I enjoyed all the short stories we read this year for book club, except for one that I thought was a little annoying. The Paperweight Library, All Summer in a Day, I Hate Dragons, and The Door in the Wall ended up being my favorites. Most of these stories do not end on a happy note, but the endings are very fitting. For book club I put together little gift bags with items to represent each story. I'm adding the photos at the end of this post.
All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Category: Adult
Genre: Sci-fi
Content: Clean
I've come to enjoy Bradbury's writing style and the way he blends horror and sci-fi/fantasy together in his stories. In this one the descriptions were so well done that I could feel what the characters were each feeling, especially the one girl who has seen the sun.
If you're interested in reading this, I found an audio version on Youtube that I liked. You can find it here.
The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Category: Adult, Children
Genre: Fairy tale
Content: Clean
I had never read this story and I was looking forward to reading the material that inspired Frozen, even though, I have to be honest, I'm not a huge fan of Frozen. Please don't hate me for saying that! I still wanted to read the source material. This story ended up being a bit of a disappointment for me. Surprisingly, I found it a little boring at times. Audible has a free version of this on Audible Plus right now and I did enjoy the narrator.
I Hate Dragons by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Category: Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Content: Clean
This was so witty and fun. I thoroughly enjoyed this story. You can find it on Sanderson's website here.
The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Category: Adult
Genre: Sci-fi
Content: Clean
I didn't fully appreciate this story until after I had thought about it for a little while. I enjoyed listening to this rendition of the story by The Tale Master on Youtube.
The Door in the Wall by H.G. Wells
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Category: Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Content: Clean
I found this story to be very thought provoking. The door could have symbolized several different things.
I enjoyed listening to the free audio from Gates of Imagination on Youtube. You can find it here.
The Paperweight Library by Stevie Burgess
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Category: Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Content: Clean
This ended up being my very favorite of the short stories. Here's a link to the audio version I listened to on Youtube.
The Man Who Loved Dragons (From the anthology Cross Time Traffic) by Lawrence Watt-Evans
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Category: Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Content: Clean
This was the story I brought and I enjoyed reading it just as much the second time. There's no free version of this one to read or listen to but it's in Cross Time Traffic.
A Study in Emerald by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Category: Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Content: Clean
I think I would have liked this one more if I was more familiar with Cthulhu. It was a nice blend of the two stories, at least from what I know of them.
Here's a link to the free PDF version of the story. It has a cool newspaper-like layout.
Tikki Tikki Tembo
My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars
Category: Adult, Children
Genre: Folklore
Content: Clean
I read two versions of this story. The one that was picked for book club was the version by S.E. Schlosser. You can find it here. It was a little darker than the children's book by Arlene Mossel which I also read.
I'm not really a fan of this story. I found it kind of annoying. When I looked it up I found that it is thought to have actually originated in Japan and not China.
My husband, David's story was A Study in Emerald, and mine was The Man Who Loved Dragons, so we put cthulhus and dragons on top of the cupcakes. David 3D printed the cthulhus, and also the doors and the wells that we put in the gift bags.
The gifts for everyone-
Snowflake ornament for The Snow Queen.
A well for Tikki Tikki Tembo.
A dragon and a dragon bookmark for the two dragon books, I Hate Dragons, and The Man Who Loved Dragons.
A galaxy stress ball for The Nine Billion Names of God.
A paperweight for The Paperweight Library.
A green door for The Door in the Wall.
A sun pendant for All Summer in a Day.
Cthulhu for A Study in Emerald.
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