Good question. It's summer, the time for light reading, yes? So I just finished The Reivers, Faulkner's last book. Actually, in the interest of true confession, I listened to it on tape. That turned out to be a very dangerous activity. Some of the sentences are so utterly wonderful that I had to rewind and listen again and again. It also meant that I got so caught up in the narrative that I almost drove off the road more than once. I don't have this experience with most Faulkner, though I was fascinated, upon rereading Light in August to realize how little I remembered and how absolutely terrifying Joe Christmas is. This book is light-hearted filled with wonderful turns of prhase that have to be savored.

Before that, also in the category of writing with breathtaking sentences, I read Tony Earley's short story collection, Here We Are in Paradise. It left me with multiple responses: I will never be able to write like this. What a wonderful read. And...some of these stories don't work. (I had just finished reading 70 submissions for a short story anthology, so I was very much in the mode to appreciate good writing.)

Though I live in a house where the floors are groaning under the weight of books, I'd love some suggestions of good short story collections by women authors.

I just picked up Julie Orringer's collection, How To Breathe Underwater, and it was amazing.  Usually, a few stories in a collection are noticeably stronger than others and carry the book, but this is a very, very strong collection.  I was amazed by her story "Pilgrims," when I read it years ago, so I don't know why I waited so long to get this, but I'm glad I did.

I've also been re-reading The Collected Stories of Flannery O'Connor, because I always forget how wacky and amazing her work is.  At the end I feel like I got punched in the gut and didn't see it coming--but in a good way.  Her stories remind me to keep a little bit of the bizarre in my own work--but to make sure it feels organic and inevitable.

And I'm currently reading Evening Is the Whole Day, a debut novel by Preeta Samarasan.  (Disclaimer: She was in my graduate program, but honestly, I'd be recommending this book even if I'd never met her.)  I hope someday I can write a book like this: warm and huge-hearted, somehow simultaneously hilarious and heartbreaking, a family story that doesn't feel small.  And the prose is--for lack of a better word--acrobatic.  It makes me want to write long, looping sentences.

Hi all!  This is always a great topic, and I love to see what other people are reading so I can add it to my (ever growing) list.  Right now, I'm reading Moby Dick for a book club I'm in.  I'm finally on page 300, and I have to say there are some passages and sentences that are among the best I've ever read.  I am about to start reading (well, as soon as I can finish the whale) Margot Livesey's House on Fortune Street.  I can't wait--I love her writing and the plot is right up my alley.  For women short story writers, I have to recommend one of my favorite books of all time:  Homestead by Rosina Lippi.  It's set in a small town in eastern Europe and spans multiple generations, and is really almost a novel, because the stories are so well linked.  It's beautiful--I cry every time I read it.

I just finished reading Nathan Englander's Ministry of Special Cases, and this was the best book I have read in a very long time.  It is funny and human terribly sad, too.  And though it takes place in a different time than I live in and in a place that I have never been, I was reminded over and over again that we are all more alike than we are different.  I highly reccomend this novel.

I've been a fan of Andrew Sean Greer ever since I heard him read at a public venue, years ago, during his stay at the MacDowell Colony. His lyrical prose continues in  

I got about halfway through Jonathan Franzen's Strong Motion this weekend, but was having trouble caring about the story/a character, and so moved on to Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible which I started a long time ago, put down, and am only just now starting again this evening. After that I have Reader and Raelynx by Sharon Shinn at the top of the TBR pile. Good times!

Greer's stories are great...I reread (or is it rereread?) his collection, How It Was for Me, every couple of years and am continually delighted by it. "Life is Over There" in particular is a great story. I'm also a big Franzen fan, but Strong Motion is not nearly The Corrections. It does contain one of the best sociocultural encapsulations of a place that I've seen in a literary work, when the main character is running across Somerville toward the end of the book. I don't have the book in front of me so I can't cite page numbers, but in my recollection he nails it--it's like viewing film footage of a mad dash across town.

Right now I'm in the midst of teaching a class focused on short stories, so what I'm reading is an onslaught of those. One of my favorites that we are reading tomorrow is Ron Carlson's "The N," published in Narrative Magazine last year. It gets my adrenal glands going just thinking about this story--it crackles on the reread. The story was nominated for a Million Writers Prize for best online story but didn't make it to the top ten selection, which I can't quite believe.

