Life seems to move along at a rapidly increasing pace, sometimes making it difficult to find time to read. But if you carry your reading material along with you, you can read anywhere you find yourself with a few moments. And reading can provide escape. I do read to learn and to help me in decision making, but I also read to escape, to allow myself to feel as if I’m a million miles away, or maybe 200 years ago.
Short stories are a great thing to carry with you as they don’t require the same kind of commitment as a novel. We have quite a few great collections of stories that are fun and allow one to escape. Mark Twain wrote A Murder, A Mystery, and a Marriage between the adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. The story wasn’t published until 125 years after it was written and was supposed to be part of a writing contest Mr. Twain was trying to get up where other famous authors of the day would write other endings to the story.
Carol Shields has written a collection of stories that can be found in Dressing Up for the Carnival. These short stories, and some are very short, 22 stories in 210 pages about identity and what gives us our identities. For other well-written stories by various female authors try This is Not Chick Lit, a collection of 18 stories by some of America’s Best Women Writers.
I haven’t read any of the stories in this next collection, but the titles sure intrigued me. Thou Shalt Not Kill: Biblical mystery stories is edited by Anne Perry includes 15 unique and inspired twists on the traditional mystery story.
Silence of the Loons and Resort to Murder are each thirteen tales by Minnesota Crime writers including many of our favorite authors. These collections serve as either an introduction to Minnesota crime authors or can be a delicious appetizer as you await a new book by your favorite Minnesota author.
The other route to go for escaping is into the past. Some great historical fiction authors include Philippa Gregory, who tends to specialize in British royalty of the past and the lies, seductions and plotting that went on at court.
Charles Frazier sets his novels in the past, but America’s past, from Thirteen Moons to his newest Nightwoods, you can learn a bit of history while identifying with his characters, making you wonder how much we’ve really changed.
Young Adult literature isn’t just for teens anymore. Many of us have read Twilight, Hunger Games or even Harry Potter. But there are many more great titles to explore. Deadly by Julie Chibbaro is about a woman investigating Typhoid Mary.
Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys is set in Lithuania and Siberia in the 1940s. And My Name is Not Easy by Debby Edwardson explores life in an Alaskan Catholic boarding school of the 1960s as five youth relate their experiences.
