An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good by Helene Tursten

The ones you'd least suspect are the worst.

In this series of short stories, an elderly spinster moves about eliminating annoyances in her life by way of brutal murders. Of course, no one suspects the infirm, confused little old lady with the walker!

Packed into 170 pages, we learn about Maud's family pre- and post-war and how she ended up alone in the expansive, luxurious apartment. We learn about her career and her travels, and how over time she squirreled away the money to live freely through her 90s.

It's a very funny, tiny little book (about the size of my iPhone) and the perfect escapism - what could be happier than scot-free, sweeping revenge? Maud is my new literary hero.

Monkeys by Susan Minot

Balancing the all-seeing perspective yet limited understanding of youth, this novel (in the form of short stories) show us a New England family through the eyes of its seven children.

Each story moves us forward in time, eventually covering about 15 years. The stories mostly center around small, relatively commonplace occurrences - monumental life events happen outside the stories, though we see their impact through the changing interactions of the family.

It's a story from the perspective of the kids, without it being a children's book. With such a range in age, it's interesting to ponder the ways each Vincent child processes events like mother's tears, father's alcohol abuse, or the addition of another baby.

Tenth of December by George Saunders

Designer drugs, human slaves as yard art, a returning soldier with anger issues, and an attempted suicide - what a collection of short stories!

After having LOVED Lincoln in the Bardo, I was excited to dip into a bit more of Saunders' oeuvre. I enjoyed this post-modern collection of stories: there's a sci-fi bent, a bit of absurdity for satire, and a very dark look at modern society.

This is another book we read for the library's discussion - and another one I enjoyed that they all hated! Although the more we discussed it, they at least came around a bit on some of it.

Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs by Beth Ann Fennelly

Short, in all senses: tiny stories - some just a sentence or two, none longer than a couple pages - compiled into a 100-page collection.

This series of vignettes is a look at a life. Fennelly writes about her husband and kids, about her father-in-law, about her own childhood and about her observations of life around her. Many are funny. Some are a little sad. All are relatable.

The Mountain by Paul Yoon

Six short stories make up this small collection, a pocket-sized bit of literature: A homeless woman goes to work in a camera factory. A nurse steals morphine from her patients. A woman discovers a plane crash and the pilot's body. A hotel maid wanders away for a day's adventure.

I read until the end, but I can't say I necessarily enjoyed this one. The stories are all very dark, mostly sad, and without much resolution. I don't usually mind that much, but I really wanted there to be something here that shone a light of hope, in the end.

It's beautifully written, and the characters are heartbreakingly real. Just very, very sad.

Trickster: Native American tales by Matt Dembicki

What an interesting project! It's a pairing of Native American storytellers with cartoonists to present a host of trickster stories in graphic form

Rabbits, raccoons, mink, wolves and more - the trickster takes many forms. Sometimes the goal is pure entertainment, and often it's also a morality story. I've always loved these stories that explain nature (how an alligator got its skin, why a buzzard stinks) or give insight into how people perceive animals and the world around them.

I loved the diversity of the stories presented here, and I love that each tale looks different, too; some are more realistic, others more stylized and "cartoonish" in form. Overall, this is a fantastic introduction to the trickster genre in general and the Native American stories specifically.

Indian Shoes by Cynthia Leitich

In a series of short stories, we explore life with Ray Halfmoon and his grandfather: Ray makes a trade, the pair take care of the neighborhood pets while everyone is away for Christmas, and Ray deals with a really, really bad haircut.

I picked up this 2002 book because it was on a list of books with positive depiction of native characters. But it's not just strictly about the fact they're Seminole-Cherokee - the stories are really about everyday life and a kid's experiences.

Each chapter is a short story, but through them all you get a look at life for one boy, who lives with his grandfather. They have a great relationship, and it's fun to see the world through their eyes.

After reading it, I discussed the book with a nine-year-old friend and she agreed it sounded like a fun book to read. I'll recommend it.

A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

In a series of short stories we discover one man's effect on popular music in the past, the present, and the near future. Also, we see the world around him and it's interconnectedness.

Bennie was a punk kid in a rotten band who couldn't get a date. Bennie is a record company owner navigating a new world of tech. His long-time assistant takes care of everything - and pockets quite a lot, too. Her best friend in college met a terrible end. Her son is interested in pauses during songs.

This book won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and I have no idea why I have not read it until now. It's all the things I love: music, fandom, quality writing, interconnected short stories.

Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders by Neil Gaiman

I love everything from Neil Gaiman, and I especially adore the audiobooks where he reads it himself. So pretty much, I loved this collection of poetry and short stories from 2006.

Many of these stories have links to other Gaiman works - one was an early idea for The Graveyard Book, and one that's part of the world of American Gods. Many have won awards. My favorite is a backwards, unwinding of the book of Genesis.

In an audiobook this collection of vignettes could be a bit confusing (I found it hard to hear the breaks between stories, sometimes - to know I was moving into a new world). Also, sometimes I have to review poetry more than once for it to more fully absorb. To solve these challenges, I also kept a paper copy of the book for reference and review.

An Evening with Neil Gaiman & Amanda Palmer

This audio compilation of short stories, songs, poetry and more from pop culture's favorite superstar couple was bundled from a series of events on tour in 2011.

I don't usually review "not-books" but this one's hard to classify (it's not in print, but it's more than an audiobook and not quite a music CD and is actually something all-together different) and I think it deserves a blog post.

This would be worth a listen just to hear Neil Gaiman read some of his own work. It's always a treat. But then to get some of Amanda Palmer's songs, and some banter between the two of them ... well, it's well worth the time.

The Grownup by Gillian Flynn

A fake mystic scams her way into a "home cleansing" job and gets way more than she bargained for.

This short story (60 pages) was originally published in the 2014 anthology Rogues, edited by George R.R. Martin and now has been published as a stand-alone title.

Perhaps my favorite part of this book was that you don't know what you're in for: Is this going to be serious or funny? About the supernatural, or a crime? The back says, "You like ghost stories?" Yes, please! But we're not really given any other clues.

It begins with a hand job - or more accurately, approximately 23,546 hand jobs. Our narrator grabs you from page one, and you're captivated by her tale. Amazing!

Violent Ends: A Novel in Seventeen Points of View by various authors

In this stellar cooperative collection of interconnected short stories, we glimpse the before, during, and after of a group of students. Eventually, one of them opens fire at a high school pep rally, but there's really much more than just that one moment.

Each of the 17 stories was written by a different YA author - lending different styles, unique viewpoints, and a breadth of perspective on the scene. Some of the stories are short, others much longer, and some are further divided into chapters.

We see the anorexic cheerleader's perspective on her insatiable hungers: for perfection, for love, and for popularity. The sad story of a little girl's birthday present, ruined almost immediately. There's a slightly strange new girl at school with a big secret, the band geek whose only hope is to follow the treble clef doodled on a pair of Converse All-Stars, and the soccer player who isn't going to prom anymore. There's even one chapter (a bit strangely) told from the perspective of the gun.

I've really come to love interconnected short stories - I think the multi-faceted approach is always enlightening, and especially in the case of a teenage tragedy, there's always way more to the story than the headlines allow.

Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Strandal

THIS IS MY BOOK OF THE YEAR! It's that simple.

Eva Thorvald is a once-a-lifetime palate destined to greatness, born to a foodie father and an oenophile mother. In this series of short stories, we learn about Eva's life, but we don't hear about it from Eva herself; these stories each star someone else - random characters with whom Eva has varying degrees of involvement. Yet through their eyes we get a reflected-light look at Eva's life and a truly multi-faceted story.

This book is funny, sad, and even heartbreaking. But right from the start you're drawn into the characters, their struggles, and this all-encompassing story of Eva. I wanted to know more, I couldn't get enough, and if Eva didn't show up right away in each new chapter I started peering into the shadows and around the edges to find her. How does she relate, this time? But even without Eva these are fantastic stories of common people and regular Midwestern lives.

The audiobook was narrated by Amy Ryan and Michael Stuhlbarg. The pair delivers an amazing performance of characters from snotty teenagers to harried moms, from redneck drunks to wealthy businessmen.

I have been evangelizing to everyone I meet about how SPECTACULAR this book is - it's a must-read. Don't delay in finding a copy for yourself!

Beneath the Bonfire by Nickolas Butler

In a series of brilliant, poignant short stories, Butler exposes the best and worst of rural America: in love, in trouble, making do, settling the score.

His first release, the novel Shotgun Lovesongs, was my absolute favorite book of 2014. So I was certainly going to pick up this book as soon as it arrived - and once I turned the first page, I couldn't put it down.

The stories range from sweet (a grandfather just quietly doing what's right in raising his grandson) to bitter (a former cop's revenge on a bad, bad man) but together form a fantastic collection that's beautifully diverse and wonderfully crafted.

