Sometimes I go to amazon.com and look up books I have already read and see what other suggestions the site offers, and that is how I stumbled upon this book.
I enjoyed most of the short stories in this collection. My most favorites were ”grand stand-in,” “the museum of whatnot,” and “worst-case scenario.” A couple of the stories left me disappointed, mainly because I felt they ended too soon or not in a satisfactory manner. But overall, it is a good, interesting collection.
What I really liked about this paperback edition is that is had the special P.S. section. I <3 the P.S. section where you get to learn more about the author and read an interview. I thought it was really quirky and silly that Wilson’s motivation for wanting to be a writer was that he hoped that girls would swoon after reading his fantastic stories and then would want to make out with him 
I know his statement sounds bizarre and possibly “dirty old-man-ish” but after you read his whole bio, it really doesn’t come off that way at all. Wilson also goes on to say that in the beginning he wrote sooooo many bad stories that he eventually bought tons and tons of short story books and treated them as “self-help” books so he could try to figure out what was wrong with his writing and try to fix it — I find that charming.
This book’s P.S. section also included a blurb for each story as to the author’s source of inspiration for each of the stories he wrote. I thought it was really cool that each of his short stories were inspired by a specific line of text (included in the blurb) from another short story, or sometimes a novel, he read. I also felt very bookish and deserving of my bookworm title when I noticed I had read quite a few of his sources of inspiration, yet also have some new authors to look up and discover.
Filed under: Books
