For Cyprus, I read Selfie and Other Stories by Nora Nadjarian. Nora Nadjarian is an Armenian–Cypriot poet and short story writer who writes in English, Armenian, and Greek. I didn’t find any information about a translator in my edition, so I’m guessing she either wrote this in English or wrote it first in another language and then translated it herself.

When I was picking a book for Cyprus, I found two authors who were born there and have books available in English: Nora Nadjarian and Alex Michaelides. I had already read two of Michaelides’ novels: The Maidens and The Silent Patient. I LOVED both of those books and will eventually read The Fury, but in the interest of broadening my horizons, I picked Nadjarian for my quest.

Selfie and Other Stories was a short, fast read which I really appreciated because it was the seventeenth of eighteen books for the C countries, and I was eager to cross the C’s off my list. There’s just something so satisfying about being able to say I’ve finished the ABC countries. Like,I now truly believe that I will finish this quest in the foreseeable future. I was committed to this quest long ago, back when I was reading a collection of short stories for Afghanistan, but now that I can say I’m on the D countries, I feel like I can speak about this project with more authority and confidence.

But I digress!

I enjoyed Selfie and Other Stories but it did not leave much of an impression on me. As I read it, I enjoyed the overlapping, sometimes mingling stories, but I’m struggling to write about it now because I don’t remember much of what happened. Partly that’s my fault, because I finished the book a month ago, but mostly it’s because the stories were a bit gauzy and hazy. When a story is truly memorable, then I can recall its contours years later.

But perhaps that was the point of this collection. Maybe it was meant to be hazy and gauzy, like handfuls of sand falling through your fingers. Or, maybe I just had “literary short story fatigue,” which is obviously not a medical condition but should be. Before Cyprus, I read My Favorite Girlfriend Was A French Bulldog for Cuba, which was a literary novel that felt like a string of short stories, so perhaps after all the shifting perspectives of My Favorite Girlfriend, my brain was craving something a little more concrete.

Outside of my Read Around the World quest, I consciously vary the types of books I read so I do not burn out on a particular genre. These are the last five audiobooks I read:

• How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu: A blend of sci-fi, speculative fiction, dystopia, and fantasy
• The Last Devil to Die (Thursday Murder Club #4) by Richard Osman: Murder mystery
• The Grace Year by Kim Liggett: Another blend of sci-fi, speculative fiction, dystopia, and fantasy
• Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold: Sci-fi
• The Overstay by Richard Powers: Literary fiction

Aaaaaand now I’m laughing at myself, because I have obviously not been following my own advice. Clearly I’ve been on a sci-fi bender in recent months, but I did squeeze in a murder mystery to spice things up and I’m currently reading Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell which is very much NOT sci-fi.

OKAY. I believe that is enough rambling for one post. Can you tell I am supposed to be revising my novel-in-progess as soon as I hit publish on this post? Or maybe I just feel guilty for not having more to say about my book for Cyprus…