Thursday, April 28, 2016

Post #7: Interesting Title

For this post, choose a short story based on its interesting title.  Then, find one aspect of the story that you liked, and write a short paragraph explaining its appeal.

46 comments:

  1. I picked "In Almfafi" by Ann Beattie, to be completely honest I picked the tittle because I didn't understand it. That appealed to me, and after really reading through the short story, I still do not know. It's confusing but the short story is great and paints a picture of beauty that resonates with me in a big way. Still utterly confused with what the title meant.

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  2. The short story I found with an interesting title was "The Child Who Raised Poisonous Snakes" by Can Xue. The title was an attention grabber, but so was the story. This child named Sha-yuan was found in the park by his parents. Sha-yuan was bitten by a snake and ever since that day was a completely different child. The parents were scared and worried for their son because he would collect poisonous snakes. Sha-yuan even bit the finger of another boy thinking it was a snake. Sha-Yuan would collect snakes because he would like when his mother would slaughter them with a hoe. The parents are described as old, bald, and with a twitching eye. The parents have seemed to give up on their son because no matter how much attention they gave him he would still appear with snakes or have the snakes in his stomach. Sha-yuan seems to have paranormal behavior according to the description in the story. Sha- yuan tells his parents, "Now I don't need a place to raise snakes," "They are in my belly." This short story was very interesting and sort of creepy. I would recommend this story for the class to read. It is really interesting.

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  3. The story I found to have a captivating title was ' Never Marry a Mexican' by Sandra Cisneros. The reason why i liked this story was because its story line to it. A girl who falls inlove with a man Drew who is much older than her, is married , and has a son and since his wife is white and not Mexican she doesnt care about sleeping with him. She then says how she doesnt want to get married and after reading the book a I got the feeling that she doesnt want to get married because she is scared of being cheated on or her cheating. I found this story to be interestibg and fun to read because the story was being told by the ' lovers' point of view and she wouldnt sugar coat any of the horrible things she's done. At the end of the story it was weird and hard to understand because it seemed like she ended up sleeping with Drew's son because she wanted him to love her the way she loved his father which i found weird because that meant he was much younger than her.

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  4. Title that which grabbed me the most was “Minutes of Glory” by Ngugi Wa Thiong. From just looking at the title alone the title Minutes of Glory gives reader a symbolic story, with words such as glory meaning success and happiness and minute referring temporary and limited. The two words alone give context of what the possible theme in the short story. The aspect in which I liked the most was the idea of insecurity and materialism.The author use of the protagonist insecurities make for a compelling story in understanding a women struggle of acceptance. Themes such as those make for a interesting read and appealing story to understand.

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  5. I picked, "Gorilla, My Love" by Toni Cade Bambara. I chose this title because it sounded funny and gorillas make me think of "Tarzan". Unfortunately, the short story wasn't about gorillas at all. It was about a family who went to see a movie called "Gorilla, My Love" and the family was upset that the movie wasn't about gorillas too. Then there was a quarrel between what I think was a grown man and a little girl because she thought that they were going to get married; to be honest I was confused by this story. I did like that both the characters and me were both disappointed that "Gorilla, My Love" had nothing to do with gorillas.

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  6. The title that grabbed my interest the most was "Minutes of Glory" by Ngugi wa Thiong'o, and is a story from Kenya. My first thought the title gave me a sense of witnessing an important event in the characters life. As much pressure and as symbolic as making key decisions in life, referring to "Minutes of Glory", which time is limited in order to do something memorable, despite the elements of challenge in place. The author uses the insecurities of the main character in order to understand their struggle of acceptance. The theme of the story takes the reader on a journey to better understand the world.

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  7. The title that caught me was "In the shadow of war" by Ben Okri. The title and the story being set in Nigeria is what ultimately got me interested in reading this short story, wanting to know how someone is able to live through a civil war in their perspective.My favorite details would include the beginning of the story where Omovo and his father and enjoy their time with each other listening to the news. I thought that was a simple yet very expressive part of the story. Another example would be the forest scene. That would be my favorite. Ben Okri provided great imagery, I felt like I was actually in the forest with the characters. I could see everything that he described. The forest scene was a very important one and Okri did a great job with it.

