The Side Effects of Endorphins

One thing I love about Book Club is I read books I probably would not have. My taste are so eclectic, but there’s so many books out there.

So we are currently reading,I read it twice , it’s Five Tuesdays in Winter. It’s a collection of short stories. The stories touch on deep subjects and give an insight into the writing process.

I also recently read one of her novels, and it was good, but I like her in the short story format.

Two (actually 3) of my favorites are.

“North Sea”: A mother struggles to connect with her daughter after the death of her husband.

My wife and I listened to the story together once and I completely missed that it was a mother and daughter. I was so intrigued by the dialogue in the story and it’s cleverly done.

The backwards, English and the backwards German sounds like a conversation I’ve had many times in my life.

The story has one of the most absurd endings I’ve ever heard in a short story. It is a master stroke of genius or maybe just simply weird.

The Man at the Door”: A writer confronts figures who have tried to suppress her voice. The story is so disturbing which makes it memorable. There is so much going on in that story and it’s only a conversation between a stranger and a woman writer trying to fit in writing time when she’s not a mother.

When In the Dordogne -this one is so weird that it is perfect. This is the story about a teenage boy. His parents go to France for eight weeks and he’s watched by I believe it’s their uncle and his boyfriend. Simply the description of the tennis match makes it worthwhile.