protean depravity

We're nearing the end of summer, and although that alone makes me feel like crying, I'm happy that there are lots of events in September and October (and there have been times where these months too are reasonably warm), so let's not lose hope right away.

Snail-paced, we finally made it to the third Stephen King short story collection, Nightmares and Dreamscapes , in almost two years, and at whopping 993 pages it looks like we're going to dwell here for a while. Published in 1993, King jokes in his prologue that he likes to publish a short story collection every seven years because the interval between his first three collections follow that pattern (we have to keep an eye on the future collections to see if he breaks that rule).  The collection which is dedicated to writer Thomas Williams consists of 24 pieces of writing: one novella ( Dolan's Cadillac ), one teleplay ( Sorry, Right Number ), one non-fiction essay ( Head Down ), one poem ( Brooklyn August ) and twenty short stories ( The End of the Whole Mess , Suffer the Little Children , The Night Flier , Popsy , It Grows On You , Chattery Teeth , Dedication , The Moving Finger , Sneakers , You Know They Got a Hell of a Band , Home Delivery , Rainy Season , My Pretty Po...

So I can't believe this wonderfully warm summer is almost over, I only realized from the amount of books I have collected for the Soul of Wit that it's been quite a while, and I'm a little sad about it. I hope you enjoy the short reviews and find something that speaks to you!

Ever since an editor told me that in anthologies and collections the best short stories are traditionally placed in the beginning (to get the reader hooked), I have been wondering about the placement/arrangement of short stories and whether or not what he told me is even true. Is it like an album where there's a sort of continuity between the pieces? Or was he right and you get hooked with the first story and the rest of your read is but a chase for that same high you found in the beginning? How do they even decide which the “best” story is? In my own reading experience, I have seen it all – anthologies that start strong but fizzle out, anthologies that have a strong middle streak, collections that end with a banger, or those that suck all together.