Hello everyone! This entire month I will try and make an article for each category on the blog because I want to keep the varied. It’s officially the middle of the week and I prepared for you a ‘Books to read’ article in order to ‘celebrate’ the start of a new University term. So, today I have decided to make you a short list of really interesting stories I have read during the autumn term of my second year here at Kent. The last term I did two modules.
One was for Creative Writing and it was called the Elements of Fiction and the other one was for literature and it was called Novelty, Enlightenment, and Emancipation in the 18th Century Literature. I personally enjoyed the first one better. 18th Century English Literature wasn’t easy for me as a foreigner. I can tell you that, but I will tell you some of my favorites texts from this module as well.
So, the Creative Writing module I chose was specifically for fiction. I did poetry last year and I didn’t like it. Plus, I don’t feel like I get any inspiration in that direction. So this year, I chose just Fiction modules. We received a course booklet for the texts we had to read and some of them were really interesting. Here we have two tops of the stories I liked most. I hope you will experience the narrative of these stories and let me know what you think about them.
Top short stories (Creative Writing modules)
- Lorrie Moore – ‘How’
- Tobias Wolfe – ‘Bullet in the Brain’
- Julio Cortázar – ‘Letter to a Young Lady in Paris’
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – ‘The Danger of a Single Story’
- Raymond Carver – ‘Cathedral’
Top stories (English Literature module)
- Eliza Haywood – ‘Fantomina’
- Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, from The Complete Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
- Horace Walpole, ‘Castle of Otranto’
- The Arabian Nights Entertainments
- Olaudah Equiano, ‘Interesting Narrative’
I hope you guys will try and read any of these short stories or books. My take on them is that the books I put in the Literature module top are… what can I say: complicated. Complicated in terms of making sense and the language is quite hard. For example, ‘Fantomina’ by Eliza Haywood is strange in terms of the plot. ‘Fantomina’ who is the protagonist, had various sexual relationships with the same man, but under a different masquerade, each time and the guy doesn’t realize it’s her.
So, guys the plot of the 18th-century books is mind-blowing. I mean, some of them make no sense. But because they make no sense they are kinda interesting and pleasant to read. This is just my opinion, maybe you will enjoy them to the fullest. NEWS: Because I wanted to create this blog exclusively for writing and short stories I will transform the category ‘To My Readers’ into a specific creative writing category, where I will try and give you the best advice for the aspiring authors and also tell you my personal experiences with writing. I am encouraging all of you, that are passionate about writing short stories to send me your work and the best ones will get published right here.
I hope you enjoyed this article and I hope that these two lists I made for you will help you decide what your next book choice or short story will be. I haven’t had the opportunity to read anything consistent in a very long time because I read a lot of extracts and short stories at Uni, in my free time I just prefer to watch movies and write.
P.S. These two amazing pictures are made by @nagy_alex! Check his instagram for the best photos.
#seeyousoon