Difference between revisions of "Newest Short Stories Reviews"

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[[Category:New Reviews|Short Stories]]
 
[[Category:New Reviews|Short Stories]]
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover
|author=Polly Samson
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|title=All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt
|title=Perfect Lives
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|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=4.5
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|rating=5
|genre=Short Stories
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|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=The eleven short stories in Perfect Lives are about a group of people living in an English seaside town. Each story of challenged relationships, devastating discoveries 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 all the stories offer an extra, fascinating dimension. Each story made me want to look at the others again to understand how they all connect, to piece together the different bits of people's lives in each story. This format also offers an opportunity to see some of the 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 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 a variety of narrative viewpoints – women, men, a little boy, a teenage girl, first and third person.
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|summary=''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1860499929</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Shena Mackay
 
|title=The Atmospheric Railway: New and Selected Stories
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Short Stories
 
|summary=This volume of short stories, first published in 2008 but new in paperback, has a lot to offer those familiar with Shena Mackay's previous 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 year.  Normally the Lodge is a full house.  But then a slow and steady trickle starts as our characters book in - and the story starts proper, so to speak.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755375157</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen.  Well, I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime.  I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of it is - frankly - quite frighteningOf course, I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist.  I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.
|author=John Mortimer
 
|title=Rumpole at Christmas
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Short Stories
 
|summary=This book is as slim as one of Rumpole's beloved packets of cigars and it can also be read in the time it takes an average turkey to cook in the oven on Christmas Day. A handful of festive, short stories is covered in this book with its appealing front coverMost of the stories have been previously published elsewhere, mainly in 'The Strand Magazine' but also in some of the national newspapers.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141039779</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=B0CDZRGT1M
|author=Raymond Carver
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|title=Super Short Stories: Flash Fiction
|title=Beginners
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|author=Mark C Wallfisch
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Short Stories
 
|genre=Short Stories
|summary= One thing you soon surmise from reading Raymond Carver is that he was an alcoholic. Carver's characters tend to drink excessively, and his stories often examine the negative impact of drinking on his central character's relationships. But nowadays, what we talk about when we talk about Carver is the role of his editor, Gordon Lish.
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|summary=''Got a minute to be amused, entertained, or challenged?''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099540320</amazonuk>
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''These 100 stories are super short. None is more than 300 words. You can read one in a flash.''
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''Some are funny. Some are poignant. All are short.''
  
{{newreview
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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 flash fictions in a book of them? I don't know! Perhaps we could start by explaining that there really isn't a fixed definition of flash fiction but that for this collection, author Mark C Wallfisch has gone for a three hundred word limit. That's about a single page in your average paperback.
|author=Colm Toibin
 
|title=The Empty Family
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Short Stories
 
|summary=In his first book since the pitch-perfect [[Brooklyn by Colm Toibin|Brooklyn]], Colm Toibin once more examines the great Irish theme of exile and homecoming in his new collection of short stories, 'The Empty Family'. As the title suggests, many of the stories also revolve around family relationships, and their sweet and sour Nature.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918172</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Rachel Harrison
|author=Kurt Vonnegut
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|title=Bad Dolls
|title=Look at the Birdie
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Short Stories
 
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=Kurt Vonnegut died a couple of years ago after a sci fi writing career spanning
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|summary=It's been some time since I've read any horror.  I had a couple of misspent teen years reading Stephen King, borrowing the books from a 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 fear of the vampires outside! 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 that feeling came from the fact that these are stories about women, living normal lives, and that at least in part, the horrors arises from very normal situations such as a breakup, trying a new dieting app, going to a hen party and a coping with grief.
over fifty years; he was well-known for his humanist views. This collection of  
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|isbn=1803363932
unpublished short stories shows Vonnegut at his dark best, his theme,  
 
individuals out for themselves in an uncaring society.  A colleague at The
 
Bookbag [[Armageddon in Retrospect by Kurt Vonnegut|recently wrote]] that Kurt Vonnegut's early writing is his strongest.  If that is so, then this collection, illustrated with cartoons by the author, will be good news for his many fans.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548852</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn= B0CCCVRSGX
|author=Ryunosuke Akutagawa
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|title=Stories 2
|title=The Beautiful and the Grotesque
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|author=Richard F Walker
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Short Stories
 
