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[[Category:New Reviews|Short Stories]]
[[Category:Short Stories|*]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John Saunders|title=The Vernham Chronicles|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=Set amidst the rolling British countryside around Vernbury Vale is the little village of Vernham. Anyone who lives in a village will recognise it immediately, with its cobbled streets Guadalupe Nettel and Tudor buildings. There was some damage during the war Rosalind Harvey (which might, or might not have been down to a lighthouse folly constructed by a local landowner on his lakeTranslator) but the gaps have been filled with some beautiful, er, mock Tudor buildings. Almost unique and nearly beautiful as the village is, it's not the star of The Vernham Chronicles. The stars are the people who live in Vernham.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907499598</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John H Watson, Tony Reynolds and Chris Coady|title=The Lost Stories of Sherlock HolmesAccidentals|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=It is a truth universally acknowledged that a successful detective character will have far too many cases This collection was truly enchanting in his career for it to be at all realistic. The worst case in point are senses of the Hardy Boysword: spellbinding with its fantastical, who have had two hundred or more adventures magical elements and are still not 20charming in its gentle portrayal of nature and human relationships. Slightly more literaryGuadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and precisely, but no less busy it can seem, was Sherlock Holmes, for Watson declaimed many times her stories structured by a wisdom that he did not write down all that man's exploits. Tony Reynolds here gives appears to want to teach us eight more cases, making Holmes' workload even more impressivesomething about the world.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907685618</amazonuk>1804271470
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Polly SamsonMariana Enriquez|title=Perfect LivesA Sunny Place for Shady People|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=The eleven short stories in Perfect Lives are about a group Mariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of people living in disused refrigerators due to an English seaside town. Each story of challenged relationshipsurban planning mishap, devastating discoveries an overcrowded homeless shelter and objects and people with a history is carefully and beautifully crafted, stands alone and works well in its own right, but the connections between crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all the stories offer an extra, fascinating dimensionwithin Argentina. Each story made me want to look at the others again to understand how they all connect, to piece together the different bits The circumstances of people's lives in each story. This format also offers an opportunity to see some of the her characters from several different perspectives, and perhaps make the short stories more satisfying to those who are dissatisfied by their brevity, as some of the same characters reappear, so offering some of plausible that the advantages of the novel while staying in the short story form. There are four stories told in the first person by an unnamed woman who is married with two young sons, and then one of her sons has a story of his own (Ivan Knows). There are supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a variety of narrative viewpoints – women, men, a little boy, a teenage girl, first and third personsimilarly tangible texture.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1860499929</amazonuk>1803511230
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Shena MackayFyodor Dostoyevsky|title=The Atmospheric Railway: New and Selected StoriesWhite Nights|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=This volume of short stories, first published in 2008 but new As always in paperbackDostoyevsky, has a lot to offer those familiar with Shena Mackay's previous the character work and readers coming to her stories for the first time, with a generous thirty six stories - thirteen recent stories collected in book form for the first time are combined with twenty three from Shena Mackay's previous collections.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099469677</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sheila O'Flanagan|title=A Season to Remember|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=We first meet the Lodge owners, a likable couple. They find running their upmarket country house type hotel both exhilarating and exhausting. The novel is bang up to date so O'Flanagan gets in the whole recession/banker-bashing thing early on. As the festive season looms, the unthinkable has happened. Empty rooms. They're not used to empty rooms, at any time of the yearsublime. Normally the Lodge One is never left wondering what a full house. But then a slow character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and steady trickle starts as our characters book in - and the story starts proper, so to speaktemperaments with remarkable clarity.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755375157</amazonuk>0241619785
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover
|title=All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt
|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.''
{{newreview|author=John Mortimer|title=Rumpole at Christmas|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary=This book I've heard it said that 'technology' is as slim as one what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of Rumpoletechnology in my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's beloved packets of cigars and it can also be read in advantageous to me but I'm left with the time feeling that it takes an average turkey to cook in the oven on Christmas Day's all getting away from me. A handful Some of festive, short stories it is covered in this book with its appealing front cover- frankly - quite frightening. Most of Of course, I could research the possibilities and the stories have been previously published elsewhere, mainly in probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'The Strand Magazinem reading someone who knows what they' but also re talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in some of the national newspapersa way I could understand.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141039779</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Raymond CarverB0CDZRGT1M|title=BeginnersSuper Short Stories: Flash Fiction|author=Mark C Wallfisch
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary= One thing you soon surmise from reading Raymond Carver is that he was an alcoholic. Carver's characters tend 'Got a minute to drink excessivelybe amused, entertained, and his or challenged?''''These 100 stories often examine the negative impact of drinking on his central character's relationshipsare super short. But nowadays, what we talk about when we talk about Carver None is the role of his editor, Gordon Lishmore than 300 words. You can read one in a flash.''|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099540320</amazonuk>}}''Some are funny. Some are poignant. All are short.''
