Notes on Books & Life
The Classics Reclamation Project is my personal challenge to read and enjoy the classics. The Trembling of a Leaf by W. Somerset Maugham is a collection of short stories set in the South Pacific. It was my book group’s selection for October. This is the first collection of short stories I’ve read that counted toward …
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I received a copy of Tracks by Eric D. Goodman from the author in exchange for an honest review. About the Book: The setting: a train. The characters: its passengers. In a series of overlapping short stories, the latter are introduced. As each takes the spotlight for a story, as the train makes its steady …
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri was my book group’s January selection. It’s a collection of nine short stories. About the Book: The characters in Jhumpa Lahiri’s debut collection cover plenty of ground. There’s an Indian couple living in the US and slowly pulling apart. There’s an American child who spends his afternoons in the …
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Halloween isn’t just about the scare factor, at least in my opinion. It’s also about the bizarre. I recently read a few of Franz Kafka’s short stories that I think would make for some nice, brief Halloween reading.
Depending on who you ask, The Metamorphosis is either a short story or a novella. Published first in 1915, it is probably one of Kafka’s best known works. It’s the one that begins with the rather famous first sentence (translations vary a little, but the gist is the same):
“When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous insect.”
