A Complete List of All Books

In order to celebrate the fact that my debut short story collection, The Great Frustration, will be released in about a month, I have decided to compile a list of all the books that have ever been published. In addition to it being a fun opportunity to promote TGF, I figured it could serve as a scholarly resource (which is pretty much how I think of my blog anyway). Without further ado, here they are in no particular order:

Graham's French to English Dictionary

The Helicopter Joke Book

Jump-Around Howie's Big Book of Obvious Riddles

The Panther in the Cauldron: A Diaper Lewis Mystery

A Parent's Guide to Making Your Children Invincible to Witches

How to Tell Which Children Are Invincible to You: A Witch's Handbook

Mission to Cars: How to Attend an Auto Show

Dr. Paul d'Artagnan's Low Calorie Workout

Also:

Phone books

It's pretty humbling to see all those titles listed one after another. It's enough to make me realize that The Great Frustration will be little more than a grain of sand in an immense desert. Nevertheless, as far as grains of sand go, it's going to be awesome. Oh, also: Huckleberry Finn.

24 Stories 12 Weeks: The Great Frustration Pre-Publication Read-ebration

My debut short story collection is coming out in three months. In the publishing world three months is a very short amount of time. Whereas, for the rest of us, three months is a massive expanse of time that's as difficult to conceptualize as the distance between two galaxies.

It is for this reason that I've come up with The Great Frustration Pre-Publication Read-ebration (here I want to point out that the word "read-ebration" is a new word I came up with by smashing the word "read" into the word "celebration" and that this new word is my creative property). Participation is easy. And if you have a library card it's also free. For each week leading up to the release of my book, go find and read the short stories listed for that week (see below).

The selected stories are all so mind-bogglingly good that before you know it the three months will be up. There will be nothing standing between you and my book except possibly your own lack of interest. Enjoy!

Week 1
The Glass Mountain by Donald Barthelme (City Life)
Mississippi by Rick Bass (The Watch)

Week 2
The Adventure of the Bather by Italo Calvino (Difficult Loves)
The Rememberer by Aimee Bender (The Girl in the Flammable Skirt)

Week 3
Kafka Cooks Dinner by Lydia Davis (Varieties of Disturbance)
Bigfoot Stole My Wife by Ron Carlson (The News of the World)

Week 4
The Guest by Stanley Elkin (Criers & Kibitzers, Kibitzers & Criers)
Pet Milk by Stuart Dybek (The Coast of Chicago)

Week 5
The Ballad of the Sad Cafe by Carson McCullers (The Ballad of the Sad Cafe)
Some Other, Better Otto by Deborah Eisenberg (Twilight of the Superheros)

Week 6
Realism by Charles Yu (Third Class Superhero)
The Dinosaurs by Italo Calvino (Cosmicomics)

Week 7
The Magic Poker by Robert Coover (Pricksongs and Descants)
B Positive by Michael Czyzniejewski (Elephants in Our Bedroom)

Week 8
Paradise Park by Steven Millhauser (The Knife Thrower)
Dog Days by Judy Budnitz (Flying Leap)

Week 9
Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog by Stephanie Vaughn (Sweet Talk)
A Common Misunderstanding by Franz Kafka (The Complete Stories)

Week 10
Thomas Edison and Vasil Golakov by Lydia Millet (Love in Infant Monkeys)
But Soft ... Real Soft by Woody Allen (Without Feathers)

Week 11
Signifying Nothing by David Foster Wallace (Brief Interviews with Hideous Men)
The Joke by J. David Stevens (Mexico is Missing)

Week 12
The Balloon by Donald Barthelme (Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts)
The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World by G. Garcia Marquez (Collected Stories)

Top Five Most Anticipated Books of 2011

It's that time of year again in which I predict the books we're all going to be reading and talking about in 2011. My selection process is simple; I base my predictions on a series of questionnaires that are filled out by booksellers and librarians all over the country. The questionnaires are administered, collected, and analyzed by a team of official survey proctors from The Institute of Statistical Mathematics. Those proctors then submit the compiled data to me and I report it to you here as objectively as possible.

1.) The Great Frustration by Seth Fried

Needless to say, I was shocked and thrilled to learn that my debut short story collection is the most anticipated book of 2011. I mean, it's weird. I worked really hard on the book, and I was confident that people would like it. But to get this kind of validation before the book is even released is pretty overwhelming.

2. A back-up copy of The Great Frustration by Seth Fried

This one came as a pretty big surprise as well. Though, if you've dropped as many books in the tub as I have, it makes total sense.

3.) CliffsNotes guide to The Great Frustration by Seth Fried

While I hate to think of students taking the easy way out with respect to my book, the fact of the matter is that my stories are packed with some pretty dense imagery. Without the benefit of a little guidance, my prose could come off as downright intimidating to a young reader. It is for this reason that -- with some reservations -- I'm glad to see this guide take 2011's number three spot. Used correctly, I'm confident that it will help enhance people's reading experience.

4.) Ebook of The Great Frustration by Seth Fried

Ebooks are here to stay people. We all know that making things electronic is the same thing as making them better. Though, make sure to avoid enjoying my ebook if you have a pacemaker or are on a plane that is about to take off.

5.) Sadly, it was discovered during the course of this study that people only buy four books a year. My condolences to any forthcoming title that did not make the list.

A.V. Club's 10 Best Short Story Collections of the 00's

Short story collections and lists by the A.V. Club are two of my favorite things. So imagine my excitement when I learned that today those two things have, however briefly, commingled. I'm pretty disappointed that Dangerous Laughter didn't get a nod, but the whole fun of best and worst lists is choosing the degree to which you agree/disagree/don't care. Anyway, it's hard to feel anything but love for a list that features George Saunders and Kelly Link. Be sure to check it out!