Reading Cicero

So I picked up a collection of Cicero's works a while back. It was a used philosophy text. I got it for two fifty. I was on the way home and I was about to stop off at the local book store to pick up a copy of On Friendship for about twenty bucks, when I thought, why not wait, see if I have it at home. Lord knows you have other things to read if not.

Low and behold, On Friendship, On Duties and other key texts by Cicero were mine for 2.50.

So I find Cicero to be a bit folksie. His wisdom seems down home, common sense, though I imagine that it is actually a little uncommon. Here was the quote the hit me with a bit of laughter:

"Friendship...the finest equipment that life can offer". About 25 pages in.

I'm also reading book ten of Augustine's Confessions, Hugh McClennan's The Watch that Ends the Night, and a book of short stories I am reviewing called The Shadow Side of Grace. I'm starting to hate short story writers. I find them to be a bit pretentious. Now the best SS writers are great, but the bad ones like to throw characters at you so fast your head is spinning, then they like to play games with erasing details you would like to know (they are fascinated with the fragment - seems a bit derivative of the news clip to me), and pulling plot twists out of their asses. I'm starting to believe the short story is for people too impatient and daft to write novels. Trust me, if you are tempted to write a short story, put the pen down now! If you can put it down, it was probably for the best, if you can't then more power to you, just give me no more then four new characters per page. And don't stroke your genius; if you're tempted it probably means you don't have much.