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  8. I chose the short story with the title, "The Lifeguard" because I thought it was going to be a short romantic story. Well it wasn't really, but I still liked it. I liked how the author wrote from the lifeguards perspective, but also in a teenage boy perspective. This was seen in the way he talked about himself, the way he talked about the teenage girls, and the way he talked about people over 20 making them sound like they were ancient old. However, the ending was quite unexpected and odd when he comes to talk to Mrs. Lovenheim.

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  9. The title that caught my attention right away was "Never Marry a Mexican" by Sandra Cisneros. At first I was interested in reading it because I wanted to see the reasons as to why one should never marry a Mexican. Then I saw the author was a female and thought it was going to be about a guy who hurt her and happened to be Mexican. However, after reading the story I realized that the Mexican she was referring to was herself. It appears to me that past events and memories that caused this woman pain, are what caused and contributed to her actions and mistakes and deep down inside she knows she did wrong and therefore says to never a marry a Mexican. Despite the fact that I completely disagree with the characters actions done in the story, I really enjoyed the story for the suspense and drama that came with it. Whenever she would describe a past event, I was very intrigued to keep reading because I wanted to see what else this crazy lady did. Overall, it was a very good story that was well enjoyed.

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  10. The title that caught my interest was "Aren't You Happy for Me?" by Richard Bausch. The story is about a father and daughter talking over the phone and how it becomes a heated conversation because the young daughter is marrying and have a child with a 63 year old man. I liked this story because the dialogue was really good and it was anticipating because the daughter had so many secrets to tell her father and the father also had a secret he needed to tell her too. Also the emotions in this story were so well described that you too felt the way the father and the daughter were feeling. It was a really good story and kept me interested.

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  11. Jocelyne RodriguezMay 2, 2016 at 4:43 PM

    The short story that I chose was titled "Who, Me a Bum?" by Luisa Valenzuela. At first, I thought that the story was going to be about someone being accused of being homeless or having no money but this story turned out to be more meaningful. The story starts off with a homeless man who is being kicked out of his shelter and is yelled at for taking up space and "to make room for somebody else." Later on, the bum gets on the subway and over hears someone complaining about how the man who committed suicide is inconsiderate and is making everyone late for work and he should have chosen another day to kill himself. The bum compares himself to suicide and how his life is an inconvenience to society just like the man who committed suicide was to everyone on the subway. I believe that the message that Valenzuela was trying to portray is that human life is reduced to a matter of taking up space or taking up time if it's not beneficial to the working class.

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  12. One of the short stories that caught my attention by just reading the title is “Never Marry a Mexican” by Sandra Cisneros. I thought the story was going to give the reader reasons on why not to marry a Mexican but that was not the case. The narrator, Clemencia, was daughter of a Mexican father and a Mexican-American mother. Clemencia was Chicana and her mother always told her to “never marry a Mexican”. An interesting aspect of this story is that with this phrase Clemencia’s mother meant to tell her daughter not to marry a man who grew up in Mexico. This is due to the customs and traditions and the culture clash that the mother experienced. The mother wished for Clemencia to marry someone more Americanized, who would offer her more freedom and be less traditional with regards to the “woman’s place” in a marriage home. However, this statement takes a different meaning for Clemencia, she rejects Latino men and instead sleeps with married white men. One of the men is Drew, Clemencia claims to love him but she uses sex with him as a way to display power. Clemencia even ends up having sex with Drew’s son by somehow through him connect to Drew. The phrase “never marry a Mexican” really got distorted and took Clemencia to the extremes.
    -Marlene Herrera

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  13. One of the titles that stood out to me was “G-String”, by Nicola Barker. The title stood out to me because most people would not name a story after underwear, because that would be mentioning the unmentionable. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this story because I felt as if it had a good message for women. It told the story of a young woman who was trying to get a gentleman to notice her, so she decides to wear a G-string because she was told all the girls are wearing it and the guys love it. But in the end she realizes that being her self attracted the man more than the type of underwear she was wearing. For me, the moral of the story is regardless of what is trending or what other girls are doing to get noticed, being you will always suffice.

