Some readers are all atwitter over super short fiction

We live in an era of dwindling attention spans.

The blur of our incessant news cycles, celebrity culture, and a leader who prefers to communicate in short bursts via Twitter all contribute to the feeling that there’s just no time to really focus on any one particular thing.

Like reading. I know plenty of women who still read a lot, entire books for heaven’s sake. I’ll often ask men what books they have read recently and some of them claim that they don’t bother to read books anymore because they simply cannot commit the time to doing it. Well, I have a new book that offers a rebuttal to that particular lame excuse.

The book is “New Micro — Exceptionally Short Fiction” and it was edited by James Thomas and Robert Scotellaro. Thomas, who resides in Xenia, has had a long career editing anthologies of short stories that seem to be following the trajectories of our own abbreviated attention spans; they keep getting shorter.

There are stories here by famous writers like Joyce Carol Oates, Ron Carlson, and Richard Brautigan. Most of the stories are by writers who were unfamiliar to this reviewer. No story is over 300 words long. Do you realize how difficult it is to tell a really good story that is that terse and pithy and short? Indeed.

Here’s an example.

It is “Gettysburg, July, 1863” by Theresa Wyatt:

“One soldier took a bullet that shattered his femur. The next day he woke up in a cellar with a woman leaning over him picking wax from his beard. She apologized, said the doctor needed light to amputate in the dark.”

“Candles melted down to nothing were stuck everywhere, even in her bonnet.”

What do you think of that? The author conjured some powerful and enduring images with just a few sentences. And that’s it, that’s the entire story. I’m serious.

We have to use our imaginations to fill in the words that are left unsaid.

Most of the stories are a bit longer than that one, but not very much longer.

Guys, I don’t want to hear any more excuses about how you don’t have the time to read books.

“New Micro” is an ideal little paperback to carry with you for those times when you have a few spare moments. When you are waiting to have your car serviced or getting your hair cut.

While standing in that long line you can dissipate your boredom with a few of these entertaining stories.

If you don’t like a story, it isn’t working for you, turn the page and there’s a different story for you to read.

I have to think that even President Trump, as busy as he is, would have the time to peruse this collection. Perhaps between presidential tweets?

These stories veer all over the literary landscape.

In the spirit of this anthology I wrote one word reviews for some of these super short stories.

Here are some of my reviews: Eloquent. Bizarre. Troubling.

Mystifying. Literary. Horrific. Strange. Amusing. Perverted. Sexy. Clever. Hilarious. There’s something for everybody in “New Micro.”

Even you stubborn guys who claim you don’t have the time to read any books.

Vick Mickunas of Yellow Springs interviews authors every Saturday at 7 a.m. and on Sundays at 10:30 a.m. on WYSO-FM (91.3). For more information, visit www. wyso.org/programs/booknook. Contact him at vick@ vickmickunas.com.