Short Story Challenge

I’ve really enjoyed participating in John’s Short Story Mondays over at the Book Mine Set, so this challenge is perfect for nudging me into a short story every week. Kate from Kate’s Book Blog is the host, and she has several options you can choose from to tailor this challenge to your needs. I’m going for Option #5, which is do whatever you want to, basically. And this is what I want to do ended up doing:

1. Read ? stories in Collected Stories of Carol Shields
2. Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
3. Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love by Lara Vapnyar
4. Secrets of a Fire King by Kim Edwards

This is what I originally said:

1. Read 2-3 stories from Carol Shields’ Collected Stories every week starting in January so that I can finish the book before July 1 for the Canadian Challenge. This book contains over 50 stories and is almost 600 pages long, so I feel it’s a worthy goal. 6 month timeframe. Update: I still plan on finishing this; it just won’t get done until the end of the year, and I’ll use it for Canadian Challenge #2.
2. Read 1 story per week from The Complete Tales of Nikolai Gogol Vol. 2 to coincide with the Russian Reading Challenge hosted by Ex Libris. There are 8 stories, so that should take about 2 months.
3. Read some of the stories from Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman to coincide with the R.I.P. 3 challenge hosted by Carl. That will take another 2 months. (I’ll try to read them all, but I’m not going to commit to it.) Update:  I’m not going to do this one as I won’t have time. I plan on reading one of Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story collections instead.
4. That leaves 2 months open. I already have The Secrets of a Fire King by Kim Edwards, so I’d like to finish that story collection in this time frame.

Whew, I think that covers it. Looking forward to this challenge. Thanks, Kate!

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