Our second selection for The Bière Library Storytime Book Club! Due to closures, this month was a short month so we decided to read short fiction. Note: I actually read an ebook copy via my local library's cloudLibrary collection.

I don't read short fiction often, and I really should consider doing so more often, as you can pack a lot of different kinds of story in a collection. Some endings felt abrupt and I'd follow any of them further, but the nature of the medium also shows how sometimes it's okay to end a story when it reaches a natural breathing point.

some quickie reviews/thoughts:
* Cell One- a troublesome brother learns empathy for an old man.
Imitation- a richly dense story for how short it is: dual households with dashed expectations and disappointments despite material wealth.

* A Private Experience- a riot breaks out, bringing women whose lives don't normally intersect together seeking safety. I thought this one was interesting for shifting the when- it reads mostly in the present tense, but periodically there's sentences that flash forwards, like "[name] would never be seen again, and she'll wonder..."

* Ghosts- a professor sees a former colleague he thought dead, bringing up the ghosts of their previous lives before the Biafran war. I know nothing about that war or Nigerian history in general, and this story made me aware of my ignorance.

* On Monday of Last Week- a basement mystery, which I felt paralleled Imitation to a degree (wanting to mimic another woman because she's attractive).

* Jumping Monkey Hill- Another one where I'm not sure if I should know stereotypes from country to country, or if I'm as bad as the British host of the writing retreat. There's a meta feel to this, when I wonder if Chimamanda had a similar experience to Ujanwa when presenting a story at a workshop.

* The Thing Around Your Neck- titular story for this collection. In book club chat, I suggested that the thing felt around your neck was the pressure to succeed- you win the immigration lottery, so you feel the need to prove that you've done well and not report home until you have something good to say... and then some of the tension releases when letting that go. This one was interesting for being in second person as well!

* The American Embassy- a tragedy happens. Does it dishonor their memory if used as a reason to obtain a visa for asylum?

* The Shivering- This one also centers on a tragedy, but one that is distant. How do Nigerians an ocean away at Princeton react and respond to this?

* The Arrangers of Marriage- Another cross-cultural setting, where a new wife joins her husband in the states and finds not everything is as promised.

* Tomorrow is Too Far- The ending reveal grabbed me most out of all the stories, how youthful jealousy has far reaching impacts.

* The Headstrong Historian- oh hey, intergenerational trauma that ol' familiar blanket. Assimilation may seem like a way to advance life quality for your children and their descendants but what is destroyed when that happens? It does end on a hopeful note, though.

I don't remember how this got on our suggestion list, but it was an excellent pick! Looking forward to where else Biere Library book club takes us. :)

Only 1 story really stood out and wowed me, and it was a totally engrossing, gasping-out-loud-on-the-train-and-not-caring-who-noticed kind of story. A few years from now I will certainly still remember it, and maybe the ghosts of a few of the other stories (maybe). Generally fine book overall. ( )

Short stories but I was sucked into every one! I had to take a break after each to reflect. So good! ( )

Some patchy but all worth it. ( )

God, I love this woman. ( )