Category: Reading

Signs of Life by Sarah Pinsker

I’m a big fan of this author. Both of her novels (A Song for a New Day and We Are Satellites) are fantastic. Highly recommended. This story was rated the fourth best story of 2024 by Uncanny magazine readers. For me, it was the best of the top five stories selected by readers.

Signs of Life by Sarah Pinsker (2024) — 11,996 words (about 48 minutes for the average reader)

Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf

I have heard of this book off and on over the last few months. Most recently, John Warner mentioned it in his newsletter article about who should read his new book. What he wrote there finally put this book on my list to read. And my recently launched Daily Dose of Empathy project got me to read it.

The book is a review of the neuroscience and evolutionary history of how the human brain changes in order to read using practical examples of modern reading acquisition. Humans are absolutely not built for reading. But the brain being so adaptable, it literally changes in order to learn to read. And when people struggle to read (e.g. dyslexia) what differences are there in the brain? This book looks deeply into those differences and takes a first stab at trying to figure out the why of how this happens.

While this book is written in easily approachable language common to all modern nonfiction, it deals with the complex topic of neuroscience in general and the brain specifically. While I read a lot of that detail, much of it was more complex than I was interested in fully understanding. The book is so well written that I didn’t find that an impediment to reading or enjoying the more accessible information that I gleaned from reading it.

My rating: 4/5

The Green Door by O. Henry

For “Throwback Thursday” I have a less well known story by the short story master that they named the award after. This one is from his collection The Four Million, so called because it takes place in New York City, which had four million residents at that time. A young man is led by destiny to the door of a damsel in distress. It has his trademark twist at the end. Enjoy!

The Green Door by O. Henry (1906) – 2,679 words (about 11 minutes for the average reader)

The Star by Arthur C. Clarke

A lone star shining in the night sky

I first read this classic story in high school. It won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1956. It is the story of a Jesuit priest who accompanies a mission to a remote star that expired in a supernova thousands of years ago. They are visiting the star system because a civilization lived there that was destroyed by the star’s explosion. But as the priest tells the story, he raises a surprising and important question.

The Star by Arthur C. Clarke (1955) – 2,432 words (about a ten minute read for the average reader)

How to Read More Fiction (Not More Books)

Smartphone on an open book next a pair of eyeglasses

Everyone is wringing their hands about the dangers of smartphones and social media. Attentions spans seem to be getting shorter and shorter. The response? Banning cell phones in schools. Some teenagers are reducing the social media they interact with and turning off notifications. My teenage nephew only uses SnapChat and has all other notifications on his phone turned off. People of all ages are trying to get their attention back.

At the same time, many are looking to get back into reading fiction. Numerous studies show that reading fiction increases the reader’s empathy. As George R.R. Martin once wrote, “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.” But how to start reading, or get back into it, when your attention has been hacked to pieces in our smartphone era? For a lot of people, reading a novel has become a real challenge. My suggestion is to start with short stories. These can be read online for free all over the internet. If you haven’t already, consider taking all the social media apps off your phone. Then when you pull out your phone for a quick hit of entertainment the next time you are bored, read a short story.

But how do I find good short stories to read? Funny you should ask… Starting tomorrow, each weekday at noon Eastern Time, I will be posting a short description of and a link to one of my favorite short stories that you can read online for free. These will be in a variety of genres but since my favorite is speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, and horror) they will be over represented. If you aren’t a fan of those kinds of stories, give these a chance. My focus on what I am choosing is good storytelling and good stories more than anything else.

My hope is that this will help a lot of people who wish to move away from having their attention grabbed by an algorithm that merely wants to monetize their eyeballs by enraging readers. Instead, exercise your empathy muscles by reading a short story every weekday during your lunch break. Perhaps this will be just the start you need to start reading more fiction.