Some Short Story Collections In My TBR

If I've planned this right, then this is Thursday. I'm heading off to see the family and show off the new ring. Fun stuff! This means I've also spent much of last night (Wednesday night) agonizing over what to pack for my vacation. I'm horrible at narrowing down travel reads. Part of my plan for this trip was to bring some things I could leave behind (books my sisters would want to read). Not sure yet how that worked out. I'll keep you posted.

I recently bought two short story collections myself and since I prefer to review here rather than to post about books I haven't read, this presented a bit of a conundrum in my themed short story reading recommendations week. But then I decided as a glimpse into my own expanding TBR stack, that would be ok.

The first is Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things: Short Fiction and Wonders. Gaiman, author of Stardust, Coraline, and Neverwhere (to name a few) is fantastic. He's dark fantasy, he's horror, he's just great fiction actually. Originally released in 2006, Fragile Things is a collection of tales and poems, many of which have been published elsewhere previously, brought together in one collection.

The other is John Connolly's Nocturnes. Published in 2004 by Hodder and Stoughton (and 2006 by Atria), the collection features a combination of original (not published in the US before) and older pieces as well as a Charlie Parker novella. They're darker thriller and horror stories that I can't wait to dive into. I recently rented The New Daughter, a horror flick with Kevin Costner and Ivana Baquero and while the movie didn't quite blow me away, I was pretty pleased with it overall. It was based on one of the stories in this collection and prompted me to track down a copy.

Either or both of these could make it into my suitcase this week. We'll have to see. I think short stories may suit my vacation reading needs, though, since I always have so much planned that I can't ever seem to sit down and read for long periods, falling asleep over my books at night and coming home having finished none.

I'm preposting (as mentioned) so tomorrow's post is actually going to be a look back at some collections that I've already featured but feel should be highlighted again.

Happy Reading!