Shorty September: some recommendations & books I plan to read

People:
@pastorytime2683

Books:
Une gourmandise (Gourmet Rhapsody) by Muriel Barbery
Assembly by Natasha Brown
The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington
Gigi by Colette
Second Place by Rachel Cusk
The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Une femme (A Woman’s Story) by Annie Ernaux
The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante (trans. Ann Goldstein)
Sweet Days of Discipline by Fleur Jaeggy (trans. Tim Parks)
Passing by Nella Larsen
Quicksand by Nella Larsen
Água Viva by Clarice Lispector (trans. Stefan Tobler)
Bartleby by Herman Melville
Sula by Toni Morrison
Recitatif by Toni Morrison
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein
Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges
Friends and Relations by Elizabeth Bowen
Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote
Notes on Suicide by Simon Critchley
The Dry Heart by Natalia Ginzburg (trans. Frances Frenaye)
The Yellow Wall-Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Sleepless Nights by Elizabeth Hardwick
The Passion According to G.H. by Clarice Lispector (trans. Idra Novey)
Exercises de style by Raymond Queneau
Birds of America by Lottie Moore
Tenth of December by George Saunders
How to Loiter in a Turf War by Coco Solid

Socials:
StoryGraph: @sdelphis

[rebareads]

Just finished The Hearing Trumpet - wonderfully surreal and delightful! Now I’m about to start Sula!!
I’ll also second the recommendation for Agua Viva and Sweet Days of Discipline. Lovely list of shorties!

[pastorytime]

Ahh lovely video! I love The Hearing Trumpet too. Water in the title totally works for the prompt! The Yellow Wallpaper is so good! Bert really liked The Dry Heart too (and dnf'd Sleepless Nights 😅). So much good stuff! Siân ❤

[nathansnook]

honetly shorties forever. this list has a bunch of bangers.

and we should all start with agua viva! calling it now!!! and so so glad you're enjoy the roach. ;)

[jay_poet]

A Woman’s Story was my first (and so far only) Annie Ernaux and I was enamoured with her writing. I’m planning to read much more of her work in the coming months. Thank you for introducing us to all of these challenges - looking forward to taking part in Shorty September and the Sealey next year.

[litwithkat]

i really need to read assembly! it’s been on my list for too long now. also i didn’t even realize passing was adapted! gotta watch that one!!

[thisisveryannoying]

Great list! So many interesting books. Speaking about the Booker longlist. I have read The Old God's Time and loved it! It is told by an unreliable narrator affected my trauma and memory distortions. Gets strange and confusing as you read it and then as soon as I finished I wanted to reread it. Not what you expect from the blurb. Also, one of the most beautiful description of love remembered. I am reading The Bee Sting now and also enjoying it - amazing depiction of grief among other things and also bringing home that we cannot make assumptions about people unless we know their story. These are not shorties though.

[marleneartigues]

Omg, Gigi is one of my favorite movies from childhood. I didn't know it was based on a book. Must read! And I agree about that song. Lolita vibes...eek. That went completely over my head as a child of course but, wow. "Tres" inappropriate to say the least.

[ivanainthecity]

I did a similar challenge to this last November! Tinies Week! I actually read The Dry Heart for that challenge, but I read it so quickly that it was a blur o. O ! So much love for Days of Abandonment ... and I gotta get to Água Viva. The older I get, the more I appreciate a short book. I wanna read em all. Thanks for the recs and good luck on the challenge!!!

[oliviaturner]

Some great titles I will need to get to! I'm reading The Days of Abandonment at the moment and wowzah!

I've read that Penelope Cruz will be playing Olga in the upcoming adaptation, which I'm super looking forward to. She was amazing in L'Immensitá. 😊

[thelefthandedreader]

How much I really enjoyed the sneaky intensity of The Dry Heart.

[radiantchristina]

Great recommendations! Thank you. I need to read The Hearing trumpet soon!

[jackseney]

Oh yes "Bartleby" was a very real maturation piece for me helping me to move into serious literature (way) back in college days. Now some people are calling it a "satire, " 😠 I don't know maybe look up the meaning of that word, critics. "Second Chance" was an addictive read I did not stop until I had plowed through it. I think you can tell a lot about someone by their reaction to the "annoying" narrator. "The Gambler" was allegedly dashed off by Dostoyevsky "for the money." Well if that is how well he wrote "just for cash" his genius comes as no surprise. The sequence of the gambler winning a load of money and sitting there all night not knowing what to do with it is priceless. Dostoyevsky aside short things are the best, especially as one begins to lack patience with wordiness. Thank you for "The Hearing Trumpet" rec it is on my list.

[theyingyang]

I started The Passion According to G.H. yesterday and today I saw a squashed cockroach on the street. Taking that as a sign Lispector is with me?!

[Alexander_Scott]

Have you already answered a question about your international experience childhood in a video or somewhere? I mean the fact your Franco-American