Book Talk: Joining the #weirdathon

I love Outlandish Lit, so when I saw that Julianne was doing a readathon to celebrate her third year of blogging, I was all over it. In true Outlandish Lit style, it's about encouraging people to read weird books. Whatever that means for you. I was hesitant at first, but decided that even though my books weren't "traditionally weird," joining would still force me out of my reading comfort zone.

One of my bookish goals for the year was to pick different books than I would normally reach for, which resulted in me starting (and not finishing) two different collections of short stories. Those are going to be at the top of my list for the weirdathon, as well as a collection of essays that I've been waiting to read for ages (and finally picked up in a recent book haul).

I know I'm going to finish what I'm currently reading and I'm bound to pick up a few "non-weird" books this month as well, but I'm excited to have extra motivation to finally finish these weird books:

I started The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway early in the year, and read a few stories before I got depressed and frustrated and remembered why I don't read Hemingway. But I'm also stubborn, and bound and determined to finish this set of weird stories! I've always struggled with this genre, because I tend to approach it like the novels I'm used to, and that just doesn't work. I'm going to have to be patient and read stories one at a time - something I've never been particularly good at. Wish me luck!

Neil Gaiman's Trigger Warning, a self-described collection of short fictions and disturbances, is probably the most "traditionally weird" book I'm going to try and finish. I raved last year about my love for The Ocean at the End of the Lane which was weird and wonderful, and while these short stories (so far) have been much of the same, I'm again experiencing the same issue of struggling to find a reading groove. P.S. Anybody else kinda want to watch The Emperor's New Groove now??

I must be turning into a compulsive short story hoarder, since I already started the above books before I checked out Beneath the Bonfire by Nickolas Butler from my library. I read and very much enjoyed Shotgun Lovesongs early last year, and had filed away the knowledge that he had published a collection of stories for a rainy day. I didn't decide to check them out, however, until I read Shannon @ River City Reading's post about books other bloggers made her read.

I talked in my book haul about how I've been pulled to this book every time I've seen it at a bookstore, but resisted because of the aforementioned lack of follow through with short story collections. However, I couldn't resist when I saw it for $5 at my local bookstore recently. I haven't cracked the cover, but I'm super excited to begin The Opposite of Loneliness by Marina Keegan.








That's it for my weirdathon TBR. I'll be back on a (hopefully) weekly basis to update my progress and share more bookish ramblings. Let me know if you'll be participating in the weirdathon and if you find short stories as weird and challenging a genre as I do! Let's get weird.