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  15. The short story that had a title that grabbed my attention was Hanan Al-Shaykh story called "the keeper of the virgins."
    My first thought when I read the title was it was being sarcastic and the story was going to be about a someone owning a brothel. But when I began to read it the story grabbed my attention because it was actually about a dwarf who became a watch keeper for a nuns convent. It is a very compelling story showing themes of obsession and lust as the dwarf falls for one of the nuns.

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  16. Jessica RodriguezMay 2, 2016 at 9:12 PM

    The short story I found with an interesting title was "Midnight and I'm Not Famous Yet" by Barry Hannah. When I read the title I assumed the short story was going to be about a character who is trying really hard to become famous. Now, after reading the short story, I realized how the author uses first person most of the time. This story is mainly about the narrator who meets a photographer and they become really close friends. Over time, the narrator feels the fame, but throughout time passing there are problems that the narrator will encounter which will change his point of view towards life.

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  17. The short story title that stood out to me was "The Farm" by Joy Williams. Judging by the title, I thought this was going to be an uplifting story about life on a farm or in the country. It was really about a broken marriage and a car accident that left a fifteen year old dead. Sarah's marriage with her husband Tommy is a bit rocky and she is suspicious of an affair. When they were driving home one night from a party, Sarah crashed the car due to her drinking and hit and killed a fifteen year old boy named Stevie. I didn't know where the title "The Farm" would come into the story, until Stevie's mom said that he had used the phrase "bought the farm" to talk about death. This pertains to Stevie's actual death and maybe even the end of Sarah's marriage.
    -Emily Leyva

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  18. The title that caught my eye was "The Glass Tower" by Reinaldo Arenas. The story starts out rather normal, describing the difficulties a novelist was having with constantly being obligated to attend social events instead of writing. As the story goes on, he becomes more and more crazy. At a party, he's seeing all of the characters in his head that he hasn't yet written about and they're all screaming at him. I'm under the impression that Reinaldo Arenas was experimenting with psychedelic drugs while writing this story because it only becomes more bizarre and the ending does not conclude anything or make sense to me at all. But it was an interesting story and definitely keeps you reading it until the end.

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  19. The short story "Night Women" by Edwidge Danticat interested me. The title gives the idea that the short story will be scary and mysterious. The short story is actually about a mother as a night dancer and how she waits for her son to fall asleep to go to work. One aspect I like about this short story is how the audience could understand through the eyes of the mother of how she takes on the role of a night dancer to support her son.

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  20. The title that caught my attention was "The Hammam", by Herve Guibert. First of all it caught my attention because I've never heard of the word before and was interesting in learning what it means and what the story is about. Hervet Guibert is a french writer, which my explain why I can't pronounce neither his name or the title of this short story. The story is about a day at a establishment, the Hammam, which is a spa kind of place. I looked up the word Hammam and it is a turkish bath, which men tend to take with each other. The guy in the story notices that the men are all staring him like if there was something wrong with him. It seems to me like all these men at the establishment are gay men in the 70's which is when people weren't so aware about it or wasn't accepted as it is today. Maybe these men are all staring at him because the main guy may have contracted AIDS.

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  21. The title that I thought was interesting was "Are These Actual Miles" because I like to run and when I saw the word miles I thought of running. This story was mainly about materialism. I found it interesting how in the beginning of the story, it is mentioned how leo and toni are bankrupt and have to sell their convertible so that the court doesn't take it away from them yet toni is dressing in a 'new shirt' and 'new shoes'. They are struggling financially yet toni is still said to be wearing 'new things'. They have become so use to spending their money that even when they are bankrupt, toni seems to continue to waste money. Towards the middle leo tells toni that things will change on Monday.. and in a week but toni ignores him. She ignores him as if she knows nothing will change.

