Read This Book…

I LOVE short story collections. I’m not sure what it is about these kinds of books, but they are like a perfect array of gems collected together for us to admire. As a sort of advent calendar this year, I’ve been listening to a short story a day. It’s been so lovely to start my days with these mesmerizing stories.

Back when I first started working on the bookish internet, I participated in a 24-hour readathon. My favorite read from that weekend was Kelly Link’s Get in Trouble, a fantastical short story collection that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

So, for my first short story collection this year, I started with Link’s White Cat, Black Dog. Link gives readers retellings of fairy tales, each with her own special twist. In one story, the youngest son of one of the world’s richest men is sent on a quest to find the best dog in the world, but instead, he finds a marijuana farm run by talking cats. In another story, a man travels into the magical world to rescue his husband. In another, a PhD student is asked to house-sit for a very strange house owner.

Each of these stories takes you to another world, a sort of modern retelling of the fairy tales that we all grew up hearing. But in Kelly Link’s hands, these stories come alive in a whole new way. She has this way of capturing readers’ attention and keeping it with every page. Perhaps it’s the magic of winter nights or maybe the holiday sparkle, but every story seemed like just what I needed on any given day.

Kelly Link’s love-awaited debut novel The Book of Love is set to come out in the first half of 2024 — I can’t wait!