2018 Short Story Advent Calendar Unveiling: December 10

Today’s story is called “One Gram Short” by Etgar Keret, translated by Nathan Englander. It’s my favourite one yet!
There was no doubt in my mind that I would like this book. I had heard of Benjamin Stevenson before, mainly because his first book Everyone in my Family Has Killed Someone was so popular (and had a memorable title) and his writing was also humourous, so it was likely that I would enjoy his…
I’ve been called a ‘bleeding heart’ liberal before, mainly by my husband (whom I typically don’t see eye to eye with politically, although this makes for a more interesting marriage in general), so when I heard about a book that satirizes liberal hypocrisy, I knew I had to read it. Class by Lucinda Rosenfeld features a…
This review has been a long time coming. Not because I’ve put off writing it, but because it took me so bloody long to read this book: two whole months which is definitely a record for me. At 988 pages, many of those pages including just one long run-on sentence, this book isn’t for everyone….
As I continue to read and review self-help books in anticipation of my January radio segment for the CBC, next up is Dialed In, Do Your Best When it Matters Most by Dr. Dana Sinclair. This is a book that focuses on advice for those who want to perform better during high-pressure situations, and although…
Sheila Heti’s older book How Should a Person Be? seems a more apt title for her most recent work Motherhood because it’s basically just a woman debating how she should live her life. This is the first book by her that I’ve ever read, so perhaps this is how most of her writing comes across,…
I am loving the female-centric takes on historical fiction that seem to be filling bookshelves more and more. Only recently have we begun to view our history through the female lens; what was it like to be a woman before we were considered equals to men? How did women cope, when were they able to…
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This author is obviously a film lover—a person after my own heart. There was a 2003 movie called “21 Grams” with Sean Penn, the taglines for which were as follows (thank you IMDB):
Difference between dead and life
How much does life weigh?
They say we all lose 21 grams at the exact moment of our death… everyone. The weight of a stack of nickels. The weight of a chocolate bar. The weight of a hummingbird…
How much does love weigh?
How much does revenge weigh?
This Fall, fate weighs in.
How much does guilt weigh?
I think “How much does love weigh?” fits most closely with this wonderful story.
Oh wow! Very cool, I would have never made this connection.
Maybe Smokey’s gone out to see if she can buy you some exciting chocolates…
Nah she’s just being moody LOL
Etgar Keret is great. I read a few collections of his years ago. One was something like The Girl On Top of the Fridge? He typically has soldiers in his stories and is often funny. The stories are all super short, but he’s good in that form (lots of people aren’t).
And I like super short stories! haha