Winesburg, Ohio. Finished 9-9-17, rating 5/5, 247 pages, pub. 1919.

Winesburg, Ohio (1919) is Sherwood Anderson’s masterpiece, a cycle of short stories concerning life in a small town at the end of the nineteenth century. At the center is George Willard, a young reporter who becomes the confidant of the town’s solitary figures. Anderson’s stories influenced countless American writers including Hemingway, Faulkner, Updike, Oates and Carver. This new edition corrects errors made in earlier editions and takes into account major criticism and textual scholarship of the last several decades.    from Goodreads

I’m glad that I decided to add in classics this month.  When I asked Jason how I was going to fit in a book today he told me he thought the challenge was too hard.  But by focusing on books on my shelves that I haven’t take the time to read I discover gems that if I hadn’t given myself a deadline may have sat on the shelves for several more years.  Winesburg, Ohio is one of those.  It takes place in Ohio, check.  It’s on my Classics Club list, check.  Fellow book blogger Care sent it to me years ago, check.  Desire to read it, not so much.  It’s a series of short stories and looked pretty boring. It wasn’t.
Winesburg, Ohio is a series of 22 stories set in the fictional town.  Anderson wrote them in 1915-1916 and Winseburg was a small farming town in northern Ohio. Newspaper reporter George Willard is in most of the stories as a main character or in the periphery.  Life in this town left no one unscathed, but the stories were beautifully intertwined, like a puzzle.  I was always happy to pick it back up to see who I’d be hearing about next.  The structure was unique at the time and it credited for influencing many writers like Hemingway, Faulkner, Updike, and Bradbury.  I loved it!

This was my 16th selection for the Classics Club and I have until January 1, 2020 to get to 50.  I am woefully behind!