Sunday Salon: A random variety, plus Short Story Sunday

This weeks Sunday Salon is going to include a random mixture of bits and pieces. Firstly, I have to say that reading this week has been slowly, some of that is down to the fact that I started a book I thought I would love and just didn't want to admit to myself that I couldn't be bothered by it, I wasted 3 evenings on A Carnivore's Inquiry, only reading 120 pages when I could had guessed after 30 pages that I would be giving up on this quickly. I also spent 2 evenings with that horrible foggy brain you get before a cold comes out, which has really affected my reading.

I'm now reading The Famished Road, which I'm loving, but wondering how I'm going to review. I'm quite tempted to do a WG style review, so if anyone has any questions about this book that they'd like to ask, ask away here as it will help me structure the review. I'm hoping to finish reading this by mid week.

Talking about Weekly Geeks, this week is catch-up week and while I don't have any outstanding reviews to write up or completed challenges, I have this mammoth reading list for Fall into Reading to tackle, as I really need to catch up with my reading or I won't be completing many challenges in time. So I'm going to try and finish The Famished Road this week, read Coraline and tackle at least one of my bookring reads. Outside of reading, I also need to catch up on my sign language lessons, I haven't been for 9 weeks, largely because of the school holidays (its run at school), but I haven't practised as I should so I've seemingly forgot nearly everything I spent a year learning, and I need to catch up on my A Level course this afternoon.

Less babble about me, now time for Short Story Sunday. This morning I read Keepsakes and Treasures by Neil Gaiman, from his Fragile Things collection. This story is definitely only for adults but is first rate.
This story is about a man who was born to a woman locked away for clinical nymphomania in the 50's, despite being in an asylum she still managed to fall pregnant, and his father can only be one of the men who are supposed to be protecting her. From a young age, the boy has used murder as revenge and punishment for those who harmed him and his mother. His actions are noticed by Mr Alice, one of the world's richest men, but a man who used his money to stop the public finding out who he is. The boy comes to work for Mr Alice for the rest of his life, he is the person who seeks out and fulfills Mr Alice's desires, whether they are business desires or personal ones. Mr Alice's main desire is for young men to have sexual encounters with. The main part of the story centres around Mr Alice's acquisition of the Treasure of Shahinai, a young exquisitely beautiful boy.
This is an excellent story, but avoid if you dislike sexual scenes or bad language.

I also read yesterday Gaiman's excellent story Bitter Grounds, in this story we follow a young man who is clearly bored of life and just looking for an escape. He decides to drive around America, and meets a professor on his way to a lecture. When the professor mysteriously disappears, the man steals his papers and goes to the conference himself, giving a speech about the zombie coffee girls.
These where read for Short Story September

Short Story September: The Headstrong Historian by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This story can be found here in The New Yorker which has a great selection of short stories.

Nwamgba is looking back over her life, she remembers her fierce stubbonness and determination to marry Obierika despite all the rumours about the infertility which ran through his ancestors. When they marry she suffers many miscarriages, being forced to make sacrifices until her son is born.

Shortly after this birth, her husband dies, Nwamgba decides to send her son to an English school, a decision which leaves her proud but practically cuts her out of her sons life. Her son is renamed Micheal, the Christian Missionary school teaches her nudity is wrong, that sacrifices and the rites performed by African tribes are heathen and should be avoided. This education that he recieves which was supposed to help him, creates a divide between his communities beliefs and his.

When he marries and has children, his Mother wishes that she recieves a grandchild, who is the reincarnation of her husband. This new child Grace, can experience the African world and its beliefs, as well as experience and benefit from the British education system.

Another good read for Short Story September

Short Story September: King Rat by Karen Joy Fowler

A Copy of this story can be found here

This short story is focused around a young girl, who is fascinated with the fairy-tales in a book given to her by a student of her father's. However, she is completely disturbed by the story of the Pied Piper of Hamlin. Children follow the Pied Piper off into a castle of eternal happiness, yet she cannot accept that these children would be happy as they are seperated from their parents. As she tells this story we discover that the student who had given her the book, has a grown son now, who has gone missing and is never likely to be seen again, enforcing her emphasis on the seperation of parent and child.
This story is told in a lovely solemn tone, and is very moving in the final paragraphs

Short Story September: Closing Time by Neil Gaiman (and a wee nod to some bloggers BBAW style).

