Short fiction is one of the most under-appreciated art forms around in mainstream society (next to poetry, of course). Those who tend to consume short fiction are also those who produce it. This has caused a surge in MFA programs around the US and a large number of small, independent literary magazines have come into existence. But publications that feature short fiction don’t get a lot of attention, which is a shame.

Here’s a brief list of the top 5 reasons why I love short stories:

- Can read in one sitting: This is a big one! I often read novels over a period of a few weeks, so it’s very refreshing to be able to sit down and read a story from beginning to end in one sitting. I found I can usually get much more into the story this way.

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2008 is right around the corner. I can’t believe another year is gone. But 2007 was pretty amazing. This blog has really taken off and December marks the 1-year birthday of Brad’s Reader! My goal, however, is to grow and expand this blog even more in the next year.

My other goals for 2008 also include spending more time working on my own fiction, which has taken a backseat to blogging and my other projects. I even hope to dive a little deeper into poetry. But instead of boring you with my own goals, I want to read yours!

What are your goals?
What are your writing/literary goals for 2008?  It can be anything from finishing that novel to reading a certain book you’ve been putting off for a while. Leave a comment below with five (5) writing/literary goals you have for the upcoming new year, and you could win!

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Once upon a time, before the advent of the internet, television and even the radio, reading used to be the past-time of choice.  Back then people read much for the same reasons they read today, except without all the distractions modern technology brings.

Surprisingly, I came across an essay in the New York Times Books Section that talks about reading being hazardous to your health in those olden days:

But until radio and television dethroned the book, social reformers worried about too much reading, not too little. Advice about when and where not to read was once a medical specialty. In an 1806 diagnosis, a British doctor hypothesized that the "excess of stimulus" produced by reading novels "affects the organs of the body and relaxes the tone of the nerves." Reading at the table interfered with your digestion, reading before lunch with your morals.

But the article continues, making a surprising comparison:

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Right now there are so many books I want to read, but as the title states, there is so little time. Part of the problem is that many of the books I have my eye on are not just single, stand-alone books, rather they are part of a series.

For example, I’m currently reading The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F. Hamilton, which is the first book in The Night’s Dawn trilogy. Right now I’m pretty engrossed in it and can’t wait to start the next book.

Then, when I’m finished with that trilogy, I’ll be starting another one: the His Dark Materials Trilogy which contains The Golden Compass – a book stirring up controversy in many religious circles right now. And as I mentioned in an earlier post, it is this controversy which is fueling my desire to read these books.

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A few days ago I wrote a post about how a Catholic school board in Canada decided to ban The Golden Compass because of its perceived anti-religious stance (Canadian Catholic school board bans fantasy novel). Much to my dismay, I came across another article from the American Library Association website that the ban is spreading to the United States. Of course, just like every other book lover out there, I fell out of my chair upon reading this news.

According to the article, a public school in Colorado pulled The Golden Compass from its shelves. Then, when a brave librarian complained to the higher ups in the school district, the book returned to its proper spot on a library bookshelf a few days later. The other school to pull the book is a Catholic school in Wisconsin.

It should be noted that in the Colorado case, the book was removed after a middle school librarian raised concerns over the book’s "age appropriateness". Mindy Wandling, the librarian in question is also an evangelical Christian – making her justification for removing the book complete rubbish. While I hate to put words in people’s mouths, I can say with certainty that Wandling was probably offended by the book’s theme, and that it was written by a self-professed atheist.

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The great part about the internet is that people use it to take old ideas and turn them into something new. For example, have you ever seen an old bookshelf in some odd public location filled with tattered paperbacks? They can usually be found in train/bus stations, waiting rooms and other places where people tend to sit and wait. The idea is that you take a book you want, but in its place, you leave a book – thus keeping the shelves filled.

I always thought it was a great idea. The only reason why I never actually participated in such literary sharing is because none of the books on the shelves interested me.

But a website I recently came across is taking that same idea to a different level (for the record, they have been around since 2004). At Swaptree.com they allow you to freely trade books, music and movies to anyone willing to trade back. Basically, the website acts as the middleman, bringing two parties together to swap books. The only cost to you is postage (which they calculate for you) to send the book to its new owner.

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I finally bought my iPhone last night. And so far, I love it! I’m still playing around with all the different features and putting it through its paces – but I think I have a new best friend (figuratively speaking, of course).

The only feature I’m really longing for, which the iPhone software doesn’t seem to support very well is the ability to read ebooks. Yes, there are various hacks that can install unauthorized software that (from what I have read) turn the iPhone into an ebook reader. However, I’m hesitant to use such hacks, as they void the phone’s warranty.

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There’s one thing in this world that really makes me cringe: the banning of books! Whether a book is banned for insulting a particular belief system (usually religion), or because it contains too much violence, and there’s the always infamous "this book should be banned because it contains too much sex!"

Many people mistakingly think that banning books is a thing of the past. No one would dare ban a book in today’s enlightened age. Guess what? It still happens. Even books that most of us consider to be classics are banned. Contemporary books are banned as well. No book is safe from the elusive Big Bad Book Censor.

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The release of Amazon’s ebook reading device has been out for a few days now, and many blogs I’ve read already gave their two cents. I have been hesitant to throw in my own opinion because I haven’t actually held the Kindle and took it for a test drive myself.

But for what its worth, the release of the Amazon Kindle is a good sign. It means that reading digital material is catching on, especially as more and more people realize that they’re already reading gobs of digital material already (ie. email, blogs, online articles, etc), so reading novels in digital format isn’t really a large leap.

However, not all is good and dandy in the world of ebooks. There are problems, very obvious problems, that keep ebooks and the devices these large corporations peddle to the us as readers that continue to plague the market. Here’s a rundown of those problems as I see them:

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Literary criticism is one of those subjects that only gets attention in the world of colleges and universities. Even there, however, the attention is scant, and mostly given by English professors and grad students.  There might be a handful of undergrad English majors who have an affinity for theory (I did), but most are content with creative writing and reading contemporary literature (sadly, even classics are getting less attention than they once did).

The debate about the utility of studying literary criticism is nothing new. What most people don’t realize, though, is that even avid, recreational readers engage in some form of criticism every time they form an opinion about a text. And those opinions can be classified into different schools of thought. Some people will read a text and see nothing but sexist characters that try to destroy the feminine. This is called feminist theory. Others might read the same text and read it in the context of its historical significance.
There are many other schools of thought. A few people stay strictly within the context of one of these schools. A majority, however, tend to move around the literary spectrum.

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