I cannot leave a book unfinished, unless it’s really bad. I have my textbooks, which are compilations of classic and contemporary works including poetry, safely in their place in line upon my hearth. Because there are good stories in them. Because there is a wealth of knowledge that could not be covered in a semester of Introduction to Literature or Contemporary Fiction. Because they have the terminology, the guidelines, the quick and simple get your toes wet information that is a stone along the path.
This issue of Glimmertrain that I have been reading the past couple of days started out a bit slowly, perhaps the issue after issue after issue made me too aware of a trend and I was tired of reading stories of people of Malaysia, Korea, India or China. Or of tourists and their adventure on the foreign soils of Malaysia, Korea, India or China. This world is just too large for that.
But the world of writing opened up in the latter half of the anthology. Talented writers, compelling plots, engaging characters, hard-hitting or sneak-up-on-you stories, meaningful themes, clever structuring. I wish I could do reviews on each; I may select a special one and do so, even though there is no real way to discuss them unless you too have read the story. I can, I suppose, focus on a paragraph, a phrase or two.
As a reader, I read and came out with something from each one.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
If you chose not to sleep, think how much further you’d get?