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  22. The short story I found with an interesting title was "Dharma" by Vikram Chandra. The word dharma in Sikhism means path of righteousness. The short story was mainly focused on a ghost story while at the same time providing a twist. Major General Jago Antia, a senior officer in the Indian Army was missing one of his leg and started to feel phantom pain in his missing leg. Jago Antia resigns as General and moves back to his childhood home in Bombay. Apparently, the house he moved back into was haunted, and Jago Antia had to somehow face up to the ghosts of his past. The only way he had to escape without raising his path of righteousness. The title "Dharma" comes into the story when Major General Jago Antia finds peace with all of his wrongs doings.

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  23. I decided to read the short story "All because of the Mistake" by Daniel Del Giudice because of its title. The title interested me because I wanted to know what the mistake was. In this short story, the doubts and insecurities we often have within ourselves are shown through a journal/diary-like story. I also interpreted that often times we need to make mistakes in order to see things from a new light or simply learn.

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  24. “Never Marry a Mexican” by Sandra Cisneros is the title of the short story that grabbed my attention. The title grabbed my attention because I thought it was going to be a funny story, but it wasn’t. I have read other story of that author and were funny. This story is about a character named Clemencia. She talks about her how her parents’ culture, her family and also about an affair she had with a married man. She talks about her father being very humbled and was never greedy, he came from a middle class family and he was Mexican. Her mother was American and was always getting criticized by her father’s family because she was different. Her dad got sick and her mother was cheating on him. Her mom plays an important part in the story, she learned from her mother that having affairs were ok. She has an affair with a guy name Drew. She talks about how they were making love while Drew’s wife was giving birth. Throws the end of the story she tries seducing her lover’s son. I thought that part of the story was a little disturbing because she is way older than him.

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  25. The short story, "Who, Me a Bum?" by Luisa Valenzuela caught my attention. It had an unique titled that I wanted to read more into because the title was vague and I did not know what it could be about. One thing I liked about this story was that it shows the struggle within oneself that some people may go through. The main character telling the story once was a teacher but lost everything that he had, and he feels that there's nothing else that he could lose now so he is contemplating suicide. It teaches a life lesson because people never know what another person is going through, yet we are so quick to judge.

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  26. Luisa Valenzuela's "Who, Me a Bum?" was the short story i decided to read because the title seemed interesting because of the spark of wonder. This story, although short (2 pages), was interesting because the character shows the importance and change of perspective when it comes to losing. Being a teacher he is not willing to risk as much as when he lost everything, to the point where suicide becomes a daily option. Its a really great short story because risks weaken who we are, "When you're risking something your protest is weaker..." when it can actually strengthen; and in this case, "Protesting would be like being born again, I'd be again on the alert, so here I go."

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  27. The Poem title that I found interesting is "Never Marry a Mexican" by Sandra Cisneros, this title is interesting because in the beginning she talks about how her mom does not want her to marry a Mexican like her dad because of time and she should marry someone else. She also talks about how she does not want to marry one. It is an interesting topic that speaks to me because many people that I know in my family are married to a Mexican.

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  28. The title that caught my attention was "Who, Me a Bum?" by Luisa Valenzuela. When I first read this title in my head I thought the story could possibly be about someone who was accused of being homeless but they would not accept the fact that they are or the help that people are willing to do for them. However, my assumptions were wrong; the story talks about this man who used to work as a Spanish high school teacher but is now homeless. He explains how everything can be going good in life but we can lose it all any second. He is in a train where there was an incident of a man who committed suicide, which causes the train to be delayed; the homeless man starts to think about suicide as well because he now has nothing lose since he already lost it all. The story shows how we can be living a great successful life but in the matter of seconds that can all change.