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=The author, the tongue-twisting Akutagawa is 'hailed as one of the greatest short story writers in world literature' says the back book cover.  I was truly impressed and very keen to get reading. The front cover is both eye-catching and colourful, there's no doubt that this book is about Japan.  There is a comprehensive Introduction with its lovely title ''A Sprig Of Wild Orange'' written by the translator. And straight away I got a strong sense of his enthusiasm for the short stories to follow.  It is a good lead-in as it informs the reader of the gulf which exists between Western and Japanese values (a gulf as big as it gets, apparently) and of the conservative nature of the Japanese people.
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|summary= This is Richard F Walker's second volume of short stories. There are thirteen in all and I took something from each of them. There isn't a single one that doesn't deserve to be among the others or brings down the overall quality. It can be tricky to review short stories without giving too much away, so I'll just pick two to talk about and I think they give a general flavour.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0871401924</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1739593901
|author=Lydia Davis
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|title=22 Ideas About The Future
|title=The Collected Short Stories of Lydia Davis
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|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Short Stories
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|genre=Science 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 favouritesMost of these short stories cover a couple of pages, 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 to be something for everyone in these 700+ pages.
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|summary=''Our future will be more complex than we expectedInstead of flying cars, we got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>024114504X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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I've got a couple of confessions to makeI'm not keen on short stories as I find it easy to read a few stories and then forget to return to the book.  There's got to be a very compelling hook to keep me engaged.  Then there's science fiction: far too often it's the technology which takes centre stage along with the world-buildingIt's human 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, I loved it.  
|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 anythingSo a young man can easily try and dig his girlfriend up and retrieve some poetry he romantically left with her - only to have a hairy evening as a result.  There can be a psychic link between a young lad, called Onion and doomed to die in a terrorist attack, and his cousin while she works as slave in an odd community of wizardsSeveral worlds can be accessed through an elderly woman's handbag, for better or worse.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847677843</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=B09XZMCDVF
|author=A L Kennedy
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|title=Stories: 13 tantalising tales
|title=What Becomes
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|author=Richard F Walker
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Short Stories
 
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=You're three stories into this collection and two people have cut their hands open preparing food - a man with love drooping away from his marriage, making soup, and another, a greengrocer, preparing stock and thinking about his own relationship.  But there is no pattern 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 in a flotation tank, remembering Doctor Who, locked parental doors - and the urban myths of gerbils.  But there's still no pattern - and that's the point of these combined stories.  Life and all of its emotions does not live to rule.
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|summary=''A news vendor is crying out the headlines in the middle of the night; a wheelchair user loses touch with reality when he tries walking around in his imagination; a stickler for correct grammar goes back in time to correct an iconic quote; a volunteer teacher proves the ideal person to have around in a lawless village; the new boy on the pub football team is very useful with his feet, and awfully familiar…''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009949406X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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This collection of thirteen short stories by Richard F Walker has a lot to offer the eclectic reader. Tying them together is the idea that remarkable and strange, even miraculous, things can happen to ordinary people. And that ordinary doesn't mean boring or uninteresting. Form and tone varies so this little treasury of short fiction is never boring and you're never quite sure what's coming next.
|author=Tove Jansson
 
|title=Travelling Light
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|summary=In her home country of Finland – and no doubt throughout much of the rest of Europe which is not quite so sniffy about foreign literature as Britain tends to be – Jansson is generally recognised as an author of talent, skill, verve and wit that extended far beyond the Moomin Troll stories for which she is best known in this country.   Those children's books were first published in England sixty years ago 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 of reading her fiction for adults.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095489958X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1737030942
|author=John Grisham
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|title=Bag O'Goodies
|title=Ford County
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|author=Jolly Walker Bittick
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
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|genre= Anthologies
|summary=When I think of John Grisham I tend to think firstly of lawyersWell, actually, I think of Tom Cruise first to be honest, and then the whole lawyer thing.  I expect surprising twists and long, detailed plots.  This collection, however, is a book of short stories so has to work differentlyThere isn't room within a short story for a lengthy, twisting plot, and so Grisham has to rely on other skills to make them work.  My feeling was that some do and some don'tSet in America's Deep South all the stories revolve around a rather mixed bag of characters from Ford County, with the ever-present lawyers but also gamblers, murderers, con artists, drunks and scoundrels.
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|summary=Sometimes, you deserve a treat and mine was Jolly Walker Bittick's ''Bag O'Goodies''.  I first encountered his writing about a year ago, when I read his [[Cape Henry House by Jolly Walker Bittick|Cape Henry House]], a rollicking tale of what happens when five young men find a base for their partyingRight now, I didn't want a full-length novel, so I turned to this anthology of verse and short storiesBittick's writing has matured - and so have his characters. Well... most of them!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099545780</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1529418100
|author=John Harvey
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|title=Bruno's Challenge and Other Dordogne Tales
|title=A Darker Shade of Blue
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|author=Martin Walker
|rating=4.5
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|rating=4
 
