How To Read Short Stories

This may sound like an odd post, and to be honest, the title is more of a test run to see what effect certain phrases have on search terms etc, but that is a post for later.

As bizarre as it may sound however, I do actually have a post that relates to the title.

Just yesterday I was talking to a friend of mine, a colleague no less, who I had convinced to try some Stephen King. One of the books that I convinced her to buy was Skeleton Crew, a collection of short stories that are some of my favorite King shorts;

The Mist
Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut
The Raft
Survivor Type (Possibly one of the most disturbing and stomach churning pieces of fiction I have ever read).
The Ballard of the Flexible Bullet

While talking to said colleague just yesterday, I asked her if she had started to read of the books she had bought. She said yes, but then, as the conversation developed she said that she not only was not reading the stories in order, but she wasn’t even reading the whole collection before moving on to something else.

Maybe this is just me, but I fell ill at ease the rest of the conversation. It just didn’t sit right with me that someone can read a collection of short stories out-of-order. I can cope with the reading other things around it, because I have done that on occasion myself. However, to read them out-of-order just seems and feel utterly wrong to me. It was like someone raking their fingers down a chalkboard.

I read the last story first, then the first story in the middle… argh, make it stop!!!

I did however, manage to pull myself out of my terminal velocity plunge into insanity and ponder the question … ‘is she alone?’

I would never dream about reading a book out-of-order, but what about you?

I mean sure, there is no rule that says you cannot read short stories in any order you wish, but … I don’t know. Maybe I’m just a bit odd.

This also led me to ponder the different types of short story collections, the single author variety, and the multiple author anthologies. Is there a different approach that needs to be considered when reading these, can they be held apart from each other in reading rules?

Tell me, pleasure, am I just nuts, or does it seem wrong to read a book in an order that is not that with which is was produced?