short stories

  • Book Bingo: Collection of Short Stories

    Join The Seattle Public Library and Seattle Arts & Lectures for our 2nd annual Summer Book Bingo for adults! Follow us throughout the summer for reading suggestions based on each category. I read a lot of fiction every year and every year I have a hard time fitting in a collection of short stories. I prefer long-form,… Continue reading

  • Missing Mad Men? Meet the Real Don Draper

    I miss Mad Men. Not any particular character or plot line: I miss the feel of it. That blend of humor and heartbreak, tinged with an uneasy dread that one might easily assume to be bygone innocence viewed through the lens of contemporary disillusionment and cynicism. Yet far more that the show’s meticulous period details and cultural conventions, the most authentically… Continue reading

  • Book Bingo: Short Stories II: Essays

        – Posted by Andrea This summer The Seattle Public Library, in partnership with Seattle Arts & Lectures, is excited to offer a summer reading program for adults called Summer Book Bingo! In order to help you along on your quest to complete your bingo sheet, we have pulled together some book suggestions based on each… Continue reading

  • Book Bingo: A Book You Own, but Have Never Read

     – Posted by Sarah W. This summer The Seattle Public Library, in partnership with Seattle Arts & Lectures, is excited to offer a summer reading program for adults called Summer Book Bingo! In order to help you along on your quest to complete your bingo sheet, we have pulled together some book suggestions based on each category. Follow… Continue reading

  • Young Women Keeping it Short & Sweet

    Whenever I’m going through a condition I call “reader’s block” (a phase where no book is quite right and I can’t seem to dive into a story), short stories always bring me back. Most recently, these three collections, all by young women, have left me heartbroken, hopeful, and wistful, all the while marveling at the… Continue reading

  • Science Fiction Fridays: The essential James Tiptree, Jr. reader

    James Tiptree, a pseudonym for feminist science fiction writer Alice Sheldon, is one of those authors that feels like a secret treasure just for those genre fans in the know. Her influence can be seen far in wide in authors as diverse as Octavia Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin and Robert Reed. Few authors have… Continue reading

  • Fiction with a side of wry: Five books our librarians love

    Smart, witty and fun to read: That’s the criteria my fellow librarian Misha and I used when selecting books for our newest “Humor” list. Here are some of our favorites from that list. Middle Men by James Gavin With deadpan humor, these stories of Los Angeles men of the slacker variety provide insight and wit… Continue reading

  • Too much excitement for the library!?

    Generally in the public library setting we don’t really go in for thrills, chills and spills. A warm, well-lit space with people quietly reading, kids doing homework (or goofing around), strangers and friends discussing books: that’s about our speed. Except on the first and third Monday of each month at the Central Library, when we turn… Continue reading

  • Science Fiction Fridays: Alternate holidays

    I am a proud Grinch. I don’t enjoy anything about the holidays; not the lights, not the food, not the music and definitely not the cold weather. However, one thing I do love is a heartwarming science fiction tale, and it seems like even the most dour author can turn out a warm and fuzzy… Continue reading

  • Thrilling Chilling Winter Stories, Live!

    This Winter, Thrilling Tales (the Library’s storytime for grownups) has got some great tales of crime and suspense lined up by masterful storytellers of today and yesteryear. We’ll have arctic adventure, unspeakable terror, hitmen, con-men, stick-up artists and librarians! Yes, that’s right – on Monday January 28 we will be having a special storytime dedicated to libraries and librarians, and coinciding with the… Continue reading

  • Science Fiction Fridays: That is not dead which can eternal lie

    I get asked rather frequently by patrons for horror recommendations, but it’s always a tricky question. While the explosion of the urban fantasy and paranormal romance readers seem to be the most frequent horror reader’s I encounter, I have also noticed a disturbing trend of people looking for H.P. Lovecraft read alikes. I say disturbing… Continue reading

  • Science Fiction Friday: Little grenades of ideas

    I’ve read a number of articles, essays and blogs over the past six months describing the apparent slow death of short fiction. Once the cornerstone of science fiction, and a major component of modern literature in general, it does seem like fewer people are reading short stories these days. Whenever I give reading suggestions to patrons, it’s only one… Continue reading

  • Let me tell you a story

    In March of 2005, I sat down in front of a crowd in our auditorium and read them a story about a man planning to poison his wife. Six years later, our regular lunch hour program Thrilling Tales: A Storytime for Grownups is still going strong on the first and third Mondays of every month,… Continue reading

  • Thrilling Tales for 2010.

    Entering its sixth year, the library’s Thrilling Tales: A Storytime for Grownups continues to thrill and delight. Last year’s season was our most popular yet, and this year we’ve got a great slate of tales, many from yesteryear. Thrilling Tales takes place in the Microsoft Auditorium on level one of the Central library, on alternating Mondays from 12:05 –… Continue reading

  • Uwem Akpan’s ‘Say You’re One of Them’

    As a librarian who has spent a fair bit of time in Africa, I am always looking for books that describe the Africa that I have seen. When I picked up Uwem Akpan’s Say You’re One of Them earlier this year,  I had no idea how painful the stories would feel, or how stunningly accurate… Continue reading

  • Short Stories – all the narrative you want, now condensed!

    There comes a point during summer – usually toward the end – when my reading momentum begins to flag and I find it difficult to muster the energy required to pick up the next 400 page book.  The answer, for me, is short stories.  Done well, a short story does everything a novel does: there’s… Continue reading

  • Loving in Limbo

    In the movie Wristcutters: A Love Story we find Zia, played by Patrick Fuget, who is severely depressed after his girlfriend breaks up with him and decides to commit suicide by slitting his wrists. Too bad the pearly gates are not his afterlife, but rather a rundown desert limbo with fellow suicide committers. When Zia finds… Continue reading

  • Horror Stories

    This is a great time of year to sit around and share ghost stories, as featured in this post from last week, but some readers prefer something a little stronger to properly curdle their blood. The distinction between ghost stories and other horror is nicely drawn in the Modern Library anthology Great Tales of Terror and… Continue reading