SuSu and the 8:30 Ghost, by Lilian Jackson Braun

This short story was a nice break from her better-known "Cat Who..." mystery series. It isn't so much a whodunit, but leans more to the mystery of the preternatural.

The basics:
setting-- a port town on the East Coast, possibly NY
characters-- SuSu (cat), Mr Van (disabled antiques dealer), Gertrude (librarian) Unnnamed sister (narrator), Frank (Van's aide)
conflict-- vengeance, greed
best quote-- "I prefer cats before they are reincarnated as people."

3rd story read for the 100 Shots of Short Reading Challenge, master post here

I also posted another Thursday 13 over on my Farmwife blog.
**two weeks in a row, go me!**

Jeeves and the Song of Songs, by P.D. Wodehouse

This audio collection takes it title from the first story read by Alexander Spencer, and also includes the following:

The Inferiority Complex of Old Sippy (Bertie "helps" old school chum get rid of unwanted writer, and acquire a fiancee)
The Kid Clementina (Bertie "helps" to smuggle a boarding school student back in to school)
Indian Summer of an Uncle (Bertie "helps"--see a pattern?-- uncle avoid a "disastrous" marriage to young woman)
The Impending Doom (Bertie tries to save an old school chum's job, avoids getting his own unwanted job)
The Yuletide Spirit (Bertie tries to avenge a prank, avoids a romantic entanglement
(in Song of Songs, Bertie tries to break up a couple, fails according to plan, but succeeds anyway)


The basics:
setting- 1930's England
characters- Bertie Wooster (of "family", untitled)
- Jeeves, his "gentleman's gentleman"
- several other relatives, chums, and romantic objects
conflict- Bertie gets into scrapes and situations, Jeeves bails him (and/or friends) out

* #'s 4-9 read for the 100 Shots of Short Reading Challenge, master post here

Listen and Listen Good, by Marcia Biederman

A Chinese student in America copes with the death of her brother during the Tianamen Square Massacre. While having lunch, she overhears a conversation that spurs her to action; she can't do anything for her brother, but perhaps she can save other innocents. She does this even while she admits that her understanding of spoken English is poor.
The basics:
setting-- New York City
main character-- Fan, college-age student from China
conflict-- language barrier
best quote--(Fan) "Why do you care? It isn't your country." (Walter) "It's my people."

While this was an easy enough read, I thought that the author could have left a few elements out, or pared them down to much smaller bits so that other parts of the story could have been developed further, and made the flow less choppy. Not a bad read, but it didn't motivate me to look for her longer works, either.


Second story read for the 100 Shots of Short Reading Challenge, master post here

Where Are You? Tuesday (11/18)

Mom is here for a few more days, Anthony is doing well in school, and the holidays are looming (I did manage to get 3 presents yesterday, so that was actually a big chunk). Luckily, I have blocks of time when I can't do much more than read or write, so my reading goals are moving along well.

As of this morning, I was in a bar in 1930's London, listening to "Sonny Boy," which the crowd is getting mightily tired of, as it's the fourth version for the evening [Jeeves and the Song of Songs].

And in my short story collection, I'm in a large, unspecified port city on the East Coast [SuSu and the 8:30 Ghost].

Arts and Crafts, by Mary Jo Adamson

If I can see a full novel coming from a short story, I can get more entertainment value from it, as I can imagine which plot points and characters would be developed and how. This is important because when I can figure out who is going to die (and how AND why) by the time I've finished the first page (as I did with this story), my motivation to care about the characters loses a lot of steam. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, merely the difference between entertainment (destination known, but how will we get there?) and involvement (keep me wondering for a good long while).

The basics:
setting- Boulder, Colorado
characters
- Rosa (waitress, cook, Jack's wife)
- Jack (student, artist, former Navy)
- Birch (herbalist)
- Mama Sofia (restaurant owner)
conflict- obligation versus evolution, and living versus survival
best quote- "To me, living is doing what you love, but sometimes I think survival is knowing what not to do."

* for the 100 Shots of Short Reading Challenge, master post here

Musing Monday (11/17)

WHAT ARE YOU READING RIGHT NOW?

Sisters in Crime 3, edited by Marilyn Wallace

WHAT DID YOU RECENTLY FINISH READING, and WHAT DID YOU THINK OF IT?

Arts and Crafts by Mary Jo Adamson (first story in the above-named collection)
It was an enjoyable short story. The bad guy "got his" all on his own, and blamed everyone else to the very end. [will link to longer review once I get it posted]
Last night, I finished listening to The Awakening by Kate Chopin. The story itself was beautifully executed, but I was very disappointed (although not surprised) with the conclusion.

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU WILL READ NEXT?

The next story in the collection: Listen and Listen Good by Marcia Biederman, and for my audiobook, I will probably start Jeeves and the Song of Songs this evening.

WILL YOU READ ANY HOLIDAY-THEMED BOOKS SOON?

I'm not signed on to any holiday challenges, so if I do crack one open, it's likely to be a picture book that I read to my son at bedtime.

100 Shots of Short Reading Challenge.

The challenge is a simple one - no time limit, no specific titles, just the goal of reading 100 self-picked short stories as and when possible.

I'll keep a master list in this post (with links to individual reviews).

Here's a list of my preliminary source books:
Black Heart, Ivory Bones (fantasy)
I Shudder at Your Touch (horror)
Sisters in Crime 3 (mystery)
1. Arts and Crafts, Mary Jo Adamson
2. Listen and Listen Good, Marcia Biederman
3. SuSu and the 8:30 Ghost, Lilian Jackson Braun
Jeeves and the Song of Songs (humor)
4-9, descriptions here.
What Are You Looking At? (fat fiction)
Redshift (speculative fiction)


There's well over 100 stories in these six titles, but I'm allowing for not being able to finish some particularly uninteresting shorts.