31 Days of Stories 2025, Day 18: “Glimmer” by Ian Rankin
"Glimmer" is a lean story, right from its declarative opening sentence.
31 Days of Stories 2025, Day 17: “Dead Set” by Cho Nam-Joo; Jamie Chang, trans.
"Dead Set" is a story that takes direct aim at the punishments that accrue to women in an unfair society.
31 Days of Stories 2025, Day 16: “Tomorrow” by William Faulkner
"Tomorrow" is a voice story and its narrative approach is, typical of Faulkner, complex.
31 Days of Stories 2025, Day 15: “Passing Through” by Vladimir Sorokin; Max Lawton, trans.
In the Soviet Union, Sorokin implies, the government is able to act in a most atrocious manner, while the minor functionaries who work the factories and offices have to carry shit.
31 Days of Stories 2025, Day 13: “Survivor Type” by Stephen King
King's accomplishment here is in combining his three levels of fear – terror, horror, and disgust – in a surprising and highly literary manner.
31 Days of Stories 2025, Day 12: “The Home Front” by Charles Ardai
The notion of redemption is an element of hardboiled crime fiction Ardai plays with in this story.
31 Days of Stories 2025, Day 10: “The Peacocks” by Yukio Mishima; Juliet Winters Carpenter, trans.
"Peacock killing was not a rupture but the sensual intertwining of beauty and destruction."
31 Days of Stories 2025, Day 8: “Progeny” by Philip K. Dick
In the world of Dick's story, efficiency and rationality are paramount.
31 Days of Stories 2025, Day 8: “Hairs on Me” by Virginie Despentes; Will McMorran, trans.
"Hairs on Me" is a complicated reckoning with female desire and the kind of bodily insecurity a media-saturated world imposes on women.
31 Days of Stories 2025, Day 6: “This Is Not a Story” by Denis Diderot; Edward Marielle, trans.
Like his contemporary, the Irish monk and writer Laurence Sterne, Diderot proved well ahead of his time.