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Tyee Bridge
This is a loose collection of three essays by different authors. I say "loose" because I didn't really see a common thread among them. However, I enjoyed all three and found each thought-provoking in its own way, so I definitely enjoyed the book. And the final essay, about featherbowlers in Detroit, was worth the time I spent on the entire book. If you enjoy essays, this is a good short book to check out.
The Featherbowlers of East Detroit, by Chris Koentges
Octavia Butler
This is a small collection: it contains just a novella and a short story. But they are previously unknown short works from sci fi great Octavia Butler, and they definitely showcase her talent. Both stories draw you in from the start, immersing you in a different world that is believable and interesting. The characters are believable, too, and both stories kept me eagerly reading to the end. If you've never read any Butler before, these stories are a fine introduction. If you're already a Butler fan, you won't want to miss them.
A Necessary Being
Tina Dreffin
This book is a collection of essays about long term travel in the Caribbean via boat. The author has spent decades living this way, and raised her sons on a boat. Some of the essays could have used a little more careful editing, but the joy of the way of life the essays are describing makes it fairly easy to look past that and just enjoy the peak into a very different approach to life than the one most of us live. It didn't quite make me want to sell everything and buy a boat, but it did make me think about my priorities in life, and how there are sometimes choices available that are obscured by what we assume we "have" to do in life.
Come Play with Me
The Book Smugglers
This is an anthology of five superhero origin stories. The five stories are all really different from each other, but they are all also really good and well-written. I really enjoyed the various takes on the superhero origin story theme. I have a soft spot for quirky superhero stories, but I think anyone who enjoys light-hearted speculative fiction would enjoy this collection. It is just a lot of fun.
Kid Dark Against the Machine, by Tansy Rayner Roberts
M.R. Nelson
This is my fourth "taster flight" of classic short stories, and it may be my favorite. This anthology has six classic short stories about women's lives. They are classics (and in the public domain), so all are old, but they resonate with my modern experience of being a woman surprisingly well. I defy any woman who has ever worked in a male-dominated field to read the first story in this book (A Jury of Her Peers, by Susan Glaspell) and not nod her head in recognition at times. The anthology includes stories by Kate Chopin, Charlotte Gilman Perkins, Mary Lerner, Edna Ferber, and Willa Cather, as well. As has been the case with my earlier flights, these stories stood up well to the repeated re-readings that occurred during the process of building and formatting this book. I think you'll enjoy them, too!
A Jury of Her Peers, by Susan Glaspell
Rose Lemberg
This is a difficult anthology to describe. The best I can do is to say it is an anthology of very short speculative fiction stories, all of which explore what language (and speculative fiction) can be made to convey. I enjoyed some stories more than others, but all of the stories were interesting. Because the stories are very short, it made perfect "dip in when I have a few minutes" reading, and these stories brightened many lunchtimes for me! This anthology may not be for everyone, but if you're the sort that like stories that bend your brain a bit, you'll probably really like it.
The River's Children, by Shweta Narayan
Daniel José Older
This is such a fun collection to read! I had heard a lot of good things about this book, and it was a rare case of a book living up to the buzz. It is a collection of related stories about a multiracial group of characters in New York City, with the twist that some of the characters are dead, or partly dead. But it is not a collection of creepy ghost stories. The characters (even the dead ones!) are alive and vibrant, the stories are action packed and fun, and result is something unique and sort of magical. For me, the best short story collections have to be read slowly, because I need to pause after each story to let the story I just finished "settle" before I go on. This collection falls into that category: as much as I enjoyed reading it, I could not rush through it.
The Passing
Ceridwen Dovey
Each story in this quirky and interesting collection is told in the voice of an animal who has died. All of the animals die due to human folly, mostly involving war, but somehow this does not make the book depressing. Instead, it illuminates the common thread of humanity that makes us worth the trouble despite all of our flaws. This is an engrossing and entertaining book, but one that I think is best read slowly, to allow plenty of time to think about and absorb each story before moving on to the next.
A Letter to Sylvia Plath (Soul of Dolphin)
Jim Harrison
This collection of essays is nominally about food and eating, but is actually about understanding life and what matters in it. It has a strongly male viewpoint, which I normally find off-putting. But in this case, every time I thought I would just put it down and go find something else to read, there would be some thought-provoking insight or interesting turn of phrase, and I'd be drawn back in. In the end, I enjoyed the collection rather a lot, but I found it worked best for me in small doses. If you love fine food and wine, or have ever wondered what motivates someone who does, this is the book of essays for you. Neither of those things describes me, but I still enjoyed it. I don't think I could read it in large chunks, but the essay format made it easy to divide it up such that I enjoyed the book despite being fairly convinced I wasn't the target audience at all.
Wine
Papatia Feauxzar
This short book of flash fiction is a wide-ranging, fun, and at times thought-provoking collection of snapshots of the human condition. If you like flash fiction, definitely check this one out. If you've never tried flash fiction, this is a good choice of a book to give it a try. The characters are sharply drawn, which is important is such short stories, and the stories themselves are interesting.
Mixed Matches NonBinaries
Working on one thing at a time, for as long as you need to or feel like it, is a luxury.
