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"Before you know it as the years go by, you're just like other people you have seen, with all those peculiar human ailments. Just another vehicle for temper and vanity and rashness and all the rest. Who wants it? Who needs it? These things occupy the place where a man's soul should be." -- Henderson the Rain King

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

The Lottery

Book #47 on my reading list was the short story collection The Lottery: Adventures of the Daemon Lover by Shirley Jackson.

You may be familiar with "The Lottery" from high school English. It's often taught during short story writing 101 and has become one of the classics of the genre. Why? Because it's awesome. Jackson's stories fall somewhere between Edgar Allen Poe, Stephen King and the Salem Witch Trials. They're creepy, goth-ariffic and distinctly Shirley Jackson.

Why I Read This One
I picked this one up at a booksale after reading We Have Always Lived In the Castle last year. I'm always looking for good short story collections and the combo of having enjoyed WHALItC, my memory of reading "The Lottery", and her rep as a short story auteur made this one a no brainer.

And for good measure the tuneage that was stuck in my head as I wrote this (a classic in it's own right):




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posted by Jamie at 12:54 AM