In a Few Pages...

I've been reading a collection of short stories by Jeffrey Archer. I am not overtly fond of short stories, preferring a nice, big, fat novel any day, to a story that lasts only a few pages!!! However, this book, The Collected Short Stories, has left me craving for more of these "few-page" delights! The book hosts a total of 36 tales, each so amazingly different from the rest! The author has written them in a nice conversational tone, bereft of any unnecessary decorations of language. Many of these stories are laden with the proverbial twist in the tale! While this fact can be misconstrued to be very stereotypical and clichéd, the twists take you so completely by surprise that you keep hoping that the next story too has a nice twist!!! Another thing that strikes almost immediately, is the fact that the stories are just the right length. The author seems to have an extraordinary insight into what will grip a reader and make the book "unputdownable", and what will border on the boring!!!

I'm not completely through with the book, having read about a dozen stories or so. However, these handful of stories have made so much of an impact on me that I can't wait to get home and curl up with the book, every night! So much so that I thought there could be no better time to write this post.

This collection is a must read for every book lover. You may not be a great fan of Jeffery Archer's writings, or even like reading short stories, but, this book will make you fond of both, at least, for the little time that you read it!!! As for those who swear by the brevity of a tale, you'll wonder how this book slipped your hands!