Rather than getting lost in a book today, I decided to get lost in a bookshop. Literally. It was like a maze of literary heaven. Choosing only one book was hard (I have to limit myself each time I go), so I went for a selection of short stories this time, or should I say ‘The World’s Greatest Short Stories”. The book doesn’t seem to display a publication date, but from looking at it, it’s been around for many a decade.
This shop has the dynamics of a TARDIS, with winding corridors and wonky stairs. If there was the time to spare, you could easily spend an entire day exploring the covers and pages of works of fact and fiction.
The joy of a book of short stories, I have discovered, is that when unsure what to read, or during those times in life when getting into a novel seems strenuous, you can just open the book on a random page, sift through a bit and read an entire story.
My usual genre is non-fiction, and I have a great interest in the Second World War, probably stemming from the stories my Great Grandfather told me every Sunday at teatime, of all the brilliant and brave things he did. Having grown up, learning about the harsh reality of it all has become an important part of my life.
The reason I went for something different today, however, was in a way for some more inspiration. Like reading, I find it difficult to get all the way through writing a novel, with a number of half-written files on my Google drive. Not only will it (hopefully) get me reading in those small spaces of time throughout the day, but also (hopefully) it’ll help me to improve my short story writing, because let’s face it, I’m no expert at this.
