Read:
A Book of Good Stories – edited by G. Fred McNally (The MacMillan Company of Canada, 1934)
Say Nothing – Patrick Radden Keefe (Doubleday, 2019)
Under Milk Wood – Dylan Thomas (J.M. Dent & Sons, 1970)
Short Stories Read: (see note below)
Yermolai and the Miller’s Wife – Ivan Turgenev (3 stars)
A Day in the Country – Anton Chekhov (4 stars)
A Passion in the Desert – Honore de Balzac (2 stars)
A Simple Heart – Gustave Flaubert (3 stars)
Two Little Soldiers – Guy de Maupassant (4 stars)
The Last Lesson – Alphonse Daudet (5 stars)
Our Lady’s Juggler – Anatole France (3 stars)
Germelshausen – Friedrich Gerstaucher (5 stars)
The Saint Joseph’s Ass – Giovanni Verga (2 stars)
A Lodging for the Night – Robert Louis Stevenson (5 stars)
Quattrocentisteria – Maurice Hewlett (2 stars)
The Red-Headed League – Arthur Conan Doyle (3 stars)
Without Benefit of Clergy – Rudyard Kipling (4 stars)
The Tragedy of a Comic Song – Leonard Merrick (4 stars)
The Money Box – W.W. Jacobs (3 stars)
Currently Reading:
A Treasury of Short Stories by Bernadine Kielty
(Note: This is another short story collection that I picked up in a secondhand shop some time ago. It’s sorted by century (19th and then 20th) and continent (European and American). It was published in 1947. It’s obviously missing a lot of more recent stories and it’s incredibly Euro/American-centric. However, it has been a great way to keep me reading through a busy season. My goal has been to read one short story each evening (which obviously hasn’t happened). I won’t write full reviews for each story but thought I’d catalogue them here with a simple star rating out of 5.)
On Reading Well – Karen Prior Swallow
2020 Goals:
Full post looking at how well I accomplished my 2020 goals coming soon!
What’s Next:
Well, what’s really next is a whole new year. So I’m going to skip this section for now and devote a separate post to sharing some of my reading goals for 2021.
Thoughts on December:
This year I realized, looking back over previous Decembers, that the end of the year is not a prime reading time for me. With Christmas planning, extra work days, and other various things going on, my evening reading time is often taken up with other things. Deciding to focus on short stories was a good way to make sure I still included some reading while not feeling overwhelmed.
This month I also continued my tradition of the Annual Karissa Reads Books Literary Awards for the third year. I really enjoy sharing my favourite books of the year and hearing about yours in return. In the next few days I hope to get a post up reviewing all of my reads from 2020.
What was your best read this month? Do holidays mean more or less reading time for you?
Karissa Reads Books 
W.W. Jacobs has a wonderfully scary short story called “The Monkey’s Paw” that I re-read again this year.
Oh, I think I know that one. This is more goofy, I think. Though I’m. It sure if I’ve actually read The Monkey’s Paw or just know it from like a Simpsons reference or something! I’m
I do think “The Monkey’s Paw” is alluded to throughout pop culture, so you’ve likely heard about it, or a reference to it.
I love short stories for this time of the year too – so much easier to fit in. I must look up your five-star Stevenson – was it a horror story?
It’s more like a morality tale but with murder and a lot more subtle than “morality tale” implies.