Short Story Spring

One of the absolute joys in life is finding appreciation for something you didn't previously 'get'. For me, short story collections are that thing. 

Whilst I have no issues reading short stories in general, collections and anthologies used to defeat me. I found them more exhausting than novels, much in the same way tapas can be more filling than a large meal. But after trialling a method of reading multiple collections and once, hopping between them as the mood struck, I have become an anthology devotee. 

And so we come onto my Spring challenge. I actually intended to post this at the start of April, and keep it updated as I went, but life took a bit of a turn and so I chose to read the books and round them up later. 

I had expected the books I chose to take the majority of the month, but a combination of three short page lengths and four very easy reads meant I was done in less than two weeks. See what I read below...

The Collections

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw 

I'm not sure what made me so interested in reading this, yet I was drawn to the title from the moment I saw it. It's a very slim volume of stories focused on the sexual lives of black American women. I say sexual lives rather than sex, because the stories encapsulate how community, family, mothers, care-responsibilities and faith all impact women's relationship with sex. 

It was so wonderful that I had to force myself to slow down and savour the stories. I could have easily read the whole thing over the course of a few hours - it was like dipping into a delicious selection box. I'm planning to write a more in-depth review as I have a lot of thoughts on this one. 

Sinister Spring by Agatha Christie

There are four seasonal Christie collections, of which I have read one other - Midwinter Murder. Since I was hardly going to read this collection in another season, I had to read it now or wait a whole year. 

There's nothing particularly memorable about this collection, though nothing terrible either. I enjoyed it a great deal, but it suffered from 'Spring' being a more nebulous season to build a collection around (not something I experienced when choosing books for this challenge!) 

salt slow by Julia Armfield 

This was probably the book I was most excited to read this year. It was the first on my list of 'books to buy after my book ban'. I adored Our Wives Under the Sea and this was Julia Armfield's breakout collection of queer horror/fantasy. 

And oh, it was perfect. The sheer confidence of the writing took you firmly by the hand, leaving you eagerly following into any strange territory it decided upon. From a teenager's transformation into a Preying Mantis, to a city's population whose ability to sleep mutates into something new, to a woman being lectured by her girlfriend who has just risen from the dead... this one is another one I struggled not to rush through. 

Things We Say in the Dark by Kirsty Logan 

I bought this on sale, forgot about it, and then was drawn to a few lines and decided to give it a go. 

Oh the regret. 

This might be the worst book I actually finish this year. It's similar in subject matter to salt slow, and yet the distance between the two in style and quality is embarrassing. The writing can only be described as the result of a teacher in a creative writing class thinking their student is touched by genius. Any actual ideas the author has are lost in student-ish experimental writing and pretentious literary stylings.

Logan also has a story in the Furies collection and I lasted one paragraph before giving up. 

Furies by Various 

I was... dubious... about this one. A collection based around various pejorative names for women (dragon, wench, hussy, she-devil, etc) walks a fine line with the kind've 'I am woman, hear me roar' feminism I loathe (and that is an open door to TERFs). I want equality in work, home and society, not to be told my fanny is a divine mystery and that girls are the best. 

The authors - which include Margaret Atwood, Sandi Toksvig, Emma Donohue, etc, - were tempting though, and in the end this turned out to be more refreshing, diverse and varied than I expected. 

In short (ha, see what I did there?!) these shorter fiction challenges have really energised me. I will absolutely be doing another over the summer. 

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