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By: Martyn Pedler
Date: 23rd May 07
Format: Book
Motivation: Pimp your coffee table
What:
One Story
Where:
By subscription only
How much:
US$51 for 18 issues
In a perfect world, directors would be forced to submit reasons in triplicate for exactly why their films should run for any longer than 87 minutes. As we're only just beginning the winter of bloated Hollywood threequels, it might be time to let your limited attention span guide you towards alternative entertainment.
One Story is a Brooklyn-based publisher of single-issue fiction - short novellas designed to be read in one sitting. Tired of only finding short stories sandwiched together in anthologies, One Story prints each piece of fiction as its own book. Their recent writers have gone on to win awards like Best New American Voices and Best American Non-Required Reading.
It's available by subscription only - so you'll have to find another excuse to lurk around bookstores and flirt on a Friday night - but even airmailed all the way to Melbourne, it's only US$51 for 18 stories, spread out over 12 months. (Their store also offers monochrome slipcases for a year's stories to help pretty up your bookshelf.) The editors say that "...there is always time to read one story." And in under 87 minutes, too.