I think I love Neil Gaiman more and more everytime I read him. I just read this fantastic story while lolling in the bath and had to come and say a few words about it.

Closing time is another of Neil Gaiman's stories within a story. He starts out talking about an old club in London, one damp and misty night, 3 men are sitting in the bar recounting ghost stories, when the narrator announces he has a story of his own to tell:
"I'll tell you a true story, if you like. It's a story I've never told a living soul. It's true - it happened to me, not to a friend of mine - but I don't know if it's a ghost story. It probably isn't."

The story is about his childhood, and a meeting with a group of boys, possibly brothers, who seem out to spoil his innocent childhood. They show his naked pictures, tell him dirty jokes and teach him how to swear. Then one day they take him to the gardens of an abandoned, but very neatly kept, old house. In the garden there is a mock tudor playhouse. Its this playhouse that becomes the place of mystery and suspense, a dare leads to an unexplainable event, one the narrator fears he will never know the answer to.
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BBAW kicks off with an opportunity to let everyone know what your favorite blogs are and why. I'm going to name 3, all three contain great reviews of books that I'm interested in, interesting comments and they seem to make great challenge participants. I often visit these blogs looking for reviews and recommendations as they seem to be spot on, and match my taste. They are
A Striped Armchair
An Adventure in Reading
B&b ex libris

Short Story September: The Bear Came Over the Mountain

A copy of this story can be found here.

This short story is about life living with a relative with Altzimer's Disease. Fiona, is gradually losing her memory, forgetting the the names of objects and places, her husbands decides it would be best for her to move into a home to recieve care. Fiona is very positive about the home she is going to, saying:
“I guess I’ll be dressed up all the time,” she said. “Or semi-dressed up. It’ll be sort of like in a hotel.”
For the first month he is not allowed to visit her, as a way to help her settle in, but in that month she loses her recollection of who he is. She has met another man to look after and care about.
The story shows Fiona's demise, but also the way it causes the husband to look back at his own life, particaurly the affairs that he has had in the past.
A moving story.

Short Story September: October's Chair by Neil Gaiman

I love Neil Gaiman so I was expecting to love this story and I did, it's really a story within a story.

The month's of the year have all been personified, with their various personalities and appearances linked to the month they represent. They met reguarly as a council to tell short stories, and this month it is October's turn to lead the meeting. Their actually turns out to be a lack of stories, and a fair bit of squabbling, and then you get to October's gorgeously told short story.

Runt, is as you may have guessed from his name, the youngest, skinniest and most bullied child in the family, and generally doesn't quite seem to fit in anywhere. As life moves on Runt dreams of running away, and accumulates all the items he deems necessary in a tubberware container: Mars Bars, Beef Jerky and 30 odd dolars. When he pulls out the tub one day and realises it is full, he knows that this is the day that he has to run away, to try and make a new life for himself. Despite all his dreams of freedom, Runt has little belief that he will last much longer than a day without being found, but he makes a run for it anyway.

Arriving in a new town, Runt meets a young boy called 'Dearly', this boy knows that he once had another name, yet it is so rubed away he can no longer read it. Runt has no apparent problem with meeting and hanging out with a ghost, they spend the night having fun and enjoying each others company. When it comes to time to part, Runt asks if he can stay with Dearly for good, Dearly points him in the direction of an old and derelict house, saying that in that place they could make that dream come true.

This story was told really well, and would make an excellent read for any short story lover. I found a copy of this story in Gaiman's short story collection, Fargile Things.

Sunday Salon: My Thoughts: Skin and Other Stories by Roald Dahl

Having to go back to work this week after a lazy six weeks holiday has meant that I haven't had a great amount of time to read this week, I did finish Roald Dahl's Skin, (see below) Portrait in Sepia by Isabel Allende, a novel I really enjoyed and I have decided to do the Olympic Challenge in time for London 2012, a challenge which has been going on over at the BookCrossing forum for the last few years, this challenge will mean I'll be checking out authors from far fling places across the Globe.
As for reading today, I hope to get finished reading the graphic novel, Three Shadows by Cyril Pedrosa however, I have an essay to type up and about 50 essays to mark, plus housework so that maybe wishful thinking!

I read this collection of short stories for the RIP III challenge, the Short Story Reading Challenge and for Short Story September, several of the stories I had read before at some point, but I really enjoyed the collection, it was perfect for picking up whilst dinner was cooking or whilst in the bath. I had included a mini review of some, but not all, of the stories in the collection
WARNING: I have tried to avoid saying what the outcome of each story is, but with short stories this is hard and in some descriptions I come pretty close to the end of the tale.

Skin
"I want you to paint a picture on my skin, on my back. Then I want you to tattoo over what you have painted so that it will be there always."
As a young man Drioli admired and loved another man's art, so-much-so that he begged this artist, to tattoo a portrait of his wife on his back. He taught the artist to tattoo, and ended up with his whole back as a portrait of his wife's face.
Years passed, 2 World Wars have caused Drioli's tattooing business to fail, and he is left a poor old man. Walking through the streets of Paris he sees a picture by Soutine in the window of the gallery. Going in to admire the art he ends up revealing an early work by Soutine, his tattoo. A poor man he may be, but he is a walking talking masterpiece, the gallery owner wants a piece of him. Just how far will he go to get it?
The African Story
When the Second World War started a young man joined the RAF as he loved to fly. On his first mission his flight failed and he spent two nights at a lonely, desolate farm. There, lived alone an old man who relished the pilot's company. The old man shared a strange story with the pilot, which the pilot later recorded "not in the old man's words, but in his own words, painting it as a picture."
The old man's tale tells of a relationship with his employee, a man with who gets obsessed by repetitive noises, the noise of his masters dog chewing leads him to kill his masters beloved dog. The man's tale tells his story of revenge.
Galloping Foxely
A regular commuter, used to the routine of his daily commute is suddenly struck with horror when a stranger appears and spoils his daily commute, having the audacity to share his carriage. Not only does this stranger upset the daily commute but he also recognises that face as the school bully who tortured him through his days at (a very stereotypical) boarding school. How does he react?
The Wish
A lovely and very short story about the imagination of a small child trying to make his way across an immense carpet of red hot rocks and black child eating snakes.
The Surgeon
In the surgeon, one mans ordinary day as a surgeon ends up turning his life upside down as he saves the life of the Prince of Saudi Arabia. He is given a rare, rather large diamond as a gift of thanks. With no way to store the diamond safely it is locked away inside the freezer in a bock of ice. He returns to find his house destroyed and the diamond missing, yet it turns up again in a rather strange and unfortunate place.
The Champion of the World
When I saw this title my first thought was Danny, but this has nothing to do with that small boy. I'm sure I've read this story before somewhere, maybe when I was at school. The Champion of the world is about Pheasant poaching, all the ways and means of doing it, slyly without the park keepers catching on.
A pair of men believe they have found the ideal way to poach these birds, and having come up with this method they can't just leave it at poaching a few birds, they go to the extreme and get over a hundred birds. But, as we all know, sinners never win.
Lamb to the SlaughterThe husbands annoying you, home late, expecting dinner on the table, he's got quite boring in his old age, and you just want out. Most people would just walk away, but not this lady. A quick smack to the back of the head and she no longer has a husband to worry about anymore, but she does have the small matter of covering up the murder to deal with. What better way than to ensure the the poilce remove all trace of the crime themselves.

Sunday Salon: My Thoughts: Skin and Other Stories by Roald Dahl

Having to go back to work this week after a lazy six weeks holiday has meant that I haven't had a great amount of time to read this week, I did finish Roald Dahl's Skin, (see below) Portrait in Sepia by Isabel Allende, a novel I really enjoyed and I have decided to do the Olympic Challenge in time for London 2012, a challenge which has been going on over at the BookCrossing forum for the last few years, this challenge will mean I'll be checking out authors from far fling places across the Globe.

