Monday, September 01, 2008

I wanted to do a clever title for this post about teaching grandma to suck eggs or something but it didn't work out

Surprise! I love short stories. Yup. And I have a short story display case at work which I refresh every week, putting in my favourites, trying to make it enticing and irresistible. A woman came into the shop and asked where the short stories were, so I was yay and delighted, and showed her "my" selection, and then showed her the shelves where other anthologies are and so on. And I couldn't resist asking if she was a short story buff as she ended up buying six or seven books. And she said no, she wasn't, didn't read them, didn't know anything about them, but she has to teach the subject at Uni this term.

:(

6 comments:

Tania Hershman said...

OK, that seems a little crazy, but let's hope at least she comes to love short stories as much as we do. What did she buy? Classics? And at least her Uni wants someone to teach short stories..!

Kerry said...

Simply depressing.

Vanessa Gebbie said...

Yep. I joined that Uni a few years back, and no doubt had that tutor or one of her sisters.

The short story didnt exist. You had to learn to write while writing a novel.


I left.

At least this one is buying s few books to read, before getting PAID to teach students how to write something she knows zilch about. That just stinks!!!!

pierre l said...

Off topic. But I thought that this was a good opportunity to mention that reading your blog for more than a year has made me decide to support my local branch of Waterstone's. So I can buy quite a few of my books at the local branch or via waterstones.com. And I will come and look at your short story display one of these days, I promise.

Group 8 said...

Yes, that is terrible. The only hope is that she will fall madly in love with short fiction and devour everything ever written.
I, too, would love to know what books she bought.

Unknown said...

Rubbishly I can't remember all the books:
The Oxford book of short stories, the "Book of other people" (Ed Zadie Smith) and the ( ed Richard Ford) "American Short Story" Granta collection.

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