Why am I passionate about this?

I have a Ph.D. in English from Lehigh University, where I studied and published articles on Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, one of the greatest short fiction collections. I have written and published a number of short stories myself. I even won a contest for one of them. The tale told around the campfire is probably the oldest literary form there is, much older than the novel. The best short fiction, I believe, can “pack everything that a novel can hold into a story,” as Jorge Luis Borges said, and this is the kind of short fiction I believe I have found.


I wrote

Five Moral Tales

By Theodore Irvin Silar,

Book cover of Five Moral Tales

What is my book about?

"Cena with Tata" - Ancient Rome: An iron-willed matron tells of her once-great family’s fall, and her campaign to regain…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Labyrinths

Theodore Irvin Silar Why did I love this book?

Labyrinths is the most uncanny short story collection I’ve ever read. No other writing I know compares to it. Borges builds each story from a philosophical concept. 

For example:

What if the tree that fell in the forest really didn’t exist?

What if life was deliberately random?

What if you could only think of one thing?

What if you could remember everything?

Sound boring? No way. Just the opposite, because these mind-boggling ideas play out in the everyday world, the world of groceries, love letters, collies, fountain pens. 

No matter how often I do, each time I read a Borges story, I sit back, and my mind reels off across the universe. Truly, indescribably profound.

By Jorge Luis Borges,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked Labyrinths as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The groundbreaking trans-genre work of Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) has been insinuating itself into the structure, stance, and very breath of world literature for well over half a century. Multi-layered, self-referential, elusive, and allusive writing is now frequently labeled Borgesian. Umberto Eco's international bestseller, The Name of the Rose, is, on one level, an elaborate improvisation on Borges' fiction "The Library," which American readers first encountered in the original 1962 New Directions publication of Labyrinths.

This new edition of Labyrinths, the classic representative selection of Borges' writing edited by Donald A. Yates and James E. Irby (in translations…


Book cover of The Explorers

Theodore Irvin Silar Why did I love this book?

I first read The Explorers when I was a child. I delighted in it then and still do. Its style got to me first. A real literary style. Some of the stories are hard-boiled, Raymond Chandler in space. Some poetic. But so much better than most clunky SF. And also, so unconventional This is not Azimov. Rather than space opera, we get a scientist drunk, bemoaning his “contributions” to space flight. Instead of wondrous inventions, we get cheesy computer art. Brainless generals celebrate nuclear war. Well-written, unusual, simultaneously funny and sad, The Explorers is a masterpiece of 50s SF.

By C.M. Kornbluth,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Explorers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Ballantine Books, 1963. Mass market paperback, stated 2nd printing (with cover exactly as shown here, cover code #F708, and 50 cent cover price). Collects 9 stories: Gomez (1954); The Mindworm (1950); The Rocket of 1955 (1939); The Altar at Midnight (1952); Thirteen O'Clock (1941); The Goodly Creatures (1952); Friend to Man (1951); With These Hands (1951); That Share of Glory (1952). Foreword by longtime collaborator Frederik Pohl.


Book cover of Six Great Modern Short Novels

Theodore Irvin Silar Why did I love this book?

I recently re-read Six Great Modern Short Novels, after I’d been reading a lot of recent commercial fiction. I shook my head in amazement. A thought came unbidden into my head: “This is what they mean by great literature.” All six novels are simply so much ̶  better (I can say it no better). I had read it as a youth. But the second time was even more compelling. Even the lesser novels were light-years ahead of your run-of-the-mill bestseller. Each left me with a feeling I had forgotten literature could engender ̶ a kind of exalted acceptance, an awed wonder, a transcendence, a nobility. Read them one at a time. All at once may be too powerful.

By William Faulkner, James Joyce, Herman Melville , Nikolay Gogol , Katherine Anne Porter , Glenway Wescott

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Six Great Modern Short Novels as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Six immortal shorts works of fiction, each by a brilliant artist, each universally acclaimed. The Dead, by James Joyce. Billy Budd by Herman Melville. Noon Wine by Katherine Anne Porter. The Overcoat by Nikolay Gogol. The Pilgrim Hawk by Glenway Wescott and The Bear by William Faulkner.