As for reading today, I hope to get finished reading the graphic novel, Three Shadows by Cyril Pedrosa however, I have an essay to type up and about 50 essays to mark, plus housework so that maybe wishful thinking!

I read this collection of short stories for both the RIP III challenge and for Short Story September, several of the stories I had read before at some point, but I really enjoyed the collection, it was perfect for picking up whilst dinner was cooking or whilst in the bath. I had included a mini review of some, but not all, of the stories in the collection

WARNING: I have tried to avoid saying what the outcome of each story is, but with short stories this is hard and in some descriptions I come pretty close to the end of the tale.

Skin

"I want you to paint a picture on my skin, on my back. Then I want you to tattoo over what you have painted so that it will be there always."

As a young man Drioli admired and loved another man's art, so-much-so that he begged this artist, to tattoo a portrait of his wife on his back. He taught the artist to tattoo, and ended up with his whole back as a portrait of his wife's face.

Years passed, 2 World Wars have caused Drioli's tattooing business to fail, and he is left a poor old man. Walking through the streets of Paris he sees a picture by Soutine in the window of the gallery. Going in to admire the art he ends up revealing an early work by Soutine, his tattoo. A poor man he may be, but he is a walking talking masterpiece, the gallery owner wants a piece of him. Just how far will he go to get it?

The African Story

When the Second World War started a young man joined the RAF as he loved to fly. On his first mission his flight failed and he spent two nights at a lonely, desolate farm. There, lived alone an old man who relished the pilot's company. The old man shared a strange story with the pilot, which the pilot later recorded "not in the old man's words, but in his own words, painting it as a picture."

The old man's tale tells of a relationship with his employee, a man with who gets obsessed by repetitive noises, the noise of his masters dog chewing leads him to kill his masters beloved dog. The man's tale tells his story of revenge.

Galloping Foxely

A regular commuter, used to the routine of his daily commute is suddenly struck with horror when a stranger appears and spoils his daily commute, having the audacity to share his carriage. Not only does this stranger upset the daily commute but he also recognises that face as the school bully who tortured him through his days at (a very stereotypical) boarding school. How does he react?

The Wish

A lovely and very short story about the imagination of a small child trying to make his way across an immense carpet of red hot rocks and black child eating snakes.

The Surgeon

In the surgeon, one mans ordinary day as a surgeon ends up turning his life upside down as he saves the life of the Prince of Saudi Arabia. He is given a rare, rather large diamond as a gift of thanks. With no way to store the diamond safely it is locked away inside the freezer in a bock of ice. He returns to find his house destroyed and the diamond missing, yet it turns up again in a rather strange and unfortunate place.

The Champion of the World

When I saw this title my first thought was Danny, but this has nothing to do with that small boy. I'm sure I've read this story before somewhere, maybe when I was at school. The Champion of the world is about Pheasant poaching, all the ways and means of doing it, slyly without the park keepers catching on.

A pair of men believe they have found the ideal way to poach these birds, and having come up with this method they can't just leave it at poaching a few birds, they go to the extreme and get over a hundred birds. But, as we all know, sinners never win.

Lamb to the SlaughterThe husbands annoying you, home late, expecting dinner on the table, he's got quite boring in his old age, and you just want out. Most people would just walk away, but not this lady. A quick smack to the back of the head and she no longer has a husband to worry about anymore, but she does have the small matter of covering up the murder to deal with. What better way than to ensure the the poilce remove all trace of the crime themselves.

A New Challenge: Short Story September

This challenge is held over at Ready When You Are, participants are asked to read short stories (as many or as few as they like) during the month of September. If they post their reviews or links to reviews over at the challege page they are instantly entered into a competition.

Hopefully this challenge will boast me along with the Short Story Challenge, which I'm doing terribly at at the moment.

I won't list what I am going to read, but I am in the process of reading Skin, a collection of short stories at the moment, by Roald Dahl.

My Reads:

Skin, Roald Dahl (A Collection of Short Stories)