{{newreview|author=Colm Toibin|title=The Empty Family|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=In his first book since Question: how do you review flash fiction? How do you give a flavour of a fully rounded little story if that story is told in fewer than three hundred words? Or do you try to draw out themes from all the pitch-perfect [[Brooklyn by Colm Toibin|Brooklyn]], Colm Toibin once more examines the great Irish theme of exile and homecoming flash fictions in his new collection a book of short stories, them? I don'The Empty Familyt know! Perhaps we could start by explaining that there really isn'. As the title suggests, many t a fixed definition of the stories also revolve around family relationshipsflash fiction but that for this collection, and their sweet and sour Natureauthor Mark C Wallfisch has gone for a three hundred word limit. That's about a single page in your average paperback.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918172</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kurt VonnegutRachel Harrison|title=Look at the BirdieBad Dolls
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=Kurt Vonnegut died It's been some time since I've read any horror. I had a couple of misspent teen years ago after reading Stephen King, borrowing the books from a sci fi writing career spanning over fifty years; he was well-known boy I fancied at school and scaring myself half silly with them to the point that I couldn't shut my bedroom curtains at night for his humanist views. fear of the vampires outside! This Don't worry - this short story collection isn't like that! It doesn't have those jump scares, and I didn't have to read it during daylight hours only! But it is creepy, and I found most of unpublished short that feeling came from the fact that these are stories shows Vonnegut at his dark bestabout women, his themeliving normal lives, individuals out for themselves in an uncaring society. A colleague and that at The Bookbag [[Armageddon least in Retrospect by Kurt Vonnegut|recently wrote]] that Kurt Vonnegut's early writing is his strongest. If that is sopart, the horrors arises from very normal situations such as a breakup, then this collectiontrying a new dieting app, illustrated going to a hen party and a coping with cartoons by the author, will be good news for his many fansgrief.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099548852</amazonuk>1803363932
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ryunosuke AkutagawaB0CCCVRSGX|title=The Beautiful and the GrotesqueStories 2|author=Richard F Walker
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=The author, the tongue-twisting Akutagawa This is Richard F Walker'hailed as one s second volume of the greatest short story writers stories. There are thirteen in world literature' says the back book cover. all and I was truly impressed and very keen to get readingtook something from each of them. The front cover is both eye-catching and colourful, thereThere isn's no doubt t a single one that this book is about Japan. There is a comprehensive Introduction with its lovely title doesn''A Sprig Of Wild Orange'' written by t deserve to be among the others or brings down the translatoroverall quality. And straight It can be tricky to review short stories without giving too much away , so I got a strong sense of his enthusiasm for the short stories 'll just pick two to follow. It is a good lead-in as it informs the reader of the gulf which exists between Western talk about and Japanese values (I think they give a gulf as big as it gets, apparently) and of the conservative nature of the Japanese peoplegeneral flavour.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0871401924</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lydia Davis1739593901|title=22 Ideas About The Collected Short Stories of Lydia DavisFuture|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Short StoriesScience Fiction|summary=As you might expect with short stories, the themes are as varied as 'The Fears of Mrs Orlando' to 'Mothers' and of course, I have my own particular favouritesOur future will be more complex than we expected. Most Instead of these short stories cover a couple of pagesflying cars, but others are merely a sentence or two. And, for me, the less on the page, the more impart the words usually have. In short (no pun intended) there would seem we got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to be something for everyone in these 700+ pagestrack grandma.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>024114504X</amazonuk>}}''
{{newreview|author=Kelly Link|title=Pretty Monsters|rating=3|genre=Fantasy|summary=It goes without saying, but the greatest thing about fantasy fiction is that one can go anywhere with it, and do anythingI've got a couple of confessions to make. So I'm not keen on short stories as I find it easy to read a young man can easily try few stories and dig his girlfriend up and retrieve some poetry he romantically left with her - only then forget to return to have a hairy evening as a resultthe book. There can 's got to be a psychic link between a young lad, called Onion and doomed very compelling hook to die in a terrorist attack, and his cousin while she works as slave in an odd community of wizardskeep me engaged. Then there's science fiction: far too often it's the technology which takes centre stage along with the world-building. Several worlds can be accessed through an elderly womanIt's handbaghuman beings who fascinate me: the technology and the world scape are purely incidental. So, what did I think of a book of twenty-two science fiction short stories? Well, for better or worseI loved it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847677843</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=A L KennedyB09XZMCDVF|title=What BecomesStories: 13 tantalising tales|author=Richard F Walker
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=You're three stories into this collection and two people have cut their hands open preparing food - 'A news vendor is crying out the headlines in the middle of the night; a man wheelchair user loses touch with love drooping away from reality when he tries walking around in his marriage, making soup, and another, imagination; a stickler for correct grammar goes back in time to correct an iconic quote; a greengrocer, preparing stock and thinking about his own relationship. But there is no pattern volunteer teacher proves the ideal person to that. Four stories in and there have been two bursts of non-sequitur comedy. Why your fruit might be ruined by stray fingers, and the thoughts of a woman around in a flotation tank, remembering Doctor Wholawless village; the new boy on the pub football team is very useful with his feet, locked parental doors - and the urban myths of gerbils. But thereawfully familiar…'s still no pattern - and that's the point of these combined stories. Life and all of its emotions does not live to rule.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009949406X</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Tove Jansson|title=Travelling Light|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=In her home country of Finland – and no doubt throughout much This collection of thirteen short stories by Richard F Walker has a lot to offer the rest of Europe which eclectic reader. Tying them together is not quite so sniffy about foreign literature as Britain tends to be – Jansson is generally recognised as an author of talentthe idea that remarkable and strange, skilleven miraculous, verve and wit things can happen to ordinary people. And that extended far beyond the Moomin Troll stories for which she is best known in this countryordinary doesn't mean boring or uninteresting. Those children's books were first published in England sixty years ago Form and have remained in print ever since (as well as being adapted for just about every other medium going), and a joy they are too, but it is only recently that we have been granted the pleasures tone varies so this little treasury of reading her short fiction for adultsis never boring and you're never quite sure what's coming next.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095489958X</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Grisham1737030942|title=Ford CountyBag O'Goodies|author=Jolly Walker Bittick
|rating=4
|genre=Short StoriesAnthologies|summary=When I think of John Grisham I tend to think firstly of lawyersSometimes, you deserve a treat and mine was Jolly Walker Bittick's ''Bag O'Goodies''. Well, actually, I think of Tom Cruise first to be honestencountered his writing about a year ago, and then the whole lawyer thing. when I expect surprising twists and long, detailed plots. This collection, howeverread his [[Cape Henry House by Jolly Walker Bittick|Cape Henry House]], is a book rollicking tale of short stories so has to work differentlywhat happens when five young men find a base for their partying. There isnRight now, I didn't room within want a short story for a lengthy, twisting plotfull-length novel, and so Grisham has I turned to rely on other skills to make them work. My feeling was that some do this anthology of verse and some don'tshort stories. Set in AmericaBittick's Deep South all the stories revolve around a rather mixed bag of characters from Ford County, with the everwriting has matured -present lawyers but also gamblers, murderers, con artists, drunks and scoundrelsso have his characters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099545780</amazonuk> Well... most of them!
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Harvey1529418100|title=A Darker Shade of BlueBruno's Challenge and Other Dordogne Tales|author=Martin Walker|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=There are eighteen I'm not usually a fan of short stories covering - I find it all too easy to put the East Midlands, those parts book down between stories and forget to pick it up again - but I am a fan of London youMartin Walker's [[Martin Walker's Commissar Bruno Courreges Mysteries in Chronological Order|Bruno Courreges Mysteries]] so the temptation to read ''Bruno's Challenge'' was hard to resist and I'd generally really m rather avoid and rural East Angliaglad that I didn't even try. You'll see broken familiesFor those new to the series, revenge killings, prostitution and drugs. Therethere's corruption – not unusual when an excellent introduction that will tell you all you have an overstretched police force need to know about who's who and underpaid men and women staffing it. And then there are the people who, background to why Bruno is in spite of everything, fight for justiceSt Denis.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548232</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ben OkriB08NF79QXT|title=Tales of Freedom|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Tales of Freedom is a book of two halves, with a short story entitled Comic Destiny taking up the majority of the book. Comic Destiny is made up of a series of short pieces that follow on from each other and are probably best described as being closer to prose poetry than anything else.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846041597</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewCherry Blossom Boutique|author=Jane Feaver|title=Love Me TenderBrooke Adams|rating=4.53|genre=Short StoriesWomen's Fiction|summary=A woman remembers Thirty-one-year old Liberty Rossini has had her dead husband playing Love Me Tender (shop, the Cherry Blossom Boutique, for just six months when she's nominated for - and wins - the song made famous by Elvis Presley) on his tenor hornRetail Best Newcomer Award. She is in a daze, feeling 's delighted and the grief of two people she's brought with her to the bereaved widow she isevent couldn't be more pleased. Sonja, the betrayal of the deceived wifeher mother, is an ex-model and the guilt of having murdered himBrazilian: you can see where Liberty got her looks from. The title story of this collection is all the more moving Jessica's thirty-four and Liberty's best friend: they've known each other since university and startling because of its understated styleLiberty adores Jessica's husband, Charles and what is not said as well as what istheir four-year-old daughter, Ava. Life would be perfect for Liberty if it wasn't for one thing: she misses having a man in her life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099521288</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Aravind AdigaB08KKQ85FN|title=Between the AssassinationsBut Never For Lunch|author=Sandra Aragona
