Ten Tales Tall and True
by Alisdair Gray

The Looking Glass Book of Stories
by Various, ed. Hart Day Leavitt
-Gorey cover. Inside a mixed bag, a short story collection for kids of all ages type of thing.

The Metamorphosis and other stories
by Franz Kafka
-Sammy Harkham edition.

I don't remember if I posted about it, but months ago I tried reading 

Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives

by David Eagleman

which you'd think would be right up my alley...a Calvino-esque parade of various possible afterlives. I did not like it, however. I could barely get through it, which is pretty bad for such a short book. I skipped around. I found many of the "thought experiments" pseudo-profound and predictably unpredictable...if that makes sense. I was unmoved by the attempts at deepness and heaviness and ultimately annoyed. Maybe it's one of those things where it's too close to something I would want to do, so I am extra demanding and mentally re-writing it into "my" book. And it does have a few good moments, too, sure.

Anyways, I just saw an article in the New Yorker about the author, who is a neuroscientist and Guggenheim recipient. Seems like an interesting guy, and I'm going to try to learn more about his work. The book did in fact feel to me like how a scientific mind would try to write playfully. I wish I could put into words what writers like Calvino or Borges are able to do (even in translation) that "Sum" can't pull off, but I just don't have the time to sort that out right now. 

In the NYer article Brian Eno makes an appearance--he liked this book and struck up an email conversation with Eagleman. Sigh! 

The Best American Short Stories 1998

ed. Garrison Keillor

- I felt like reading the kind of stories I figured would be in here. I was right! I like to buy these old Best Americans at the YMCA booksales. Mr. Keillor says in the introduction that he read and selected all the of the stories without knowing the authors' names. Seems like a good approach, but how did that super boring Updike story make it in? Some really good stories and some pretty good ones, along with a few snoozers, which is usually the case with these Best American gimmick-books.

Selected Stories
by Anton Checkhov (trans. Ann Dunnigan)

Selected Stories
by Alice Munro