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  29. "The Canebrake" by Mohammed Mrabet was the title that caught my attention. I thought I was going to be reading about maybe a old man or something about breaking a cane or something like that. After reading the short story it was about a couple who was going through there everyday life and doing a little extra that was a little much for the reader.

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  30. The short story title that caught my attention was, Never Marry a Mexican" by Sandra Cisneros. This caught my attention because it was very straight to the point. The story was about a Mexican-American family who had to deal with many issues. Clemencia had to grow up knowing her mother was having an affair on her dad. She thought that it was okay for that to happen because she knew no better. When Clemencia grew up, her mother told her to never marry a Mexican. So, she never dated anyone of color and instead only had affairs with white, married men. She liked it at first, but by the end of the story she started to become jealous of her lover's wife and she wanted to be a wife to a man someday. But because of her ways, she did not change and was very bitter thinking all men cheated and she would never find anyone.

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  31. I picked the short story "Intimacy" by Hanif Kureishi, because I thought it was going to be a romantic short story. However, in the story it talks about a man who has been with his wife for 10 years and have 2 sons together. unfortunately, he is thinking about leaving her. He is giving many reasons on why he wants to leave his wife, and just like any marriage they always think about the kids. So he is trying to tell himself they will be fine but he has that doubt of leaving them alone. I found this story to be interesting because I got to get a sense of what males think and feel.

    -Stephanie Hurtado

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  32. I picked the short story G-String by Nicola Barker, the title caught my attention and made me laugh. The rest of the story was even better, i liked how in the end she stood up for herself in a small but important way which otherwise she would not have done.

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  33. Based on its title, "G-String" by Nicola Barker was the short fiction story title that stood out the most to me. It is an interesting title and I was curious to read if "G-String" was, in a sense, maybe related to the idea of men objectifying women. I genuinely enjoyed the read for its valuable themes. The main character, Gillian, went through a transition, which I thought was magnificent of her to do. As a character, she first was very self-conscious and because of that she allowed Collin Kip, a man she had been dating for quite some time, and Jeanie, a saleswoman, to somewhat control her and her appearance. At first, she lacked self-worth, the then towards the end she undoubtedly stood up for herself and did not allow Collin to continue make her feel like less of a woman. As seen socially, plenty of times people will always want an individual to be someone they are not, which is why it is significant for everyone to be true to themselves despite the opinion others.

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  34. I chose the story dirt angel, it's seemed more on the darker side of stories. Which it was...unfortunately there was a lot of drug addiction and it was very sad to read. In life people can experience all kinds of addiction. Not only with drug use but gambling and sex to name a couple. It is a hard thing to get out of once a person gets sucked in. The only problem I can't justify in this story is the baby was being affected. It's one thing to harm yourself knowing it's not good for you but when there is someone involved who doesn't have a voice that's when it's unacceptable.

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  35. The short story's title I choose was "Mohammed Mrabet" because I thought it sounded interesting. I liked that this woman was smart and stood up for herself even tho I don't justify her cheating on her husband. As reader I thought it was a good drama and entertaining. It was a very unexpected twist through out the whole story I was also in suspense the whole time.

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  36. The short story title that stood out to me the most was "Pornography" by Ian McEwan. I actually found the story really entertaining due to it's humility. The story is not what I expected. From the title, I thought it was going to be about the porn industy.

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  37. The title I found most interesting was, Never Marry a Mexican by author Sandra Cisneros. The adult woman in this episodic story reflects on advice from her scorned Mexican mother; warning against marring within their own race…as the title implies. The term, Fanfarron is used to describe the girl’s father; it’s a Hispanic word that means showing-off or pretentious. Her father displays this behavior though his expensive apparel made from quality material. This is a parallel characteristic the girl becomes subconsciously attracted to, as described by the type of man she has a long term affair with.
    My favorite paragraph is the revelation of this idea on page 186; because prior to this, there’s an implication of intentional contrast to the fanfaron. The girl goes out of her way to avoid making the same mistakes as her mother…marrying a Mexican. The two races represent this extended metaphor. However, Cisnero’s uses metonymy as a vehicle to describe the attraction the girl has to men who have a pretentious air about them. Perhaps the title should have been, beware of the fanfarrons.

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  38. “G-String”, by Nicola Barker stood out to me the most and was a story very worth reading. The story of a women who longed for the attention of a certain man, and despite all her own morals goes against herself and follows the crowd. The title itself speaks of the trend she decided to follow, but ultimately was able to better herself and realize that she could achieve what she wanted only if she would have acted as herself. The strong message of ones own self assurance, to me feels like confidence in yourself and always to remain true to yourself which made me enjoy the story all the more.

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  39. The short that caught my attention was "Aren't you happy for me" by Richard Bausc. This poem is about a father and daughter conversation over the phone, whom she confessing to her dad about er relationship was one of her previous literature professors who is 63 years old. I picked this poem because I thought it would be differently but it was a very good poem. The dialogue made it more interesting, it made me keep reading to figure out what would happen at the end Overall, good short story.

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  40. A story that I found had an interesting title was "Never Marry a Mexican" by Sandra Cisneros. I found this title interesting because it kind of seems like a skeptical title that you would never generally see. The person who is telling the story is a daughter who is named Clemency and is old enough to decide who she wants to invest her personal life with. She tells the story through a point of view of her sexual doings. The reason "Never Marry a Mexican" is the title is because this is what Clemencia's mother always told her. Clemencia took her mother to extremes when she told her this because all she did was going around sleeping with married white men. Her mother did not mean don't marry anybody who's mexican, she meant don't marry anybody that was born in Mexico. She said this because of her past experiences knowing that men born in Mexico treat there wives as the one who stays home and cleans and can't live up to doing whatever she pleases to do career wise. Her mother was looking out for her but Clemencia took her to an extreme and took a lot of wrong turns.

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  41. The short story that interested me by the title was "Encounter" by Roy Jacobsen. This short story left me at a cliff hanger. I like how in the story the fisher finds a man and becomes curious as to who he is. When he discovers that this man sells books in order to pay off his schooling it sparks more curiosity for the fisher. And since the fisher had no money with him he told the man were he lived so that the man could find him. But it left me wondering if the man actually went to the fishermen's house or not.

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  42. The story "G-String" by Nicola Barker stood out to me as the title was intriguing. It's a story about a woman, Gillian, who finds confidence in herself amidst the demanding world around her. She begins by being pressured to present herself as a certain way, much like Katharine Hepburn, when going out with Mr. Kip. Meanwhile, Jeanie insisted upon a modern edge for Gillian. What appealed to me was when Gillian decided to stand up for herself. A woman who was pushed around by people far too often decided to stop allowing herself to be maltreated. For that, I found a great experience reading this story.

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  44. I chose the short story "Who, Me a Bum?" by Luisa Valenzuela because of it's interesting and ambiguous title. I predicted the story would be about appearances and judging a book by its cover. One aspect of the story that I really enjoyed was that it related to current events for example, the growing homeless rate in the U.S. "good-by to food that's awful but regular, good-by to a flea-ridden blanket but a blanket nonetheless", Valenzuela gives the reader a fresh perspective on life, time, and death.

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    1. The story I found most appealing by title was "Immortal" by Martin Amis. Honestly, I found the whole story appealing and it was hard for me to pick one part that was the most appealing. The beginning, on the other hand, was definitely an attention grabber. The story starts of with an immortal man watching the last of the human race dying out. (It appeared to be post-apocalyptic.) He explains how alone he would feel once all of them die out and then about how his life as an immortal was from up to that point in the story.

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  45. The story that caught my attention by just reading the title would have to be "You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town," by Zoe Wicomb. The reason this story got my attention would be because it reminds me of my own little town. It is really small and when passing through it, it is really hard to get lost there. One aspect of this story was that there is violence in this story, just like in my little home town. Relating the two was what made this story a really good one.

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