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=''Between the Assassinations'' is If a collection of short stories set in woman approaching the fictional South Indian town of Kittur, which is almost certainly Mangalore (where the Adiga grew up). But the plight of the residents menopause can be found in any Indian city - which I imagine is Adiga's point of setting it likened to a Rottweiler in lipstick, an Ambassador nearing retirement resembles a fictional location. The twelve stories are vaguely interlinked (there are some recurring characters) but for the most part the stories stand alone. The time period is set between pampered peacock about to be released into the assassinations company of Indira Gandhi in 1984 and the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991carrion crows or, although like more to the locationpoint, the time period and the assassinations of the title have little bearing on the events themselves.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848871236</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Eagleman|title=Sum: Tales from the Afterlives|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=For some reason I find myself unable about to start this review. So I'll mention this book starts with discover the end, and see where we go from there. Of course, that's the key – this book does just that – starts with the end real world of our human life here on Earth (or wherever you happen to be reading this) bus timetables and posits forty possibilities of what happens thereafter, in the hereafterpaying his own gas bills. It's not so much 'Five People You Meet in Heaven' as 'Forty Heavens you Might Meet People In'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847674283</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=James Lasdun|title=It's Beginning To Hurt|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=It's Beginning to Hurt is a collection of sixteen short stories, all bound together by the theme of hurt in various forms. It is James Lasdun's third collection of short stories and, chances are, if you are a fan of the short story then you will have read something by him before.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099512327</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Andrew Porter|title=You don't get many better opening sentences than that, do you? We first met His Excellency and The Theory of Light Ambassador's Wife in [[Sorting the Priorities: Ambassadress and Matter|rating=4Beagle Survive Diplomacy by Sandra Aragona|genre=Short Stories|summary=Both Sorting the book cover Priorities]] and its title are enticing, quirky, eye-catching. Personally, I'm a fan of most things American including American fiction, so I couldn't wait to start reading. I we learned what it was not disappointed. Porter introduces us like to characters, many of whom would probably be described as deeply flawed. He shares moved around countries like accompanying baggage by the darker side of modern-day American life with Italian Government but the reader - which is far from the bright lights time has come for HE to retires and for Sandra Aragona to become The Wife of glitzy New York or the sun-drenched beaches of CaliforniaFormer Ambassador... You could say that this is all about real lifeThey have left The Career and settled in Rome. To underline his pointWell 'settled' rather overstates the situation and their dog, Porter's characters are mostly local folks (to use a favourite American word) shuffling through life as best they canBeagle, has no intention of slowing down any time soon, despite being sixteen and deaf.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>022408982X</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James KelmanB08CHJLNBS|title=If it is Your LifeCapturing Emilia|author=Brooke Adams
|rating=3
|genre=Short StoriesWomen's Fiction|summary=He''If This Is Your Life'' is not so much s Charles Devereaux, thirty-eight and a collection of short stories as a collection of pieces of creative writing. Kelman doesn't really do 'stories'. In nineteen pieces of writing of varying length from just a single page to more lengthy piecespartner at Wickham Jones, such as the story that gives its title to this collection, Kelman writes (mostly) about people on the edge of societyMayfair letting agents. He addresses issues such as class She's Emilia, politics, gendertwenty-nine, age librarian and ill health.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241142423</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Christopher Golden (Editor)|title=Zombie: An Anthology of archivist in the Undead|rating=5|genre=Horror|summary=Anyone who enjoys a good horror story and likes zombie films will love this book, which is a collection of nineteen short stories by a variety of authorsheritage library next door. I have to admit that I have only heard of one of the authors before - Emilia has read [[:Category:Mike CareyThe Secret by Rhonda Byrne|Mike CareyThe Secret]]but she's moved on from new age books like that, which leave you dependent on someone else's philosophies, who writes the to something a little deeper. Charles is more of a [[The Naming of the Beasts (Felix Castor) Personal by Mike CareyLee Child|Felix CastorJack Reacher]] novels - man himself, but I am not an avid reader of the genre and don, above all, he't doubt s shocked that the authors will be known to readers more familiar with itEmilia reads ''The Guardian''. Despite They're obviously not at all compatible, so why can Charles not get this unfamiliarity, I thoroughly enjoyed most woman out of the stories, with just one or two seemingly his mind? She's not up his usual type at all: it's obvious to scratchhis friends.