"Collected Short Stories of Richard Yates."  Damn, he's just painfully good.  For fun I'm plowing through Continuum Publishing's  "33 1/3" series of small books each one dedicated to a single classic album.  Great fun, though the quality varies widely.

I just finished Anne Enright's The Gathering, and was thrilled by the way she introduces the unexpected on just about every page, which provides a little jolt, makes you reread to make sure you’re understanding her correctly (e.g. she can't go for a late-night drive because her wine glass won't fit in the Saab's cupholder).  Also her unsparing and unsentimental descriptions of her young daughters -- so fresh. Before that, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, so rewarding for the odd detail unsheathed subtly at just the right time. I'm about to put down Dear American Airlines; it just doesn't deliver for me the way the review suggested.

I'm reading No Country for Old Men, Alias Grace, and Madness and Civilization. Why?

I just started Penelope Lively's _Consequences_, which so far is a good book with a bad title.  Has anyone read it?

I just finished "Tropic of Cancer" and am currently reading "The Immoralist" by André Gide. I haven't read many female authors but last summer I stumbled upon Kay Boyle's "Life Being the Best & Other Stories" at the library while hunting down a different Boyle (T.C.). I borrowed it on a whim and really enjoyed most of the stories. The writing is wonderful. I recommend it!

I also recently read Grub-alum Ellen Litman's "The Last Chicken in America: A Novel in Stories," which I liked, though my interest in the characters had waned by the last few stories, and it's far from "required reading." Z.Z. Packer's "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" is an engrossing read from start to finish, however, with only "Geese" missing the mark.

I'm finally reading James Joyce's Ulysses so I can quit living the lie.

The Great Man by Kate Christianson -- A Great Read -- bawdy, funny and very well-written.  Not perfect but any flaws are forgivable.

I just read The Good Mother by Sue Miller. What a great read!

I'm reading "Enough Rope," by Lawrence Block.

I'm reading Updike's Rabbit Redux and London's The Sea Wolf.  I had obviously heard of the Rabbit books many times over the years, but finally got a two book collection with the (first?) four.  It was interesting because I began reading Rabbit, Run during a troubled time in my life, specifically involving my children and my wife.  I wanted to run.  Every day I wanted to run.  I (we) are in a better place now and my thoughts of running have been relegated to the dungeon of my mind.  Anyway, I hadn't really any idea what the books were about but the few pre-conceptions I had were quickly shattered.  It's rare but very powerful when such a piece of literature finds its way into your life when it's most apropo.

The Sea Wolf is interesting.    A rich city man gets rescued from the water by the crew of a seal hunting vessel.  The captain--Wolf Larsen--decides to keep him on as a hand rather than let him embark on another ship that's heading back to port.  Larsen is a self-educated man whose moral compass always points to himself and his wants and needs with little regard to others.

A nonfiction work called "Bat Bomb" by Jack Couffer. An account of the development of an oddball weapon for WWII.

I just finished "Old Paths and Legends of New England", published in 1905, and now I'm reading Preston and Childs "The Wheel of Darkness." another Prendergast novel.  I'm a sucker for good series, especially if they have a bit of anthropology and paranormal happenings.

Oh, and to DMS.  My blessings.  Ulysses killed me.

You people must be kidding me! Melville, O'Connor, Updike, and JOYCE?!

I just started reading Burt Ward's tell-all of his sexcapades as Robin on the set of the 1960s Batman show, My Life in Tights. Also read La Perdita, a not so great, but beautifully drawn graphic novel by Jessica Abel, Babylon's Ark about saving the Baghdad Zoo, and Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar. For intellectualism, I read Tom Stoppard's Rock and Roll, but only because my wife made me.

Just finished "Empire Falls" by Richard Russo.  Excellent.  Rich characters and good writing.  Book won Pulitzer prize.      Ray Anderson

Wanted to recommend England Calling Edited by Julia Bell and Jackie Gay, 24 short stories from 21st century UK writers to watch. I got about 8 authors from this one.

Hey all you writers out there-- I've been looking for something to read, and have heard interesting things about Andre Dubus III's The Garden of Last Days.  Has anyone read it, and what did you think?

I'm interested in creating a reading group of writers of short fiction who want to read for craft.  Say, four or five people.  Anyone out there like this idea?