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Monday Readings..1 of 52 shorts..

For Monday Musing over at The Purple Booker

 I’m currently reading a couple of books (okay, more than a couple!) – I finished reading ‘The Old Demon’ by Pearl S Buck as part of the short story reading challenge and am reading Jules Verne for another reading challenge. I am also starting ‘Hag-Seed’ by Margaret Atwood.
And a couple of other books on my list will be added on later this week as I also continue the UBC.

I read ‘The Good Earth’ by Pearl S Buck years ago (not sure if I was in middle school or high school by then) and it left an impression on me. I did not find anything else she had written in our little town at that time and now, finally, as part of this challenge, I picked up a book I had with me forever – ‘Great Short Stories of the World by Reader’s Digest Association‘ to read her short story ‘The Old Demon’.

This story is about Mrs.Wang, the matriarch of her family and of her village, and her love-hate relationship with ‘The Old Demon’, the notorious Yellow river. Mrs.Wang’s nature appeals to the reader – in this short story, lot of elements are combined surprisingly beautifully – fearful respect for nature, love of family, love of the homeland, love of humanity, and even a streak of humor shines through.  This story is another example of how powerful short stories are.

Below is my reading list for the Short Story Reading Challenge – Deal Me in 2017 – and for the first week (which was last week), random.org’s card shuffler dealt me with the 3 of Clubs. That was ‘The Old Demon’ by Pearl S Buck.  I will be monitoring my progress over here in google docs. I need to go hunt myself a vintage set of cards or even just a unique deck of cards (maybe make one myself) for use in later rounds – 51 more to go!

Clubs
Stories from Great Short Stories
of the World (Reader’s Digest)
Hearts
Stories/Authors I love(includes
some rereads)
– pick an unread short or a short not read for a long while by these authors
Ace
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by
Thurber
Ace
Saki
King
The Snows of Kilimanjaro by
Hemingway
King
Wilde
Queen
God sees the Truth but waits’ by
Tolstoy
Queen
“The Ransom of Red Chief” (1910)
O’ Henry – read at
http://storyoftheweek.loa.org/2011/08/ransom-of-red-chief.html
Jack
Luzina take a Holiday’ by
Gabrielle Roy
Jack
Poe
10
Who Cares? by Santha Rama Rau
10
Rudyard Kipling
9
The Lottery
9
Ruskin Bond
8
The Leader of the People by
Steinbeck
8
Hawthorne
7
The Bet by Anton Chekov
7
Dahl
6
You were Perfectly Fine by Dorothy
Parker
6
Premchand
5
Just Lather, that’s all by
Hernanda Tellez
5
Tagore
4
The Open Boat by Stephen Crane
4
Carver
3
The Old Demon by Pearl S Buck
3
H.G.Wells
2
Among the Paths to Eden by Truman
Capote
2
Isaac Asimov
Spades
List from an online source
(https://mic.com/articles/94552/13-short-stories-from-classic-novelists-you-can-read-over-lunch#.I5ApNkSXX)
Diamonds
Poetry/Essays/Plays
Ace

1. ‘A Haunted House’ by Virginia Woolf
Ace
“The Figure a Poem Makes,” Robert
Frost, from Collected Poems
http://www.mrbauld.com/frostfig.html
King

2. ‘Shooting an Elephant’ by George Orwell
King
Letters from a Nut by Ted Nancy
Queen

3. ‘A Sound of Thunder’ by Ray Bradbury
Queen
Morals and Emotions’ Or other
essay from ‘Out of my Later Years’ by Albert Einsten
Jack

4. ‘The Nightingale and the Rose’ by Oscar Wilde
Jack
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David
Sedaris
10

5. ‘Stone Mattress’ by Margaret Atwood
10
Phoenix and the Turtle – William
Shakespeare
9

6. ‘A Perfect Day for Bananafish’ by J. D. Salinger
9
Kubla Khan by Samuel Coleridge
8

7. ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro’ by Ernest Hemingway
8
We should all be feminists
7

8. ‘A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
7
random poem from ‘The Children’s
Treasyury of Classic Poetry”
6

9. ‘Three Questions’ by Leo Tolstoy
6
“How to Write with Style,” Kurt
Vonnegut, from How to Use the Power of the Written Word
http://kmh-lanl.hansonhub.com/pc-24-66-vonnegut.pdf
5

10. ‘The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County’ by Mark Twain
5
“The Yarn of the Nancy
Bell” by S W Gilbert from ‘The Children’s Treasyury of Classic
Poetry”
4

11. ‘Eveline’ by James Joyce
4
From ‘The Argumentative Indian’ by
Amartya Sen
3

12. ‘Symbols and Signs’ by Vladimir Nabakov
3
From ‘Fast Food Nation’
2

13. ‘The Diamond as Big as the Ritz’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2
“On Keeping a Notebook,” Joan
Didion, from Slouching Towards Bethlehem
http://www.h-ngm-n.com/storage/didion%20-%20on%20keeping%20a%20notebook.pdf

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