This collection of short stories is the October selection of my book club, The Indy Reading Coalition. Usually, in October we have a seasonal theme of ghost stories, or – last year – we read a collection of Edgar Allan Poe works. We struggled to decide on something this year but finally went with H.G. Wells who, though not a writer of the horror genre per se, did write a lot of off-beat, unusual stories. Plus, our club had read and enjoyed one of his other stories (“The Flowering of the Strange Orchid”) as part of our “Short Story Month III” in July of this year.
In addition to this collection, I’m looking forward to a busy reading month in October. I plan to finish Mockingjay (the final installment in Suzanne Collins’s “Hunger Games” trilogy) and also read “Cold Mountain” by Charles Frazier to count toward my personal Project: Civil War reading. Then, late in the month I have another meeting of the Kurt Vonnegut Book Club, which is reading “Welcome to the Monkey House” – another short story collection. That’ll be a lot of short stories to read in a month, but Im looking forward to it. That would make four “books” in October, which is kind of my “par score,” but if I read anything else this month it might by The Sparrow, or A Prayer for Owen Meany, which I’ve wanted to get started on for a long time.
That’s me. What’s on your agenda…?
Bibliophilopolis 
Eclectic Indulgence said,
October 6, 2010 at 3:34 pm
I strongly recommend “A Prayer for Owen Meany”, but do not read it on the subway or in public. You WILL laugh – probably the most humourous book I have ever read. Good literary merit as well.
My list is a long one, but I hope to get through “A Way of All Flesh” and then give Mishima’s “Temple of the Golden Pavilion” a shot – it would be the first time I have delved into Japanese literature.
LikeLike
stentorpub said,
October 6, 2010 at 4:41 pm
A couple of my fellow book club members and I have been pushing to read APFOM for awhile now. It’s on our “bookshelf” but hasn’t been picked – and my turn isn’t for a few months yet.
Now, that you’ve made me think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever read any Japanese literature, or even very many books that deal with Japan in any way. A few years ago I had a “Project: China” where I read a lot of China-related books. Funny thing was, one of the books I read was “Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World” (that probably wasn’t the exact title) and I found it – and him- so interesting that he kind of “took over” (you might say conquered!) my Project: China 🙂
-Jay
LikeLike
Dale Barthauer said,
October 6, 2010 at 7:22 pm
I’m jealous, Jay! I have not had much time lately. I’m still reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Very good so far. I better get started on the H G Wells stories.
LikeLike