Introduction

I’ve noticed over the past decade that I am more interested in short stories and novellas than long epic novels. Nothing wrong with the latter (I recently finished Murakami’s Wind-Up Bird Chronicle which racks up over 600 pages, and I loved it), but I have been drawn to the economy of thought and language in stories, which leads to an elimination of excessive description. For me, there’s a balance between what the writer sees and what I imagine reading. As I started compiling this list, I thought that there is no pattern to my weave, but I see now that there are certain themes that tug at me, and there are creative elements that appeal to me over and over. I share these stories in no particular order, and I must confess that I’ve never been good about saying what a story or a novel is about because I want the reader to make the discovery while reading. Here goes: