Personally, I’ve always had mixed feelings about short stories. While some of my favorite works of literature are short stories, their very concept has nevertheless bothered me. I mean, why strive to make a story short? Doesn’t a lack of substance reflect a lack of skill or conviction? You can spend days, weeks or even months reading through a novel and by the time you reach the last page, you’ve felt like you’ve accomplished or learned something (assuming it was a good book). But with short stories, you can sit down and plow through one in 15 minutes, then move on to another.
While I recall reading countless short stories through elementary, middle and high school, there’s only a few I actually remember. But the short stories that I did enjoy reading, I hold in equal or even greater standing than novels I’ve enjoyed reading. Poe’s famously macabre short story “The Masque of the Red Death” was what inspired me to start writing, and, of course, the first piece I ever wrote was a short story as well. So, when my father mailed me a copy of B.J. Novak’s “One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories,” I didn’t exactly go into reading it with an open mind. While it can be argued that I’m a writing major because of short stories, I hadn’t read one, or, in fact, any work of literature, outside of class in a long time. Hell, part of me just wanted to appease the old man and read the damn thing. But, as you can probably tell from this long-winded intro and unnecessary context, I’m glad I did.
Some of you might know B.J. Novak from a small, somewhat successful U.S. version of a British comedy series called “The Office”, on which he was an actor, executive producer, and writer. Novak has also had roles in "Inglourious Basterds" (a purposely misspelled Tarantino film) and "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" (that other Spider-Man movie without Tobey Maguire). Before all this, B.J. Novak was actually a stand-up comedian, which may explain why “One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories” is the one of the funniest things I’ve ever read.
Now as the name suggest, Novak’s book is actually a collection of short stories, 63 to be exact. That number may seem a bit daunting, considering short stories can range anywhere from a couple of pages to a couple dozen. And with all of the short stories written by the same author, you might worry they’d get repetitive pretty quickly. But with Novak, the subject and style of each story is so varied, you might as well be reading a collection of short stories by different authors. For example, the first story in Novak’s collection is a sequel to the classic children’s tale of “The Tortoise and the Hare”, albeit with more relatable and adult themes, as well as a healthy dose of humor.
Later on, Novak writes about the fictional Comedy Central Roast of Nelson Mandela, and a woman’s blind date with a warlord. And speckled throughout Novak’s collection of short stories are some entries no longer than a couple of sentences. Originally, I thought these little snippets were just Novak messing with the readers or experimenting with form. However, they are just as hilarious and insightful as his actual short stories, which is a testament to Novak’s writing. So if you’re a fan of humor, ridiculous plots, or just great writing in general, check out B.J. Novak’s “One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories.”
