A little late for this post, but I had it on my drafts for a month, so, here it is. 2020 was an absolute clusterfuck but somehow, I managed to read 40 books which the majority of which I greatly enjoyed. Here is the list with my favourite books in no particular order; these are the ones that kept me company in hospital stays, long long nights and the hard weeks in between. I mean, something good had to come out from this year, right?
Things have been various hues of tough lately for everyone. I turned to writing and reading, so here are some short stories and poems I enjoyed these past two months, that I hope, if you go ahead and read them, you’ll enjoy too.
This time, besides the links to the pieces, I’ll add a couple of lines for each short story and also, since I have synesthesia, I’ll mention the colors in which I see each story in.
So, there you go!
Last year, reading ended up being quite the struggle. I found it very difficult to keep my concentration when reading long or short form, and I hunted my interest in the stories I read with a harpoon.
So, this year, in an effort to bring my mojo back and keep myself accountable for reading more on the front of short fiction and poetry, I’m going to make one post per month of my favorite reads. While I didn’t read as many short stories as I had planned, I’m quite satisfied with the progress I made. Without further ado, here is a small list of the short stories and the poems that I liked during January.
Stories:
“Green Tunnels” by Taimur Ahmad, in Fireside Fiction
“The Dead, In their Uncontrollable Power” by Karen Osborne, in Uncanny
Poems:
“recursion” by M. Darush Whem, in Liminality
“Mojo Lost” by Allyson Shaw, in Liminality
“You and Your Tulpa” by Jen Julian, in Liminality
“For Mrs. Q” by C.S.E. Cooney. in Fireside
“The city that changed hands” by Maya Chhabra, in Strange Horizons
This past year I’ve been submitting more on the short story front and, as a result, I’ve been reading more, too. It is a whole new world of writing and wording and beautiful worlds and there is a short story for every one out there.
I will try to do this more often, but for now, here are some of the short speculative stories I’ve read last year and have stayed with me.
Since I discovered the incredible world of booktube, I’m somewhat obsessed with it. What can I say? Videos are fun. And awesome people flailing over books are my thing.