McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories

McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories
by Michael Chabon (Editor)
Vintage
ISBN: 1400078741

I've grown fond of short stories. There are several reasons for that. First, they're short. My time for leisure reading is pretty tight and I appreciate that I can read an entire short story in one sitting. Second, I appreciate the art form of the short story. It takes a special kind of author to create characters, situations, and a story that readers will care about in only a few pages. I have a few collections of short stories on my shelf. These represent the works of Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, and Elmore Leonard and I like to pick them up as I can. Still, I like to grab a more varied selection of authors at times.

That leads me to McSweeney's... I've enjoyed the McSweeney's website for awhile and I was happy to find the McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories collection of short stories at the library. Anyway, I enjoyed the stories. Admittedly, I did not get into all the stories. There were a couple that I started but eventually skipped over. I imagine that's typical for short story collections. I figure it's akin to my picking up a dozen books from the new books section at the library. Of those dozen, there's bound to be a few that don't appeal to me. That's not to say they were bad stories by any means. But, again, it goes back to my shortness of available time. If something doesn't grab me, I have to move on. In this case, I moved on just a few pages.

I especially liked 7C by Jason Roberts, the Miniaturist by Heidi Julavits, and The Fabled Light-house at Vi-a del Mar by Joyce Carol Oates. All were creepy and, really, just plain weird.