Friday Quotes: Paris for One and Other Stories

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from the book.
The Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's Voice.  Find a quote from page 56.

Check out the links for the rules and for the posts of the participants each week. Participants don't select their favorite, coolest, or most intellectual books, they just use the one they are currently reading. This is the book I'm reading right now---

Title: Paris for One and Other Stories by Jojo Moyes

Book Beginnings (first sentence of first story "Paris for One":

"Nell shifts her bag along the plastic seating in the station and checks the clock on the wall for the eighty-ninth time."

Friday 56 (fifth story, 6th page "Crocodile Shoes":

"She hesitates, then curses, rummages around in the bag, and pulls out the shoes. Without saying anything, she whips off her sneakers in the foyer and puts on the red Louboutins instead."

Comments: I am participating in the Paris in July challenge, but got started late so I wanted to pick up something I could read quickly. A collection of short stories seemed to fit the bill. The first story, "Paris for One", is the only one set in France. All the others are set in the U.K. Nell is waiting for her boyfriend at the train station, the first leg of the journey to Paris. He stands her up. So she goes to Paris by herself. //In the fifth story, "Crocodile Shoes", a woman has her bag with her sensible shoes taken at the gym. In the bag that remains behind is a pair of expensive pumps. She is forced to wear them to her meetings in lieu of her sneakers. The shoes seem to change everything about her day and the way she feels about herself.

I like reading short stories because the author is forced to economize on words and get right to the point. "Paris for One" is really a novella at almost 200 pages but the others were short at ten to fifteen pages. They are long enough to get the story, short enough that one didn't have time to get bored.

The only other book by Moyes which I've read, You Before Me, became a movie and got a lot of media attention. She is easy to read and knows how to write a good love story.

What do you think of reading short stories?