Nothing But Reading Challenges discussion
Group Discussions
>
Anthologies - Is bigger necessarily better?
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
Lisarenee
(new)
Sep 30, 2010 06:55PM
I usually love anthologies because I get a chance to check out authors I've never heard of without needing to do a full book read. Lately, I've noticed some of these anthologies team 8 or more authors together. Very rarely do I like every single story in these huge collaborations and find myself just skipping to the stories of my favorite author(s). What do you think of anthologies? What do you think the optimum limit of stories/authors should be or do you say the more the merrier? Do you only read the story of the author that drew you to the anthology in the first place or do you read them all? Do authors with a lot of stories in anthologies drive you crazy because you want to read them all and can't always find them?
reply
|
flag
i agree with you. i think the limit should be 3.
I've been working my way through The Mammoth Book of Regency Romance and it's been kinda tough. When You've got 23 short stories, all by different authors, it really needs to be broken up a bit. Plus, you "meet" so many different characters in different situations that it can be hard to really connect with any of them.I like the 3 or 4 author/story anthologies. Each story is about 50 pages and that's just about perfect to get into a story. These Mammoth Book of... stories are all around 5-10 pages. I'm left a bit dizzy and not sure what just happened.
I'm not a big fan of them either... I agree with you Lisa, I tend to just pick and choose from my favorite authors or authors that I'd like to experiment with.
I don't mind 6 or so authors in an anthology. I read all of the stories. If a story doesn't suck me in by the first chapter or so I move on to the next story. I would never have found all these wonderful paranormal authors if it hadn't been for the anthologies I read that had Sookie stories in them.
Reading anthologies is a great way to discover new authors that you might not have found otherwise. But, I agree they tend to get overwhelming if there are too many authors. I'll sometimes take a break in between short stories and read a full-length novel, then come back and read the rest. It helps keep them straight in my head.
I like anthologies but when there are more than 10 I struggle to stay interested and finish the book. One I recently read at 20, which was way too much. 5 or 6 is great.
Oddrun wrote: "i usually don't like neither short stories or anthologies, but if i want to read something from lets say a 'new' country, i like to read anthologies. I get introduced to a number of new authors, an..."That's a good idea. I have lots of anthologies in my TBR pile. Maybe I should just read a short story here and there and slowly work through them. Maybe read one in between each book I read?
I don't mind reading anthologies. I like getting exposed to authors I may not have heard of. 5 or 6 stories is usually the right amount for me. I have also learned to use the status updates as a way of keeping track of the stories I am reading. For example, as I finish a story, I update my thoughts on that story in the status updates. If I choose to review the anthology, all my notes are there.
Stacy wrote: "I have lots of anthologies in my TBR pile. Maybe I should just read a short story here and there and slowly work through them. Maybe read one in between each book I read? "I've got a couple shelves of anthologies and I started reading the short stories for series I already have, but more often than not, the other stories interest me more, so I go out and buy more series. It's a vicious cycle.
Sans wrote: "Stacy wrote: "I have lots of anthologies in my TBR pile. Maybe I should just read a short story here and there and slowly work through them. Maybe read one in between each book I read? "I've got ..."
Oh, boy! You aren't kidding! I have the same problem. Well, not so much a problem as a situation. :)
Use the anthologies for book challenges. I always seem to have an anthology in the many book challenges I join.
