Dating writers

In effect, anthologies resemble dating. You enjoy some swell times and suffer through some awful ones, until one happy hour you encounter a story you really, really like and decide to settle down a while with its author.

Michael Dirda, Browsings

I can't remember the last anthology I've read, an anthology being a book, often a long book, filled with stories by different writers. These can be collections of the best stories of the year, for example, or collections of stories on a certain subject or theme. College literature classes often involve reading stories from anthologies — or at least they did when I was in college.

Years ago I used to read those paperbacks with Alfred Hitchcock's picture on the cover, mystery stories of the sort he might have featured, or sometimes did feature, on his television show. The anthologies that most stick in my mind are the science fiction collections I read as a teenager, books like Science Fiction Showcase and A Century of Science Fiction. And yes, as Michael Dirda observes above, this was something like dating.

At this time in my life I knew very little about either mystery writers or sci-fi writers — or about girls either, for that matter. Reading anthologies introduced me to a number of writers, some of whom I liked very much, others not at all. When I read a story I really enjoyed, I usually remembered the name of the author, and this in many cases led me to other stories or even novels by this same author. I believe my "romance" with Isaac Asimov and Clifford D. Simak, among others, may have begun by reading science fiction anthologies.

Now I prefer reading novels or books of short stories by a single author, but  I do have happy anthology memories ... and happy dating memories, as well.