|genre=Short Stories
 
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=There are eighteen short stories covering the East Midlands, those parts of London you'd generally really rather avoid and rural East AngliaYou'll see broken families, revenge killings, prostitution and drugs.  There's corruption – not unusual when you have an overstretched police force and underpaid men and women staffing it.  And then there are the people who, in spite of everything, fight for justice.
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|summary=I'm not usually a fan of short stories - I find it all too easy to put the book down between stories and forget to pick it up again - but I am a fan of Martin 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'm rather glad that I didn't even tryFor those new to the series, there's an excellent introduction that will tell you all you need to know about who's who and the background to why Bruno is in St Denis.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548232</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=B08NF79QXT
|author=Ben Okri
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|title=Cherry Blossom Boutique
|title=Tales of Freedom
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|author=Brooke Adams
|rating=5
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|rating=3
|genre=Literary Fiction
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|genre=Women's 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.
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|summary=Thirty-one-year old Liberty Rossini has had her shop, the Cherry Blossom Boutique, for just six months when she's nominated for - and wins - the Retail Best Newcomer Award.  She's delighted and the two people she's brought with her to the event couldn't be more pleased. Sonja, her mother, is an ex-model and Brazilian: you can see where Liberty got her looks from. Jessica's thirty-four and Liberty's best friend: they've known each other since university and Liberty adores Jessica's husband, Charles and their 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>1846041597</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=B08KKQ85FN
|author=Jane Feaver
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|title=But Never For Lunch
|title=Love Me Tender
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|author=Sandra Aragona
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Short Stories
 
|summary=A woman remembers her dead husband playing Love Me Tender (the song made famous by Elvis Presley) on his tenor horn. She is in a daze, feeling the grief of the bereaved widow she is, the betrayal of the deceived wife, and the guilt of having murdered him. The title story of this collection is all the more moving and startling because of its understated style, and what is not said as well as what is.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099521288</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Aravind Adiga
 
|title=Between the Assassinations
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Short Stories
 
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=''Between the Assassinations'' is a collection of short stories set in the fictional South Indian town of Kittur, which is almost certainly Mangalore (where the Adiga grew up). But the plight of the residents can be found in any Indian city - which I imagine is Adiga's point of setting it in 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 the assassinations of Indira Gandhi in 1984 and the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, although like the location, the time period and the assassinations of the title have little bearing on the events themselves.
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|summary=''If a woman approaching the menopause can be likened to a Rottweiler in lipstick, an Ambassador nearing retirement resembles a pampered peacock about to be released into the company of carrion crows or, more to the point, about to discover the real world of bus timetables and paying his own gas bills.''
|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 to start this review.  So I'll mention this book starts with the end, and see where we go from there.  Of course, that's the key – this book does just that – starts with the end of our human life here on Earth (or wherever you happen to be reading this) and posits forty possibilities of what happens thereafter, in the hereafter. 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
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You don't get many better opening sentences than that, do you?  We first met His Excellency and The Ambassador's Wife in [[Sorting the Priorities: Ambassadress and Beagle Survive Diplomacy by Sandra Aragona|Sorting the Priorities]] and we learned what it was like to be moved around countries like accompanying baggage by the Italian Government but the time has come for HE to retires and for Sandra Aragona to become The Wife of Former Ambassador..They have left The Career and settled in RomeWell 'settled' rather overstates the situation and their dog, Beagle, has no intention of slowing down any time soon, despite being sixteen and deaf.
|author=Andrew Porter
 
|title=The Theory of Light and Matter
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Short Stories
 
|summary=Both the book cover 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 was not disappointed. Porter introduces us to characters, many of whom would probably be described as deeply flawed.  He shares the darker side of modern-day American life with the reader - which is far from the bright lights of glitzy New York or the sun-drenched beaches of CaliforniaYou could say that this is all about real lifeTo underline his point, Porter's characters are mostly local folks (to use a favourite American word) shuffling through life as best they can.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>022408982X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=B08CHJLNBS
|author=James Kelman
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|title=Capturing Emilia
|title=If it is Your Life
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|author=Brooke Adams
 
|rating=3
 
|rating=3
|genre=Short Stories
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|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=''If This Is Your Life'' is not so much 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 pieces, such as the story that gives its title to this collection, Kelman writes (mostly) about people on the edge of society. He addresses issues such as class, politics, gender, age and ill health.
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|summary=He's Charles Devereaux, thirty-eight and a partner at Wickham Jones, the Mayfair letting agents.  She's Emilia, twenty-nine, librarian and archivist in the heritage library next door.  Emilia has read [[The Secret by Rhonda Byrne|The Secret]] but she's moved on from new age books like that, which leave you dependent on someone else's philosophies, to something a little deeper.  Charles is more of a [[Personal by Lee Child|Jack Reacher]] man himself, but, above all, he's shocked that Emilia reads ''The Guardian''. They're obviously not at all compatible, so why can Charles not get this woman out of his mind?  She's not his usual type at all: it's obvious to his friends. 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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241142423</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Marie O'Regan and Paul Kane (editors)
|author=Christopher Golden (Editor)
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|title=Cursed: An Anthology of Dark Fairy Tales
|title=Zombie: An Anthology of 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 authors. I have to admit that I have only heard of one of the authors before - [[:Category:Mike Carey|Mike Carey]], who writes the [[The Naming of the Beasts (Felix Castor) by Mike Carey|Felix Castor]] novels - but I am not an avid reader of the genre and don't doubt that the authors will be known to readers more familiar with it. Despite this unfamiliarity, I thoroughly enjoyed most of the stories, with just one or two seemingly not up to scratch.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749952539</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Katie Fforde (Editor) and Sue Moorcroft (Editor)
 
|title=Loves Me, Loves Me Not
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
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|genre=Fantasy
|summary=What a feast is presented in these forty stories from well-loved and prolific romantic authors, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Romantic Novelists' Association. In a Who's Who of the genre, 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 slowly, rather than gobbling them up quickly and suffering from indigestion.
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|summary=Curses. They're there throughout tales of faery and other fantastical folk – people being cursed to do this, or not to be able to do that. Children can be cursed, as can princesses on the verge of marrying, and older people too. It seems in a way there's no escaping it. Which is why the theme of this book of short stories is such a standout – we may well think we know all there is to know about this accursed character, that demonised place, and that other bewitched person. We'd be very wrong.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778303373</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1789091500
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=Stibbe_Xmas
|author=Stephanie Tillotson
+
|title=An Almost Perfect Christmas
|title=Cut on the Bias
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|author=Nina Stibbe
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
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|genre=Humour
|summary=If ''Cut on the Bias'' is in your local bookshop, you will surely be won over by the feisty cover.  Stories about women and their clothes are about identity, so what better start to a set of short stories than a fashion statement cover featuring the bags in which said clothes arrive home?
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|summary=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 downstairs 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's suitably free-range and organic – but not too organic that you can go and visit it, 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 lot of plump people who can hire red suits and beards, it was always a godsend for postmen with all the thank-you letters to aunties you saw twice a decade that your parents made you write out in long-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>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0954899520
|author=Janice Galloway
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|title=A Winter Book
|title=Collected Stories
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|author=Tove Jansson
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Short Stories
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|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=In this collection, stories are taken from two previous volumes, Blood and Where You Find It. The forty-two snap shots of life are mainly of women and young girls, struggling with emotions, sometimes realized and sometimes not. In all, there seems to be an underlying link of isolation and truth. The settings are varied, from a visit to the dentist to the place known as home, to a walk in the evening. We have a peek into the deepest darkest corners of everyday relationships, with lovers, partners and most of all ourselves.
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|summary=Tove Jansson's worldwide fame lasts on the Moomin books, written in the 1940s and later becoming television characters of the simplicity, naivety and sheer 'goodness' that would later produce flowerpot men or teletubbies. Simple drawings, simple stories, simple goodness. What is often forgotten outside of her native Finland is that she was a serious writer…that she wrote for adults as well as children…and that she had a feeling for the natural world and the simple life that not only informed those child-like trolls but went far beyond any fantasy of how the world might be.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099540398</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1911115847
|author=Shirley Jackson
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|title=Nights of the Creaking Bed
|title=The Lottery and Other Stories
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|author=Toni Kan
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
+
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Even though it was written over sixty years ago, The Lottery, coming in at fewer than 3,500 words still has the power to shock. 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 of the story. Time may have lessened sensibilities over the latter half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty first but The Lottery, like many of the other stories in this timely reissue, still packs a mighty punch.
+
|summary=''Nights of the Creaking Bed'' is a collection of short stories by Toni Kan. The series of stories tell of the lives and lusts of an assortment of characters living in and around Lagos, Nigeria. Nigeria, in this collection, is imbued with its very own heart of darkness. Danger stalks the shadows and people are killed for nothing more than a wrong look. Kan writes with a vitality and passion that allows these cynical stories to achieve a glimmer of hope.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141191430</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1529014484
|author=Edgar Allan Poe and Gris Grimly
+
|title=Exhalation
|title=Tales of Death and Dementia
+
|author=Ted Chiang
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Graphic Novels
+
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=Wow! What a wonderful combination: Edgar Allan Poe, master of the gothic horror short story, and Gris Grimly, outstanding illustrator, known for his [[The Dangerous Alphabet by Neil Gaiman and Gris Grimly|work with Neil Gaiman]]. Poe's ''Tales of Death and Dementia'' are shown off at their very best in this edition.
+
|summary=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 science fiction fan it is likely that you have already come across some of the work by Ted Chiang. If you haven't then take this opportunity to do so now. Trust me; your imagination will be grateful.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847386474</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1794467440
|author=William Bedford
+
|title=Watchwords
|title=None of the Cadillacs was Pink
+
|author=Philip Neal
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Short Stories
 
