Book 30 : The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter

This was one of the best collections of short stories I've ever read.

As mentioned to the point of aggravation, I am not a fan of short stories. I like to commit to my literature and short stories tend to feel like a summer fling that was over before I was able to analyze it to death and suck all of the fun out it.

I especially dislike collections of short stories because even the best authors' voices come through in them. While I typically like to feel as though I can hear an author's voice, when it happens during a book of 30 of their short stories and it's the same author with different stories, I get confused, partially due to the fact that I'm extremely dumb and partially due to the fact that they almost always center around the same themes or characters who hail from similar backgrounds and locations.

This was not the case with Katherine Anne Porter. Every one of these stories was completely different in style, voice, content and characterization and every one of the stories was brilliant. It helped that many of them were over 50 pages long (one was over 100). The length allowed me to get to know the characters as intimately as I wanted.

All in all, this was a fantastic book from a writer who is not only talented but extremely versatile as well.

8/10
YTD:
Books read : 30
Pages read : 8,899
Currently reading : The Dying Animal - Philip Roth & Now In November - Josephine Johnson