Free Joe R Lansdale stories
Posted by Ed on 9 February 2008
Joe Lansdale is an author I decided to check out last year after reading numerous good reports all over the web about his work. US publisher Golden Gryphon have three collections of his short stories, still readily available in the UK. The first two, High Cotton and Bumper Crop, are regarded as the definitive collections of his short story output, selected by Joe his ownself, and it was these two I decided to read as my introduction to his writing. Bought High Cotton, was impressed, so bought Bumper Crop, and have the third one, Mad Dog Summer, a paperback only reissue of a Subterranean special edition on the increasingly more cluttered “to read” shelves.
Joe is a prolific writer, and a lot of his older stories and books can be difficult to come by. It’s just as well then that he is generous enough to host these shorter works on his website. Every Thursday a different story is uploaded, with the previous one removed, so you only get a week to read it. This week’s is a great fun piece of flash fiction – Cat, Dog, and Baby - available in the High Cotton anthology. Like much of his work it’s not for the easily offended so be warned before strolling on over to read it, complete with a short introduction on how the story came about.
If you enjoy that one keep checking that link each week, usually on a Friday here in the UK, for more masterful story telling. I’ve links below to The Book Depository for the three Golden Gryphon anthologies if you’re sufficiently impressed to want to buy them.
High Cotton – hardback, paperback
Bumper Crop – hardback, paperback
Mad Dog Summer – paperback