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=I chose this book because of its superb title – the last and best memoir in a collection of sixteen stories. These Humberside and Lincolnshire stories have a background beat of Fifties' music that sets them firmly in an exciting, disturbing time for young people everywhere, not least for the author and his friends, as old ways of living made way for new along the East Coast of England.
+
|summary=This satisfying collection of short stories has a provenance at least as beguiling as the provenance of the antique watches that inspired it.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529445</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
+
Philip Neal lost a watch. It was a watch he was fond of and had been told was like a 1930s Cartier. Instead of mourning its loss, he began to collect vintage watches that resembled it. And that's how he became a watch collector. 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 watches was not and the seed of an idea for a book was born.
|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 a treat. If you enjoy them both then it's a treasure trove. ''Thriller 2: Stories You Just Can't Put Down'' is edited by best-selling author [[:Category:Clive Cussler|Clive Cussler]] (although none of his work is included) and includes work by some authors who are the top of their game.  There are twenty three stories in all, each about twenty pages long and they're perfect for those moments when you just want to dip into something short and satisfying.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778303209</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1529006031
|author=Will Eisner
+
|title=Return to Wonderland
|title=Minor Miracles
+
|author=Various Authors
 
|rating=4.5
 
|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
 
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=A jobbing guitarist from an Eastern European country, playing in Venice, is given a most singular gig by an ageing, passing croonerAn old friend of a couple at loggerheads stays in their flat, but enters a nightmare world of comedy, doing greater and greater wrongs to cover his first transgressionA younger couple running a cafe employ a friend to help out, despite his wish to hide in the hills and compose new songs for his not-very illustrious career.
+
|summary=In following a young girl called Alice down the rabbit hole a few years ago, when the first book she was in [[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (150th Anniversary Edition) by Lewis Carroll and Anthony Browne|hit 150 years of age]], I found that I didn't really find too much favour with itThe wacky-for-the-sake-of-it did not gel, and I don't remember loving it more as a 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 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 least obvious, allegedly throw-away pieces, 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 hunch, for obvious reasons)For another thing, there was every reason to expect some kind of greatness here – with Carroll much loved by millions, surely pieces written with that love in mind could only provide for success after success?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>057124498X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1846974658
|author=Aleksandar Hemon 
+
|title=The Long Path To Wisdom
|title=Love and Obstacles
+
|author=Jan-Philipp Sendker
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Short Stories
 
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=We start with the young narrator away from home, and in Africa, due to his diplomat father.  He's left behind home, a potential girlfriend, and more, but finds company with an older, chancer character and his junkie girlfriend, and their pot, drinks and 70s rockCloser to his roots, but still a young man abroad, the second story sees him travelling across his homeland on an errand - to deliver payment for the biggest chest freezer his father could find.  But poems, losing his virginity, keeping his money, and various other fantasies might just put a cooler on that unusual task...
+
|summary=On my travels around the world, I have a tendency to end up in any bookshop that is selling English-language books, and while I buy as many second-hand escapist tales as the next person, what I'm really looking for is the 'local' – the cookbook maybe, the maps definitely, but above all: the folk talesIf I ever get to Burma, I won't need to hunt, I can read before I go.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330464434</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=B077969HN8
|author=Charles Stross
+
|title=Alternative Medicine
|title=Wireless
+
|author=Laura Solomon
|rating=4
+
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
 
|summary=In his introduction, Stross explains that one of the reasons he likes writing shorts stories is because they are the ideal format in which to focus on a particular concept of the future and play around with it. It doesn't matter so much if the idea doesn't ultimately work because neither the reader nor the author has invested in it the way they would in a novel. ''Wireless'' then, is something of an experiment. Stross employs many different styles, tackles many different subjects and is very skilful at creating mood. His stories are a strange blend of the technical and the archaic.
 
|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>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Oxfam
 
|title=Ox-Tales: Earth
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Short Stories
 
|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.
+
|summary=Laura Solomon's publisher describes the short stories in ''Alternative Medicine'' as ''black comedy with a twist of surrealism''.  I'm rather glad that I didn't see this until ''after'' I'd finished reading as I'm not normally a fan of either, but I've come to two conclusions about the book: what the publisher says is correct - and I really enjoyed it.   The comedy is not ''too'' black and the surrealism is gentle and perhaps best described as a twist or flick of reality when you were least expecting it. Your comfort zones are going to be invaded in the nicest possible way.
 
 
The framework for the books is provided by the four elements of the classical philosophy. Each collection starts with Vikram Seth's elemental poem 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>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=9386897504
|author=Irvine Welsh
+
|title=Tales of Love and Disability
|title=Reheated Cabbage
+
|author=Laura Solomon
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Short Stories
 
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=Irvine Welsh's choice of title for this collection of short stories may serve to warn some unwary readers of its unpalatable nature. To the uninitiated, its stream of unrestrained swearing, drug taking, sex and casual violence could come as a shock. His fans though, will no doubt lap it up.
+
|summary=I've always believed that less-able writers produce longer books: it takes a great deal of skill and talent to write a short story which holds the reader and keeps them coming back for more.  There are far too many collections of short stories which are all too easy to put down and forget after you've read a couple of pieces. I've recently read a couple of novellas 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, so I was intrigued to see what she could do with an even shorter form.  
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224080555</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1986586898
|author=Oxfam
+
|title=Going To The Last: Short Stories About Horse Racing
|title=Ox-Tales: Fire
+
|author=K D Knight
|rating=4
+
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Short Stories
 
|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.
+
|summary=In the opening story, a man whose wife has deserted him visits Sandown with little money but comes away with cash in his pocket - and his wife.  In ''A Grey Day'' an owner struggles with the problem of whether or not to run his horse in the Gold Cup when the ground is against him. My favourite was ''The Story of H'', the story of Foinavon.  H is depicted as a kind horse who only wanted to please people.  After changing hands on various occasions he came to the yard of John Kempton.  H (or Foinavon) was entered in the Grand National and considered a no-hoper.  In one of the most dramatic runnings of the race, a pile-up occurred at the 23rd fence.  Foinavon, who had been many lengths adrift, cleared the fence and galloped to the line, winning the race at odds of 100/1.
 
 
The framework for the books is provided by the four elements of the classical philosophy. Each collection starts with Vikram Seth's elemental poem and ends with a short article highlighting Oxfam's work in a key area (fire – conflict and war, water – sanitation and clean water, earth – agriculture and air – climate change).
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682592</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=9386897296
|author=Mick Jackson
+
|title=Hell's Unveiling
|title=Bears of England
+
|author=Laura Solomon
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Short Stories
 
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=As you know, England has had a chequered history when it comes to her bears.  From the days when we only knew them as horrors making bumping noises - among many others - in the night, we have learnt more, and used them moreTherefore we have this short little book, detailing some of the more remarkable instances of Anglo-bear relations, from the days of bear-baiting, to them being shot at when they escaped the circus, to when they were employed in subaquatic labour in the days before SCUBA gear...
+
|summary=A 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, ''Hell's Unveiling''It's probably not much of a spoiler to say that Marsha bested the devil in ''Marsha's Deal'', but the devil is not one to take defeat lying downHe's out to wage war on Planet Earth and particularly on Marsha (who's thought of as a 'goody two shoes' in Hell).  Although a strong person, she's vulnerable where her foster children are concernedDaniel is framed for a crime he didn't commit and sent to juvenile detention and refused permission to return to live with MarshaThen, of course, there are all the other children who are not only targeted but - worst of all - subverted to the devil's evil ends.  He's out to prey on their fears and weaknesses and as with many foster children, their self-esteem is very fragileThis is no small-scale operation, either - the devil has set up a training complex on earth, complete with an elevator to 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 literatureHis fame rests largely on having contributed to, 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 introductionThe 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 formThis 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 WorldsThe supporting material ranges from a one-page strip to thirty-page stories.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0978791975</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move to [[Newest Spirituality and Religion Reviews]]
|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>
 
}}
 

Revision as of 17:19, 25 March 2024

AllTomorrowsFutureCover.jpg

Review of

All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt by Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)

5star.jpg Science Fiction

Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.

I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of it is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand. Full Review

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Review of

Super Short Stories: Flash Fiction by Mark C Wallfisch

4.5star.jpg Short Stories

Got a minute to be amused, entertained, or challenged? These 100 stories are super short. None is more than 300 words. You can read one in a flash. Some are funny. Some are poignant. All are short.

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 flash fictions in a book of them? I don't know! Perhaps we could start by explaining that there really isn't a fixed definition of flash fiction but that for this collection, author Mark C Wallfisch has gone for a three hundred word limit. That's about a single page in your average paperback. Full Review

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Review of

Bad Dolls by Rachel Harrison

4star.jpg Short Stories

It's been some time since I've read any horror. I had a couple of misspent teen years reading Stephen King, borrowing the books from a 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 fear of the vampires outside! 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 that feeling came from the fact that these are stories about women, living normal lives, and that at least in part, the horrors arises from very normal situations such as a breakup, trying a new dieting app, going to a hen party and a coping with grief. Full Review

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Review of

Stories 2 by Richard F Walker

4star.jpg Short Stories

This is Richard F Walker's second volume of short stories. There are thirteen in all and I took something from each of them. There isn't a single one that doesn't deserve to be among the others or brings down the overall quality. It can be tricky to review short stories without giving too much away, so I'll just pick two to talk about and I think they give a general flavour. Full Review

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Review of

22 Ideas About The Future by Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)

5star.jpg Science Fiction

Our future will be more complex than we expected. Instead of flying cars, we got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma.

