Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Change your life, get free stuff


The latest issue of Entertainment Weekly lists the 100 greatest movies, tv shows, albums and books of the last 25 years. Simpsons is the number one tv show (which is correct), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the number 2 book (which is also a very good choice).


The thing that really interested me was Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat, Pray, Love) put together a list of her top 10 short stories of the last 25 years. I had read three of them, which is pretty good since I don't read a whole lot of short stories. The ones I do read and like tend to stick with me though.


I was talking with one of our pages about the story "Wickedness" by Ron Hansen, which is about the Children's Blizzard of 1888 (I'm sure that doesn't sound fascinating, but the story starts with a teacher coming across a frostbite victim's limbless body in a burlap sack on a train) . I told the page she should read this story before she went to college because it would change her life. So here is my list of short stories that teens should read in order to change their life. And hey, since the theme of teh summer reading program is Metamorphosis you can read them for this summer... and win prizes!
Brokeback Mountain-Annie Proulx
Wickedness - Ron Hansen
The Things they Carried- Tim O'Brien
Bullet in the Brain-Tobias Wolff
The Paperhanger-William Gay
River of Names-Dorothy Allison
Best New Horror-Joe Hill
Testimony of Pilot-Barry Hannah
A Pale Horse-Thom Jones
Cathedral-Raymond Chandler

No comments: