Short Story Month

For November 2008 we're reading short stories selected by our club members. We'll be meeting the third Wednesday--the 19th--instead of the fourth, because of Thanksgiving.

Most of the short stories were passed out at the October meeting, but if you didn't attend or forgot your story, talk to Becky, our short story passer-outer. Here's the list so far:

"Charles" by Shirley Jackson (Amy)
"The Not-So-Pitiful Thanksgiving" by Alice Stratton, November 1979 The Friend (Jennifer)
"Pandora" by Bernard Evslin, Dorothy Evslin, and Ned Hoopes (Sara)
"Gilbert" by Rosamunde Pilcher (Becky)
"Lamb to the Slaughter" by Roald Dahl (Lisa), available online here.

October and November 2008

In October we like to read spooky/creepy selections since our meetings fall near Halloween. In the past we've read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (we liked it) and Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables (nobody finished it because it was boring and tedious and dreary and nothing ever happened).

This year we're reading Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It's a short book, just over 100 pages, so there's no excuse not to pick it up from the library or read it online.

Also for October we're doing part 1 of next month's selection. We're reading short stories for November. Choose a short story and make copies to distribute at October's meeting so we'll have a chance to read all the stories by November's meeting. Many older classics are in the public domain and available online from sites like literature.org. Also, many current authors publish their stories on their websites under Creative Commons licenses, meaning they are free to read and distribute with proper attribution. And then of course there's the photocopy machine.