I've got a couple of confessions to make. I'm not keen on short stories as I find it easy to read a few stories and then forget to return to the book. There's got to be a very compelling hook to keep me engaged. Then there's science fiction: far too often it's the technology which takes centre stage along with the world-building. It's human 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, I loved it. Full Review

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Review of

Stories: 13 tantalising tales by Richard F Walker

4star.jpg Short Stories

A news vendor is crying out the headlines in the middle of the night; a wheelchair user loses touch with reality when he tries walking around in his imagination; a stickler for correct grammar goes back in time to correct an iconic quote; a volunteer teacher proves the ideal person to have around in a lawless village; the new boy on the pub football team is very useful with his feet, and awfully familiar…

This collection of thirteen short stories by Richard F Walker has a lot to offer the eclectic reader. Tying them together is the idea that remarkable and strange, even miraculous, things can happen to ordinary people. And that ordinary doesn't mean boring or uninteresting. Form and tone varies so this little treasury of short fiction is never boring and you're never quite sure what's coming next. Full Review

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Review of

Bag O'Goodies by Jolly Walker Bittick

4star.jpg Anthologies

Sometimes, you deserve a treat and mine was Jolly Walker Bittick's Bag O'Goodies. I first encountered his writing about a year ago, when I read his Cape Henry House, a rollicking tale of what happens when five young men find a base for their partying. Right now, I didn't want a full-length novel, so I turned to this anthology of verse and short stories. Bittick's writing has matured - and so have his characters. Well... most of them! Full Review

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Review of

Bruno's Challenge and Other Dordogne Tales by Martin Walker

4star.jpg Short Stories

I'm not usually a fan of short stories - I find it all too easy to put the book down between stories and forget to pick it up again - but I am a fan of Martin Walker's Bruno Courreges Mysteries so the temptation to read Bruno's Challenge was hard to resist and I'm rather glad that I didn't even try. For those new to the series, there's an excellent introduction that will tell you all you need to know about who's who and the background to why Bruno is in St Denis. Full Review

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Review of

Cherry Blossom Boutique by Brooke Adams

3star.jpg Women's Fiction

Thirty-one-year old Liberty Rossini has had her shop, the Cherry Blossom Boutique, for just six months when she's nominated for - and wins - the Retail Best Newcomer Award. She's delighted and the two people she's brought with her to the event couldn't be more pleased. Sonja, her mother, is an ex-model and Brazilian: you can see where Liberty got her looks from. Jessica's thirty-four and Liberty's best friend: they've known each other since university and Liberty adores Jessica's husband, Charles and their 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. Full Review

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Review of

But Never For Lunch by Sandra Aragona

4star.jpg Short Stories

If a woman approaching the menopause can be likened to a Rottweiler in lipstick, an Ambassador nearing retirement resembles a pampered peacock about to be released into the company of carrion crows or, more to the point, about to discover the real world of bus timetables and paying his own gas bills.

You don't get many better opening sentences than that, do you? We first met His Excellency and The Ambassador's Wife in Sorting the Priorities and we learned what it was like to be moved around countries like accompanying baggage by the Italian Government but the time has come for HE to retires and for Sandra Aragona to become The Wife of Former Ambassador... They have left The Career and settled in Rome. Well 'settled' rather overstates the situation and their dog, Beagle, has no intention of slowing down any time soon, despite being sixteen and deaf. Full Review

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Review of

Capturing Emilia by Brooke Adams

3star.jpg Women's Fiction

He's Charles Devereaux, thirty-eight and a partner at Wickham Jones, the Mayfair letting agents. She's Emilia, twenty-nine, librarian and archivist in the heritage library next door. Emilia has read The Secret but she's moved on from new age books like that, which leave you dependent on someone else's philosophies, to something a little deeper. Charles is more of a Jack Reacher man himself, but, above all, he's shocked that Emilia reads The Guardian. They're obviously not at all compatible, so why can Charles not get this woman out of his mind? She's not his usual type at all: it's obvious to his friends. 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? Full Review

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Review of

Cursed: An Anthology of Dark Fairy Tales by Marie O'Regan and Paul Kane (editors)

4.5star.jpg Fantasy

Curses. They're there throughout tales of faery and other fantastical folk – people being cursed to do this, or not to be able to do that. Children can be cursed, as can princesses on the verge of marrying, and older people too. It seems in a way there's no escaping it. Which is why the theme of this book of short stories is such a standout – we may well think we know all there is to know about this accursed character, that demonised place, and that other bewitched person. We'd be very wrong. Full Review

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Review of

An Almost Perfect Christmas by Nina Stibbe

4.5star.jpg Humour

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 downstairs 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's suitably free-range and organic – but not too organic that you can go and visit it, 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 lot of plump people who can hire red suits and beards, it was always a godsend for postmen with all the thank-you letters to aunties you saw twice a decade that your parents made you write out in long-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? Full Review