Book cover of Four Short Stories: A Great Storyteller at His Best

Theodore Irvin Silar Why did I love this book?

Any Maugham story has to be great. This collection is no exception. Usually a character in his own stories, Maugham will play the part of reader’s confidant, recounting a story about a friend of his, or a friend of a friend, as it were second-hand. I particularly like how he handles the theme of money in this collection (unlike Balzac, who introduces money with a truncheon): no big deal; but such a bother. Each story seems a trifling anecdote, distanced, cursory ̶ until the perfect note of pathos slips in. And Matisse’s simple line drawings complement Maugham’s prose nicely.

Book cover of Selected Stories

Theodore Irvin Silar Why did I love this book?

I like how de Maupassant, in this collection (like Balzac, only more succinctly), runs the gamut of society: two vagrants who live in a rowboat, milkmaids, nuns, soldiers, clerks, seamstresses, shop-owners, the elegant and fashionable, counts and countesses. Likewise he runs the gamut of tone from tragedy to romance to slapstick to farce to sophisticated wit. Each story is so different, one might suspect multiple authors, but for that unmistakable, to-the-point style ̶ and that perfect kicker at the end. De Maupassant is the wizard, some say the originator, of the modern short story. This is real literature in miniature.

By Guy de Maupassant, Brian Rhys (translator), Marjorie Laurie (translator)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Selected Stories as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A beautiful hardcover selection of the best works by one of the greatest short story writers in world literature

During his most productive decade, the 1880s, the French writer Guy de Maupassant wrote more than three hundred stories, notably including "The Necklace," "Boule de Suif," "The Horla," and "Mademoiselle Fifi." Marked by the psychological realism that he famously pioneered, the stories selected here take us on a tour of the human experience—lust and love, revenge and ridicule, terror and madness. Many take place in the author's native Normandy, but the settings range farther abroad as well, from Brittany and Paris…


Explore my book 😀

Five Moral Tales

By Theodore Irvin Silar,

Book cover of Five Moral Tales

What is my book about?

"Cena with Tata" - Ancient Rome: An iron-willed matron tells of her once-great family’s fall, and her campaign to regain its former glory. "Hunger and Thirst" -Sadness, anxiety, dread has infected the whole world.  Discovering the cause, an altruist strikes blows to save it. "The Worst Day of My Life" - The bishop’s head torturer has all a man could desire—until his scatterbrained daughter presents him with a problem. "Misericord" - Hospitalized with anaphylaxis, a man learns his life is not as blessed as he thought, and neither his loved ones nor his doctor have his best interests at heart. "Found in a Cave" - A California woman writes about how she and her family have survived the collapse of society only to end up awaiting an uncertain fate high in the mountains.

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Book cover of The Bloomsbury Photographs

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Why am I passionate about this?

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What is my book about?

An enthralling portrait of the Bloomsbury Group’s key figures told through a rich collection of intimate photographs. Photography framed the world of the Bloomsbury Group. The thousands of photographs surviving in albums kept by Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Dora Carrington, and Lytton Strachey, among others, today offer us a private insight into their lives.

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The Bloomsbury…

The Bloomsbury Photographs

By Maggie Humm,

What is this book about?

An enthralling portrait of the Bloomsbury Group's key figures told through a rich collection of intimate photographs

Photography framed the world of the Bloomsbury Group. The thousands of photographs surviving in albums kept by Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Dora Carrington, and Lytton Strachey, among others, today offer us a private insight into their lives.

Maggie Humm brings together a curated selection of these photographs to offer us a fresh portrait of the Bloomsbury Group, showing them in a new, domestic intimacy. She brings to life the texture of Bloomsbury: their pastimes, children, clothes, houses, servants, pets, holidays. Several photographs are…


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