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749952539</amazonuk> And given that Emilia regularly feels repulsed by Charles's superficiality, why does she feel drawn to him? The relationship's obviously a non-starter, isn't it?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Katie Fforde (Editor) Marie O'Regan and Sue Moorcroft Paul Kane (Editoreditors)|title=Loves Me, Loves Me NotCursed: An Anthology of Dark Fairy Tales
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short StoriesFantasy|summary=What a feast is presented in these forty stories from well-loved Curses. They're there throughout tales of faery and prolific romantic authorsother fantastical folk – people being cursed to do this, or not to be able to do that. Children can be cursed, celebrating as can princesses on the fiftieth anniversary verge of the Romantic Novelists' Associationmarrying, and older people too. In It seems in a Whoway there's Who no escaping it. Which is why the theme of this book of the genre, short stories is such a standout – we may well think we know all there are writers from every age group, including one or two who might even have been founder members of the RNA, back in 1960. My advice is to sip through the stories slowlyknow about this accursed character, that demonised place, rather than gobbling them up quickly and suffering from indigestionthat other bewitched person. We'd be very wrong.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0778303373</amazonuk>1789091500
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephanie TillotsonStibbe_Xmas|title=Cut on the BiasAn Almost Perfect Christmas|author=Nina Stibbe
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short StoriesHumour|summary=If ''Cut Christmas – the time of traditional trauma. You only have to think about the turkey for that – once upon a time it was leaving it sat on the Biasdownstairs loo to defrost overnight, and if that failed the hair-dryer shoved inside it treatment was your next best bet. Nowadays it's all having to make sure it' is in your local bookshop, s suitably free-range and organic – but not too organic that you will surely be won over by the feisty cover. Stories about women can go and their clothes are about identityvisit it, so what better start and get too friendly with it to want to eat it. Christmas, though, is of course also a time of great boons. It's cash in hand for a set lot of short stories than plump people who can hire red suits and beards, it was always a fashion statement cover featuring godsend for postmen with all the bags thank-you letters to aunties you saw twice a decade that your parents made you write out in which said clothes arrive homelong-hand as a child, and as for the makers of Meltis Newberry Fruits – well, did they even try and sell them any other time of the year?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906784132</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Janice Galloway0954899520|title=Collected StoriesA Winter Book|author=Tove Jansson
|rating=5
|genre=Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary=In this collectionTove Jansson's worldwide fame lasts on the Moomin books, stories are taken from two previous volumeswritten in the 1940s and later becoming television characters of the simplicity, Blood naivety and Where You Find Itsheer 'goodness' that would later produce flowerpot men or teletubbies. The forty-two snap shots of life are mainly of women and young girlsSimple drawings, struggling with emotionssimple stories, sometimes realized and sometimes notsimple goodness. In all, there seems to be an underlying link What is often forgotten outside of isolation and truth. The settings are varied, from her native Finland is that she was a visit to the dentist to the place known serious writer…that she wrote for adults as well as home, to children…and that she had a walk in feeling for the evening. We have a peek into natural world and the deepest darkest corners simple life that not only informed those child-like trolls but went far beyond any fantasy of everyday relationships, with lovers, partners and most of all ourselveshow the world might be.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099540398</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shirley Jackson1911115847|title=The Lottery and Other StoriesNights of the Creaking Bed|author=Toni Kan|rating=4.5|genre=Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary=Even though it was written over sixty years ago, The Lottery, coming in at fewer than 3,500 words still has ''Nights of the power to shockCreaking Bed'' is a collection of short stories by Toni Kan. When it first appeared in the The New Yorker in 1948 it caused many outraged readers to cancel their subscriptions such was the devastating nature series of the story. Time may have lessened sensibilities over the latter half stories tell of the twentieth century lives and the beginning lusts of an assortment of the twenty first but The Lotterycharacters living in and around Lagos, Nigeria. Nigeria, in this collection, like many is imbued with its very own heart of darkness. Danger stalks the other shadows and people are killed for nothing more than a wrong look. Kan writes with a vitality and passion that allows these cynical stories in this timely reissue, still packs to achieve a mighty punchglimmer of hope.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141191430</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Edgar Allan Poe and Gris Grimly1529014484|title=Tales of Death and DementiaExhalation |author=Ted Chiang