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Review of

A Winter Book by Tove Jansson

5star.jpg Literary Fiction

Tove Jansson's worldwide fame lasts on the Moomin books, written in the 1940s and later becoming television characters of the simplicity, naivety and sheer 'goodness' that would later produce flowerpot men or teletubbies. Simple drawings, simple stories, simple goodness. What is often forgotten outside of her native Finland is that she was a serious writer…that she wrote for adults as well as children…and that she had a feeling for the natural world and the simple life that not only informed those child-like trolls but went far beyond any fantasy of how the world might be. Full Review

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Review of

Nights of the Creaking Bed by Toni Kan

4star.jpg Literary Fiction

Nights of the Creaking Bed is a collection of short stories by Toni Kan. The series of stories tell of the lives and lusts of an assortment of characters living in and around Lagos, Nigeria. Nigeria, in this collection, is imbued with its very own heart of darkness. Danger stalks the shadows and people are killed for nothing more than a wrong look. Kan writes with a vitality and passion that allows these cynical stories to achieve a glimmer of hope. Full Review

1529014484.jpg

Review of

Exhalation by Ted Chiang

5star.jpg Science Fiction

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 science fiction fan it is likely that you have already come across some of the work by Ted Chiang. If you haven't then take this opportunity to do so now. Trust me; your imagination will be grateful. Full Review

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Review of

Watchwords by Philip Neal

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This satisfying collection of short stories has a provenance at least as beguiling as the provenance of the antique watches that inspired it.

Philip Neal lost a watch. It was a watch he was fond of and had been told was like a 1930s Cartier. Instead of mourning its loss, he began to collect vintage watches that resembled it. And that's how he became a watch collector. 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 watches was not and the seed of an idea for a book was born. Full Review

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Review of

Return to Wonderland by Various Authors

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In following a young girl called Alice down the rabbit hole a few years ago, when the first book she was in hit 150 years of age, I found that I didn't really find too much favour with it. The wacky-for-the-sake-of-it did not gel, and I don't remember loving it more as a 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 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 least obvious, allegedly throw-away pieces, 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 hunch, for obvious reasons). For another thing, there was every reason to expect some kind of greatness here – with Carroll much loved by millions, surely pieces written with that love in mind could only provide for success after success? Full Review

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Review of

The Long Path To Wisdom by Jan-Philipp Sendker

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On my travels around the world, I have a tendency to end up in any bookshop that is selling English-language books, and while I buy as many second-hand escapist tales as the next person, what I'm really looking for is the 'local' – the cookbook maybe, the maps definitely, but above all: the folk tales. If I ever get to Burma, I won't need to hunt, I can read before I go. Full Review

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Review of

Alternative Medicine by Laura Solomon

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Laura Solomon's publisher describes the short stories in Alternative Medicine as black comedy with a twist of surrealism. I'm rather glad that I didn't see this until after I'd finished reading as I'm not normally a fan of either, but I've come to two conclusions about the book: what the publisher says is correct - and I really enjoyed it. The comedy is not too black and the surrealism is gentle and perhaps best described as a twist or flick of reality when you were least expecting it. Your comfort zones are going to be invaded in the nicest possible way. Full Review

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Review of

Tales of Love and Disability by Laura Solomon

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I've always believed that less-able writers produce longer books: it takes a great deal of skill and talent to write a short story which holds the reader and keeps them coming back for more. There are far too many collections of short stories which are all too easy to put down and forget after you've read a couple of pieces. I've recently read a couple of novellas by Laura Solomon - Marsha's Deal and Hell's Unveiling and enjoyed them, so I was intrigued to see what she could do with an even shorter form. Full Review

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Review of

Going To The Last: Short Stories About Horse Racing by K D Knight

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In the opening story, a man whose wife has deserted him visits Sandown with little money but comes away with cash in his pocket - and his wife. In A Grey Day an owner struggles with the problem of whether or not to run his horse in the Gold Cup when the ground is against him. My favourite was The Story of H, the story of Foinavon. H is depicted as a kind horse who only wanted to please people. After changing hands on various occasions he came to the yard of John Kempton. H (or Foinavon) was entered in the Grand National and considered a no-hoper. In one of the most dramatic runnings of the race, a pile-up occurred at the 23rd fence. Foinavon, who had been many lengths adrift, cleared the fence and galloped to the line, winning the race at odds of 100/1. Full Review

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Review of

Hell's Unveiling by Laura Solomon

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A little while ago I really enjoyed Marsha's Deal and I was delighted by the opportunity to read the sequel, Hell's Unveiling. It's probably not much of a spoiler to say that Marsha bested the devil in Marsha's Deal, but the devil is not one to take defeat lying down. He's out to wage war on Planet Earth and particularly on Marsha (who's thought of as a 'goody two shoes' in Hell). 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 refused permission to return to live with Marsha. Then, of course, there are all the other children who are not only targeted but - worst of all - subverted to the devil's evil ends. He's out to prey on their fears and weaknesses and as with many foster children, their self-esteem is very fragile. This is no small-scale operation, either - the devil has set up a training complex on earth, complete with an elevator to Hell. Full Review

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