Why read short fiction?

Megan Kurashige has some arguments on why more people should be reading short fiction rather than novels. [via Bibliophile Stalker]

My own reasons have been "accident" & "impatience". I was mostly a novels man till about 2 years back.

When I started Arthur Clarke Fansite, I began reading all fiction Clarke ever wrote - at whatever length - microfiction ("siseneG") to novel series & collaborations. I currently have several dozen posts on his short stories & a couple of dozen on his novels & some on his collections, but the most interesting thing this project showed was: overall, his short fiction is way more interesting compared to his novels! For those short on budget or time: just buy his Collected Stories, & about the only really interesting story of his you will miss is the first story (of 4) in "2001 A Space Odyssey".

When I started Variety SF less than 2 years ago, I was very impatient: I wanted to quickly cover the breadth of the genre. Novels simply take too long to read, though I still read some.