Welcome to Litsy!

maybe i just don‘t love short stories because i want to know more…what happens next. these stories are very well writtten but all are melancholy…as life can be.

I didn't dislike it this collection but it was definitely... different.

Ooh…this is a dark dark short story collection. Lots of unsettling menace and men behaving badly. And women behaving badly too. As with most collections some hit it out of the park and others less so. Recommend. #Bookspin @TheAromaofBooks

Reading tagged book on my porch enjoying the break from the heat. I am the June bug whisperer. Enjoying this dark short story collection and the company. 😁😁😁. @TheAromaofBooks #Bookspin

Started this one on my lunch break. I‘m intrigued.

So far, I love this collection of stories by Laura Van den Burg. I just finished "The Pitch"- reminiscent of her novel The Third Hotel, but always something fresh. I'm wondering if others tend to read short story collections straight through, or spread out over a longer time? I'm not much of a short story reader. I'm curious about others' habits.

1. Elantris by Brandon Sanderson, The Lost City of Z by David Grann, and I Hold a Wolf by the Ears by Laura van den Berg
2. Heaven by Mieko Kawakami
3. The House in the Cerulean Sea, Eartheater, Rebecca, Piranesi, and A Darker Shade of Magic
#weekendreads

"The system is designed to keep us so depleted that we forget our sense of decency and become so mercenary about our own survival that we have nothing left to contribute to the common good."

I'm not sure if it's designed that way, but there are certainly those who benefit from a whole bunch of people being stuck as low as possible on Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

"...but now that dark line had appeared in the distance and the story I had always told myself about my limitless prospects was breaking down; _not yet_ was starting to feel more like _not ever_."

Ah, middle age. I can relate.

These are the kind of strange, life-like stories I enjoy but likely won't remember. They address the world as it is today, the feeling of driving too fast around blind curves, the dangers we face from strangers, those we love, and ourselves and the opacity of the motivations of all three. Well-written insights make up for a few instances of sloppy editing.

Oops?

As anyone who has followed me for awhile knows, short stories don‘t really do it for me. This collection though has the perfect mix of the uncanny, dread, anxiety, that I loved pretty much every story. Really recommend this if you like feeling unsettled.

I loved the supremely surreal The Third Hotel, enough that I checked out this, a collection of short stories even though... I don‘t really enjoy short story collections.

Stealthily, over the years Laura Van Den Berg has become one of my favorite contemporary authors. Her novel The Third Hotel really felt like a turning point where her voice matured in a masterful way. This new collection of stories is her strongest to date. Woman‘s pain, fear, anger, shame, denial, identity are examined in the most surprising ways. If Rebecca Solnit wrote stories with a hint of Kelly Link‘s imagination you might end up with LvdB.

Evening reading: Laura van den Berg is one of the most fiercely talented writers of the 21st century, and I am so freaking excited to get my hands on this! Also, I want to have this cover‘s babies. It‘s out June 9, 2020. 🐑 🚊🤘🏻