Reader's Place: May 23, 2022
As the days get longer, dip into a short story collection to get a taste for a new favorite author, genre, or storytelling style.
Creative Types: and other stories, by Tom Bissell (Library Catalog)
From the author of The Disaster Artist, a new collection of stories that range from laugh-out-loud funny to disturbingly dark--unflinching portraits of people struggling to bridge the gap between art and life. A young and ingratiating assistant to a movie star makes a blunder that puts his boss and a major studio at grave risk. A writer and his wife hire a partner for a threesome to rejuvenate their relationship after the birth of their child. An assistant at a prestigious literary journal reconnects with a middle school frenemy and finds his carefully constructed world of refinement cannot protect him from his past. In these and other stories, Tom Bissell vividly renders the complex worlds of characters on the brink of artistic and personal crisis - writers, actors, and other creative types who see things slightly differently than the rest of us do. Surreal, poignant, squirmingly awkward--and always just a little bit off--this collection is a brilliant new offering from one of the most versatile and talented writers in America today.
The Memory Librarian: and other stories of dirty computer, by Janelle Monáe (Library Catalog, eBCCLS)
Whoever controls our memories controls the future. Janelle Monáe and an array of talented collaborating creators have written a collection of tales comprising the bold vision and powerful themes that have made Monáe such a compelling and celebrated storyteller. Dirty Computer introduced a world in which thoughts-as a means of self-conception-could be controlled or erased by a select few. And whether human, A.I., or other, your life and sentience was dictated by those who'd convinced themselves they had the right to decide your fate. That was until Jane 57821 decided to remember and break free. Expanding from that mythos, these stories fully explore what it's like to live in such a totalitarian existence...and what it takes to get out of it. Building off the traditions of speculative writers such as Octavia Butler, Ted Chiang, Becky Chambers, and Nnedi Okorafor-and filled with the artistic genius and powerful themes that have made Monáe a worldwide icon in the first place, The Memory Librarian serves readers tales grounded in the human trials of identity expression, technology, and love, but also reaching through to the worlds of memory and time within, and the stakes and power that exists there.
Seasonal Work: stories, by Laura Lippman (Library Catalog, eBCCLS)
In a suspenseful collection of stories featuring fierce women—including one never-before-published novella— Laura Lippman showcases why she is one of today's top crime writers. The award-winning master of psychological suspense is in top form in this collection of diverse and diabolically clever stories. In the never-before-published "Just One More," a married couple—longing for that old romantic spark—creates a playful diversion that comes with unexpected consequences. Lippman's beloved Baltimore PI Tess Monaghan keeps a watchful eye on a criminally resourceful single father in "Seasonal Work," while her mother, Judith, realizes that the life of "The Everyday Housewife" is an excellent cover for all kinds of secrets. In "Slow Burner," a husband's secret cell phone proves to be a dicey temptation for a suspicious wife. A father's hidden past piques the curiosity of a young snoop in "The Last of Sheila-Locke Holmes." Plus seven other brilliantly crafted stories of deception, murder, dangerous games, and love gone wrong—irrefutable evidence that Laura Lippman's riveting fiction will more than satisfy any crime reader.
Thank you, Mr. Nixon: stories from the transformation, by Gish Jen (Library Catalog, eBCCLS)
Gish Jen, beloved author of The Resisters, refracts the fifty years since the opening of China through the lives of ordinary people. Beginning with a cheery, kindly letter penned by a Chinese girl in heaven to "poor Mr. Nixon" in hell, Jen embarks on an eleven-story journey through U.S.-Chinese relations, capturing not only the excitement of a world on the brink of tectonic change, but the all-too-human encounters that ensue as East meets West. Opal Chen reunites with her sisters in China after a hiatus of almost forty years; American Arnie Hsu clashes with his Chinese girlfriend Lulu Koo, who wonders why Americans "like to walk around in the woods with the mosquitoes"; Tina and Johnson Koo take wholly surprising measures to reestablish contact when their "number one daughter," Bobby, stops answering her phone in New York; and Betty Koo, brought up on "no politics, just make money," finds she must square her mother's philosophy with the repression in Hong Kong. With their profound compassion, equally profound humor, and unexpected connections, these masterful stories reflect history's shifting shadow over our boldest decisions and most intimate moments. Gradually accruing the power of a novel as it proceeds, Thank You, Mr. Nixon furnishes yet more proof of Gish Jen's enduring place among the most eminent of American storytellers
You Have a Friend in 10A: stories, by Maggie Shipstead (Library Catalog, eBCCLS)
In this collection of stories, Maggie Shipstead dives into eclectic and vivid settings, from an Olympic village to a deathbed in Paris to a Pacific atoll, and illuminating a cast of indelible characters, Shipstead traverses ordinary and unusual realities with cunning, compassion, and wit. In "Acknowledgments," a male novelist reminisces bitterly on the woman who inspired his first novel, attempting to make peace with his humiliations before the book goes to print. In "The Cowboy Tango," spanning decades in the open country of Montana, a triangle of love and self-preservation plays out among an aging rancher called the Otter, his nephew, and a young woman named Sammy who works the horses
Compiled by Jenny Zbrizher