My favorite part of reading a book of short stories, like B.J. Novak’s “One More Thing,” is that unless you cheat and flip ahead to check, you have no idea if the particular story you’re reading is one page long or 10.
When you read a novel, you can sense by the dwindling number of pages on your right side that things are coming to an end and can make assumptions about what is getting wrapped up and when. You know when there’s time for a surprise and when it’s time to go.
Not so with short stories. A twist to relaunch in a new direction or another that brings a sudden end are equally possible.
I thoroughly enjoyed this read that is mixed with stories that are both insightful and funny and hit all the notes of stories we tell as humans. As a collection, they cover a lot of ground and feature occasional recall to earlier stories that make for delightful moments of recognizing something clever just happened.
There is the story of the guy who invented the calendar and had a plan for all months to be 40 days, but then had to adapt to his audience.
“Finally, I just told everyone that this would be the last day of January, and months would be just 30 days instead of 40. But there wasn’t enough time to get the word out. So to be safe, we have to make this month 31 days, and then we’ll make the rest 30. Not a big deal. Everyone is excited to see Febuary — including me!”
There’s also an elementary school principle who calls an assembly to tell the kids he’d like to eliminate math altogether. He asks them to consider the difference between themselves and a happy retirement community.
“The difference is ‘rithmetic! A retired person living by the ocean, just doing a little reading and writing till the end of their days — that’s the dream, right?’
In another favorite, a guy takes the adage “If I had a nickel…” for every time he spilled a cup of coffee and works out, in great detail, the economics behind making that a business.
And then there’s one of the shortest stories, which is brilliantly succint:
“I was sad that summer was over. But I was happy that it was over for my enemies, too.”
This was book number 19 of the year for me. I’ve long wanted to get back to 20, something I haven’t accomplished since 2009. Time to get reading.