Short story writers and people who don’t get out much…..

Short stories are an acquired taste. Sheila enjoys them. I have to persevere.

Book reviews can be hacked out blurb, or carefully crafted appreciation which is neither gushing nor keen to put down.

Books and Culture is one of my favourite sources of advice and warning about what's what and what's good on the book front.

So if you go to Books and Culture here you'll find a carefully crafted appreciation of the most recent volume of The Best American Short Stories.

This
is a book review as it should be – makes me want to read the book.
Encourages me to go against the grain of what I usually like reading.
Invites me to persevere.

Wouldn't
you, once you are drawn in by the first few sentences of this review,
written by someone who clearly knows a thing or two about the
cruciality of story?

"Fiction writers, people who by definition have chosen
as their life's work to sit at home, alone—often in their jammies—and
make things up. The world, as seen by people who don't get out much.

But the facts are all there on the evening news (or
we'd like to think at least they once were). We are awash in
information. What we need is understanding, some way of puzzling the
whole thing out, deciding what to make of all the goings-on.

Enter the short story writer—in a bathrobe—with a cup
of coffee, a compass, a thermometer, a flashlight, a spyglass, a
decoder ring."