|rating=5
|genre=Graphic NovelsScience Fiction|summary=Wow! What Over the past twenty-eight years, Ted Chiang has published fifteen science fiction short stories, these magnificent stories have won twenty-seven major science fiction awards so if you are a wonderful combination: Edgar Allan Poe, master science fiction fan it is likely that you have already come across some of the gothic horror short story, and Gris Grimly, outstanding illustrator, known for his [[The Dangerous Alphabet work by Neil Gaiman and Gris Grimly|work with Neil Gaiman]]Ted Chiang. Poe's ''Tales of Death and DementiaIf you haven'' are shown off at their very best in t then take this editionopportunity to do so now. Trust me; your imagination will be grateful.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847386474</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=William Bedford1794467440|title=None of the Cadillacs was PinkWatchwords |author=Philip Neal
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=I chose this book because of its superb title – the last and best memoir in a This satisfying collection of sixteen stories. These Humberside and Lincolnshire short stories have has a background beat of Fifties' music that sets them firmly in an exciting, disturbing time for young people everywhere, not provenance at least for as beguiling as the author and his friends, as old ways provenance of living made way for new along the East Coast of Englandantique watches that inspired it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529445</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Clive Cussler (editor) |title=Thriller 2: Stories You Just Can't Put Down|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary=If you enjoy thrillers or short stories then you might find this book Philip Neal lost a watch. It was a watch he was fond of and had been told was like a treat1930s Cartier. If you enjoy them both then Instead of mourning its loss, he began to collect vintage watches that resembled it. And that's how he became a treasure trovewatch collector. ''Thriller 2: Stories You Just Can't Put Down'' is edited by best-selling author [[:Category:Clive Cussler|Clive Cussler]] (although none An eBay purchase led him to the Antique Watch Company watch repairers in Clerkenwell. The eBay purchase was a fake, but the friendship that grew between the buyer and the repairer of his work is included) watches was not and includes work by some authors who are the top seed of their game. There are twenty three stories in all, each about twenty pages long and they're perfect an idea for those moments when you just want to dip into something short and satisfyinga book was born.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778303209</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Will Eisner 1529006031|title=Minor MiraclesReturn to Wonderland|author=Various Authors
|rating=4.5
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=This short story collection starts with two appetisers before getting on with two main courses, but as with the best meals even the smallest dishes can have the most depth. We start with the entire life cycle - rise, fall, rise, fall - of a hobo feeding pigeons in the park. Obviously he hasn't been doing that all his years - he's been keeping his dignity intact, with a huge amount of chutzpah and more. Next, a smart Alec defeats the older kids on the stoop with a bit of canny street wisdom.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393328147</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Agnes Owens
|title=The Complete Novellas
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Who is Agnes Owens? A Scottish author who portrays working class life from the nineteen forties and fifties. Now an octogenarian, apparently Agnes Owens started writing at the age of 58. Here are five previously published stories collected into one new edition, a companion volume to her short stories, published in 2008. I don't think you'll be disappointed.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971373</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Kazuo Ishiguro
|title=Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall
|rating=3.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=A jobbing guitarist from an Eastern European countryIn following a young girl called Alice down the rabbit hole a few years ago, playing when the first book she was in [[Alice's Adventures in Venice, is given a most singular gig Wonderland (150th Anniversary Edition) by an ageingLewis Carroll and Anthony Browne|hit 150 years of age]], passing croonerI found that I didn't really find too much favour with it. An old friend The wacky-for-the-sake-of -it did not gel, and I don't remember loving it more as a couple child. But I would suggest I am the perfect audience for this book. I had every chance to enjoy these short stories that come at loggerheads stays in the core from a tangent, that show the benefits of the oblique glance. I've always preferred coming to an author's output through their flatleast obvious, allegedly throw-away pieces, but enters and it's the same with franchises – I'd more likely go for Bree Tanner's short novella than the whole Twilight saga (although that remains just a nightmare world of comedyhunch, doing greater and greater wrongs to cover his first transgressionfor obvious reasons). A younger couple running a cafe employ a friend For another thing, there was every reason to help outexpect some kind of greatness here – with Carroll much loved by millions, despite his wish to hide surely pieces written with that love in the hills and compose new songs mind could only provide for his not-very illustrious career.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>057124498X</amazonuk>success after success?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Aleksandar Hemon 1846974658|title=Love and ObstaclesThe Long Path To Wisdom|author=Jan-Philipp Sendker
