Another trip to the Country Inn and Suites in Pearl, MS, another free book from the bookshelf. The good news was that there were new book on the shelf. The bad? There wasn’t really anything that caught my eye on my last visit to Mississippi. I saw this thin volume by Mark Twain (86 pages) and thought I’d give it a go. It’s made up of 5 short stories. Four are under 10 pages and one’s about 60. The stories are:
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras
The Story of the Bad Little Boy
Is He Living or Is He Dead?
The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg
A Fable
Go ahead and read them online if you want. The were written between 1865 and 1900. So they are no longer copywrited.
The stories span Mark Twain’s writing career. The first is introduced as Twain’s most famous short story. As for the most famous story? Well at least it wasn’t the lamest of the bunch. But it was right up there with the Bad Little Boy. The problem what that there just wasn’t much action. The main character liked to bet with everyone on everything but I found that I really didn’t care either way.
Now I’m used to reading writing from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. The style is definitely different than today’s writing. But the first two stories sucked. I suggest you take the advice of the narrator from the first story. Unless you have an abundance of time and inclination, take your leave of this story. Skip the second and the last also.
The third story was humorous. It was the tale of 4 painters who realize that only dead artists make money. So they devise a way where one of the four will make the ultimate sacrifice to better the group. Or did he really die?
The longest story was pretty good. It’s a tale of an exemplary moral town. Much like the last story, appearances are not always what they seem. As it would turn out it is not that hard to corrupt Hadleyburg.
I enjoy reading different genres. Luckily for me my job gives me opportunities to pick up books of all types to sample. Most turn out to be pretty good. I try and give them all about 50 pages. If I’m not interested by then I stop reading. My method doesn’t work well when the book is only 86 pages, but then it probably only took me an hour or so to read it.
So if you’re staying in a Country Inn and Suites, I recommend you pick up any of the books that catch your eye and give it a try. You might find something interesting. There are many different versions of books with these stories. The version I picked up is The Celebrated Jumping Frog and Other Stories
