five - The Wife by Singh
Four - Why I Became a Plumber by Maitland
Three - With Acknowledgments to Sun Tzu by Hodge
Two - You Go Where it Takes You - Balingrud
Diamonds (miscellaneous)
Ace - Babylon Revisited by Fitzgerald
King - Black is my Favorite Color by Malamud
Queen - A Good Man is Hard to Find by O'Connor
Jack - How Much Land Does a Man Need by Tolstoy
Ten - In a Far Country by London
Nine - Lady with a Lapdog by Chekov
Eight - Secret Life of Walter Mitty by Thurber
Seven - Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber by Hemmingway
Six - Signs and Symbols by Nabakov
Five - Texts by Leguin
Four - The Dead by Joyce
Three - The Million Pound Note by Twain
Two - The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
Ah, it's very sad to have to come back from Christmas vacation, but being called "delightful" put a spring back in my step! ;-) Weeeeellll, 50 challenges is hyperbole, but if you drop the 0, move the 5 to the ones position and add a 1 in the tens position, that's the number I did last year. I should be under 10 this year.
ReplyDeleteMy goodness, I just love your lists ....... so many great authors and stories ...! I think I need to do about 5 DMI challenges next year, just to be able to read all the stories, essays, etc. that I've discovered!
Happy reading, Peder!
Thank you very much for bringing this idea to me!
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