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=We start with On my travels around the young narrator away from homeworld, I have a tendency to end up in any bookshop that is selling English-language books, and in Africawhile I buy as many second-hand escapist tales as the next person, due to his diplomat father. Hewhat I'm really looking for is the 'local's left behind home– the cookbook maybe, a potential girlfriend, and morethe maps definitely, but finds company with an older, chancer character and his junkie girlfriend, and their pot, drinks and 70s rockabove all: the folk tales. Closer If I ever get to his rootsBurma, but still a young man abroad, the second story sees him travelling across his homeland on an errand - I won't need to deliver payment for the biggest chest freezer his father could find. But poemshunt, losing his virginity, keeping his money, and various other fantasies might just put a cooler on that unusual task..I can read before I go.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330464434</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Charles Stross B077969HN8|title=WirelessAlternative Medicine|author=Laura Solomon|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=In his introduction, Stross explains that one of Laura Solomon's publisher describes the reasons he likes writing shorts short stories is because they are the ideal format in which to focus on ''Alternative Medicine'' as ''black comedy with a particular concept twist of the future and play around with itsurrealism''. It doesn I'm rather glad that I didn't matter so much if the idea doesnsee this until ''after'' I'd finished reading as I'm not normally a fan of either, but I't ultimately work because neither ve come to two conclusions about the reader nor book: what the author has invested in publisher says is correct - and I really enjoyed it the way they would in a novel. The comedy is not ''Wirelesstoo'' then, black and the surrealism is something gentle and perhaps best described as a twist or flick of an experiment. Stross employs many different styles, tackles many different subjects and is very skilful at creating moodreality when you were least expecting it. His stories Your comfort zones are a strange blend of going to be invaded in the technical and the archaicnicest possible way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497711</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreview|author=Oxfam|title=Ox-Tales: Air|rating=3.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=Four books of short stories each taking (rather loosely on occasions) as a theme one of the elements: [[Ox-Tales: Earth by Oxfam|Earth]], [[Ox-Tales: Fire by Oxfam|Fire]], [[Ox-Tales: Water by Oxfam|Water]], and this book ''Air'', sold in aid of Oxfam but not about Oxfam's work. The writers, many household names, have given their work for free and at least 50p from the sale of each new book goes to Oxfam. That's not entirely the point though, is it? You want to know if the book is worth buying.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682614</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Oxfam 9386897504|title=Ox-Tales: Earth|rating=3.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=Published in aid of Oxfam work, Ox-Tales comprise of four books featuring original stories donated to the project by a variety of writers. The framework for the books is provided by the four elements of the classical philosophy. Each collection starts with Vikram Seth's elemental poem Love and ends with a short article highlighting Oxfam's work in a key area ([[Ox-Tales: Fire by Oxfam|fire]] – conflict and war, [[Ox-Tales: Water by Oxfam|water]] – sanitation and clean water, earth – agriculture and air – climate change).|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682584</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDisability|author=Irvine Welsh |title=Reheated CabbageLaura Solomon
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=Irvine WelshI's choice ve always believed that less-able writers produce longer books: it takes a great deal of title skill and talent to write a short story which holds the reader and keeps them coming back for this collection more. There are far too many collections of short stories may serve which are all too easy to warn some unwary readers put down and forget after you've read a couple of its unpalatable naturepieces. To the uninitiated, its stream I've recently read a couple of unrestrained swearingnovellas by Laura Solomon - [[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon|Marsha's Deal]] and [[Hell's Unveiling by Laura Solomon|Hell's Unveiling]] and enjoyed them, drug taking, sex and casual violence so I was intrigued to see what she could come as a shockdo with an even shorter form. His fans though, will no doubt lap it up.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224080555</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Oxfam 1986586898|title=Ox-TalesGoing To The Last: FireShort Stories About Horse Racing|author=K D Knight|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=Published In the opening story, a man whose wife has deserted him visits Sandown with little money but comes away with cash in aid of Oxfam work, Oxhis pocket -Tales comprise and his wife. In ''A Grey Day'' an owner struggles with the problem of four books featuring original stories donated whether or not to run his horse in the Gold Cup when the project by a variety of writersground is against him.  My favourite was ''The framework for Story of H'', the books story of Foinavon. H is provided by depicted as a kind horse who only wanted to please people. After changing hands on various occasions he came to the four elements yard of John Kempton. H (or Foinavon) was entered in the classical philosophy. Each collection starts with Vikram Seth's elemental poem Grand National and ends with considered a short article highlighting Oxfam's work in no-hoper. In one of the most dramatic runnings of the race, a key area (fire – conflict and warpile-up occurred at the 23rd fence. Foinavon, who had been many lengths adrift, water – sanitation cleared the fence and clean watergalloped to the line, earth – agriculture and air – climate change)winning the race at odds of 100/1.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682592</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mick Jackson9386897296|title=Bears of EnglandHell's Unveiling|author=Laura Solomon
