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Get Adobe Express for free. So that's for Adobe Express to find out more. Happy Thursday book casers. It is Kate of the Kate and Charlie part of the bookcase team.

And if you're listening on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday,

that's okay too. I am, as Kate refers to me, the supernumerary host. I talked about myself as

the adjunct host to the bookcase

with Kate and Charlie last week. And Kate said, no, you're the supernumerary. I had to go look at it.

That's exactly what I said. I did say supernumerary. I used exactly those words. So we want to welcome

you. This is the bookcase with Kate and Charlie. But this week we might call it the Ben Shattuck show. The Ben Shattuck hour

for less than an hour. Now, we'll explain why we say that. Ben Shattuck has written a wonderful

collection of short stories called The History of Sound. It is just out. And it is a very well-constructed

series of short stories. I must confess to being somebody who's read a lot of

short stories, but it is not my first choice when I go into a bookstore to grab a book

to get short stories. There's Alice Monroe, of course, who's a wonderful practitioner of the art of

short stories. We talked to Amor Tolls a few weeks ago about Table for Two, which is selling so well.

Diane Oliver we talked to in the past.

Stephen King, a master, artist of the short story.

Sadiq Fafana, who we did at the beginning of our run, who we love stories from the tenants

downstairs.

But for the most part, short stories tend to get a little bit short shrift from readers.

This is a very, very well done, I think, series of 12 short stories,

model on what he calls the hook and chain.

The first story and the last story, the 12th, relate to one another.

...