Best American Short Stories 1980 Completed


So, here are a few basic stats concerning the volume and my reading. I’ll delve deeper into some of them below.

There are 22 stories.

17 of the authors are men

4 of the authors are women*

*Mavis Gallant is published twice

In the stories, 17 of them center on men, 2 about women, 1 about a couple, 1 split pretty evenly about between the two genders (but leaning towards a male) and 1 unknown.

My first post about the BASS 1980 was made on Friday, October 23, 2009 and the final post on Wednesday, January 20, 2010.

2 months and 28 days were devoted to this volume. Broken down, that is:

12 weeks 5 days or

89 days or

63 weekdays or

0.2438 years.

This works out to a story read and posted about every 4.04 days.

Now that we have all that out of the way, lets get down to some words about this book.

My favorite story – Into the Wind

My least favorite- The Faithful

Overall impression of this collection.

You know, I think I have beat this dead horse enough, but I can’t help but feel that Elkin killed this edition.

Honestly, I would expect far more quality stories showing a greater diversity than he gave. I am sick of reading about a man’s struggle...

89 days - that is about all of the time I am willing to devote to this book. I wish I had given less.

The photo at the top of this entry is a good illustration of how I feel.

In the photo,

I am doing pull-ups at work.

We should all do pull-ups (reading and learning)

Pull-ups are difficult (as are some stories)

Pull-ups are good for us (as is reading)

(I’m at the top of a steep set of stairs, hanging from a pipe containing...probably something dangerous or important. – but aren’t we all hanging from a dangerous important pipe?).

The struggle is worth it.

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  Before I dive into this wonderful little story, I’ll do what I always seem to do in these entries and wander down a path that has absolute...