I’m pretty excited about the Short Story Challenge because I always complain about not reading short stories. Oddly enough, one of my favorite reads is the short story collection Strange Pilgrims by Gabriel García Márquez. Yet I have to wonder what stops me from reading more? I think it’s just that I prefer a longer length of narrative. I want to spend hours with the same characters and being carried away to another time or place.

Still, a good short story can be powerful indeed and with this challenge I hope to read more in the genre and learn to appreciate short stories better.

Kate has several options for the challenge and I’ve decided to go with Option 5 which is the custom option. I plan to read four short story collections plus six individual short stories throughout the year. I am not sure which individual stories I will pick so those I’ll add as I read them but they’ll probably come from one of the Best American Short Story books. As for the four short story collections, here they are:

• After the Quake by Haruki Murakami
• Open Secrets by Alice Munro
• How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
• Life Studies by Susan Vreeland

Many thanks to Kate for hosting the challenge and good luck to everyone participating!

While I didn’t receive books for Christmas (actually I did get one I already own so I’ll be exchanging it) I did manage to get a lot of bookish goodies. My sweet husband and girlfriends really know me well. Here is some of the loot I got:

• Two cute t-shirts. One says “So Many Books, So Little Time” and the other one says “Addicted to Books.” I’m going to be making quite the fashion statement – books are the new black!
• A Moleskine journal, cool pencil and some Stabilo pens. Yay, more stuff for journaling.
• A little handmade book which will be perfect for jotting down titles and any other bookish information. It’s already in my purse.
• The Nancy Pearl Librarian Action Figure – I’ve been wanting this for ages!
• The Reading Woman calendar. Pretty pictures and good book quotes.
• German day-to-day calendar. I think this is my husband’s not-so-subtle hint that I need to learn more German.
• Peace Love Books mug. Ah, what a great way to enjoy my morning coffee.

There were lots of other presents and I definitely felt very spoiled. Thank you to my loved ones.

I feel like there is so much stuff to catch up on since I’ve been on break. I still have a couple of good books I need to mention that I read towards the end of last year, and I’ve already read a couple of challenge books so stay tuned for those reviews.