Wolverton Station by Joe Hill

You know those unlikeable businessmen whose job it is to destroy small business? The despicable ones we love to hate in pop culture films? In this brief story about a man on a train, Joe Hill gives that bastard his right proper due.

This short story was published as a stand-alone ebook, and since I'm a total sucker for anything Joe Hill writes, I downloaded it for my Nook. This is the kind of twist-on-the-expected, clench-your-stomach, waiting-for-something-really-bad-to-happen short fiction I used to love from Stephen King. It's not outright gory because it doesn't have to be - your imagination does all the heavy lifting!

Yikes, and yay!

The Wily O'Reilly: Irish Country Stories by Patrick Taylor

Different from the rest of the Irish Country Doctor novels, this book is the genesis of the series - the medical journal humor columns Taylor wrote in the 1990s that eventually spun into the fiction series.

In the columns we see many of the familiar Ballybucklebo residents, but in a slightly different light. Most notably, Dr. O'Reilly is depicted here less favorably than in the novels - here he's rough, gruff, enigmatic and incredibly quick to anger; while the O'Reilly of the series is all of those things too, in the novels he's depicted in friendship and with affection, which effectively paints his negative attributes with a broader brush. Also, Doctor Barry Laverty is missing from these stories - instead, Taylor himself fills the role of the young protege and foil to O'Reilly's antics.

Reading these columns is an interesting exercise in perspective - the myriad ways an author colors our perception of a character by the nuanced words used to describe their actions.

That said, I'm happy now to go back to a friendlier, gentler Ballybucklebo with the next novel.

One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories by B.J. Novak

If you've seen his comedy you know there's a certain amount of hipster snark to B.J. Novak's "voice." These short stories (some very, very short and others actually quite long) all contain a kernel of that, a virtual eyebrow arch in the delivery. Perhaps it helps that he read his own audiobook.

There's not really a theme at work here, so it's hard to summarize the book. Stories range from an emotional personification of the stock market to a boy violating his parent's moral imperative to tips on how to give good advice.

It's good, and it's funny. But there's a lot of smarminess crammed into one volume here, and I found I needed to take a break from the audiobook every so often. Perhaps best consumed a bit at a time.

By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain by Joe Hill

Neighborhood kids wandering the foggy morning beach make a startling discovery - the beach boulder they've climbed in fun turns out to be their lake's fabled sea monster, dead and washed up on the sand.

This short story has been published as a stand-alone ebook. Since I'm a sucker for anything Joe Hill writes, you know I'm in. At just 20 pages, it's a masterful piece of childhood innocence that grips you, then nails you, and left me stunned. Did I mention just 20 pages of actual story? :)

Vacationland by Sarah Stonich

While some entitled people believe the planet revolves around them, the truth is that we each DO have a kind of world that circles around us - a web of friends, family, places, and acquaintances that are all connected (and maybe only connected) by you. This book, a series of interconnected yet independent short stories, is about one of those webs - a world that revolves around a way-north Minnesota resort.

Through these stories, you get a feel for the small town of Hatchet Inlet, for the guys who hang out in the coffee shop and the visitors to the resort. We see the resort in the 1960s during its heyday, and also through its decline, piece-by-piece demolition, and rebirth. Immigrants and draft-dodgers, native tribes, locals, and tourists all fill the stories with depth and diversity of view.

This is my very favorite form of storytelling, and Stonich does it incredibly well. Each story stands alone and tells its own tale, but taken together they intermesh and marry to provide a multi-faceted view of life. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

From the Top: Brief Transmissions From Tent Show Radio by Michael Perry

Whether he's looking at the stars, admiring his young daughters, fixing a fence, humbling himself before his wife, or touring the country pitching his books, Mike Perry does a lot of thinking. Thankfully, he's willing to share his ponderances with us, because they're well turned, medium-deep, and often quite hilarious.

Some of those thoughts turn into books (if you haven't read Perry's books, drop everything and get one NOW!). Others are simply the little bits Perry talks about during intermission on the syndicated Tent Show Radio program; those intermission interludes are what's presented in this volume for the readers' (rather than listeners') enjoyment.

I have long believed Perry is the very best blend of intelligentsia and redneck. He's got an utterly amazing way with words (oh, the vocabulary!), and he certainly isn't hesitant about making himself the butt of jokes. What's especially nice about this book is that you can pick it up and put it down: open to any page, flip around, and it's all good. Since they're essays and ponderances, there's no chronology you have to follow.