The Chronicles of Harris Burdick, by Chris van Allsburg

Why I read it: New Yorker review

Podcasts: Alas, no.

Brow: If you're a child, this is pretty high-brow stuff, but if like me you loved the original book of drawings with captions and you picked this up out of nostalgia, it's middle brow.

Summary: Back in the 80s, Chris van Allsburg released a book of illustrations and captions that he claimed had been left at a publisher's office by a man identifying himself as Harris Burdick. Burdick promised to return the following day with stories to go along with the drawings, but never came back. Children and adults have been filling in the blanks with their own stories ever since. This is a collection by famous adult writers.

What I liked about it: I was obsessed with the original book of drawings as a kid and used it as my inspiration for nearly every creative writing project I had in school. Of course, these stories are not the same as the ones I would have written, but still, some of them have their own merits.

What I didn't like about it: Honestly, there's nothing not to like about it. If you still like whimsy and value creativity, buy one of the books and leave it on the shelf for visitors to discover and have their imaginations tickled by.

Complete Short Stories, Mark Twain

Why I read it: Western Canon

Podcasts: None

Brow: Although Twain is a supremely witty writer, the subject matter of these stories leaves them exactly in the middle.

Summary: 700 pages of Mark Twain's short stories. Some are very short, just a couple of pages, others are more like novellas and are nearly 100 pages. The earlier stories are light and funny, like 'The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County', but as Twain got older and more cynical, so do his stories, like 'The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg.'

What I liked about it: Much like myself, Twain was a natural skeptic with a sense of humour so dry it cracked in several places (cynical people might call us 'sarcastic'), and that comes out in his stories. It's also pretty clear that he was disgusted by the morality tales of his day, in which good little children are rewarded by the universe and bad little children are punished, as evidenced by 'The Story of the Bad Little Boy' and 'The Story of the Good Little Boy' in which the opposite happens. He also has the measure of human nature, with several tales of people and even entire towns corrupted by wealth or the promise thereof.

What I didn't like about it: Much as Twain might have disliked the sentimental morality tales of children, he wasn't above telling them about animals. 'A Horse's Tale' is a fable about a noble but abused horse and is the same sappy claptrap he was skewering in his stories about good children being punished.