|rating=3.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=As you knowA little while ago I really enjoyed [[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon|Marsha's Deal]] and I was delighted by the opportunity to read the sequel, England has had ''Hell's Unveiling''. It's probably not much of a chequered history when it comes spoiler to say that Marsha bested the devil in ''Marsha's Deal'', but the devil is not one to her bearstake defeat lying down. From the days when we only knew them He's out to wage war on Planet Earth and particularly on Marsha (who's thought of as horrors making bumping noises - among many others - a 'goody two shoes' in the night, we have learnt moreHell). Although a strong person, she's vulnerable where her foster children are concerned. Daniel is framed for a crime he didn't commit and sent to juvenile detention and used them morerefused permission to return to live with Marsha. Therefore we have this short little bookThen, detailing some of course, there are all the more remarkable instances other children who are not only targeted but - worst of Angloall -bear relationssubverted to the devil's evil ends. He's out to prey on their fears and weaknesses and as with many foster children, from the days of beartheir self-esteem is very fragile. This is no small-baitingscale operation, to them being shot at when they escaped either - the circusdevil has set up a training complex on earth, complete with an elevator to when they were employed in subaquatic labour in the days before SCUBA gear..Hell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571242405</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview|author=Paul R Spiring (Editor)|title=Aside Arthur Conan Doyle: Twenty Original Tales By Bertram Fletcher Robinson|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=The shortlived Bertram Fletcher Robinson is sadly little more than a footnote in British literature. His fame rests largely on having contributed Move to, [[Newest Spirituality and helped to inspire, a couple of Sherlock Holmes stories – and, if you believe the conspiracy theorists, having been bumped off by Conan Doyle for threatening to claim authorship of one of them and denounce Doyle as a fraud. (Don't go there).|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312527</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, Arthur Conan Doyle |title=Graphic Classics, Volume 17: Science Fiction Classics|rating=4|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=So, an introduction. The Graphic Classics collection is a series whereby the best in genre fiction, from sources both highly likely and remarkably unexpected, is collected and dressed up for us in graphic novel form. This seventeenth edition, a belated best-of sci-fi volume, is their first foray into full colour, and is headlined by a version of The War of the Worlds. The supporting material ranges from a one-page strip to thirty-page stories.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0978791975</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Edgar Allen Poe, Various, Dan Whitehead (Editor) |title=Eye Classics: Nevermore - A Graphic Novel Anthology of Edgar Allan Poe's Short Stories|rating=4|genre=Graphic Novels |summary=So, if I were to mention someone who was born 200 years ago this season, and who changed the world with their writing, who would you think of first? Charles Darwin, probably. But those of a slightly different bent might just have mentioned someone else - someone at the forefront of all things arcane, horrific and thrilling when it comes to fiction. Someone who lost his birth and foster mother both to tuberculosis before he was ever twenty. Someone who had most unusual circumstances surrounding his death, to best Agatha Christie vanishing for a while, and most of the detectives in the fiction he helped inspire. Someone called Edgar Allan Poe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955285682</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Mary-Ann Constantine|title=The Breathing|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary=Mary-Ann Constantine's book is a bit like a piece of embroidery: painstakingly slow, sewn with different threads, but the result is a beautiful picture by an accomplished hand. It is a book of short stories, very different and quite ambiguous, describing the lives of people - and an elephant - of a certain location (or a few) in Wales.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0954088182</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan |title=Demo: v. 1|rating=5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=It's not every young disaffected teenager that will respond to the withdrawal of her medication so explosively. It's not every young disaffected teenager that runs through empty landscapes because she is too scared to speak to anyone – for quite the reasons we see here. Not every family patches itself back together over a funeral in the fashion the third story gives us. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>184576921X</amazonuk>}}Religion Reviews]]
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