400 Words #2

A collection of stories written in four hundred words or less on the topic of "compulsions". If you think this might be a boring read then you underestimate Katherine Sharpe's editorial choices. Stories of relatives with obsessive cleaning habits and people who can't stop reading, talking, or stealing splenda packets. Carefully selected from hundreds of entries, these stories are well written, funny, touching, tragic, and sometimes truly poetic. You only have to read a few pages before you ask yourself: "Why didn't I think of this first?" And then, what would I write about my own compulsions? It is this thought that makes this such a jewel, the ability to make the specific universal and vice versa.