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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Joe HillB08CHJLNBS|title= Strange WeatherCapturing Emilia|author=Brooke Adams|rating= 53|genre= Horror Women's Fiction|summary= Strange Weather 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 collection [[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 four short novels his mind? She's not his usual type at all linked : it's obvious to his friends. And given that Emilia regularly feels repulsed byCharles's superficiality, unsurprisinglywhy does she feel drawn to him? The relationship's obviously a non-starter, strange isn't it?}}{{Frontpage|author=Marie O'Regan and cataclysmic weatherPaul Kane (editors)|title=Cursed: An Anthology of Dark Fairy Tales|rating=4. Each novel is distinct and showcases Hill5|genre=Fantasy|summary=Curses. They's restrained yet vivid style which takes everyday events re there throughout tales of faery and makes them bitinglyother fantastical folk – people being cursed to do this, acerbically macabre or blindingly beautifulnot to be able to do that. Children can be cursed, often switching from one sentence to as can princesses on the nextverge of marrying, and older people too. As Hill himself says 'It seems in a way there's no escaping it. Which is why the beauty theme of the world and the horror this book of the world were twined together'', never short stories is such a standout – we may well think we know all there is to know about this truer than in Strange Weather where moments of abject horror are coupled with raw beautyaccursed character, that demonised place, and that other bewitched person. We'd be very wrong.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>147322117X</amazonuk>1789091500

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Stibbe_Xmas|title=An Almost Perfect Christmas

|genre=Humour |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>0241309824</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Philip K Dick0954899520|title= Philip K Dick's Electric DreamsA Winter Book|author=Tove Jansson|rating= 35|genre= Science Literary Fiction|summary= Philip K DickTove Jansson's stories were originally published worldwide fame lasts on the Moomin books, written in the 50s1940s and later becoming television characters of the simplicity, but they are more present than past. On the big screen naivety and sheer 'goodness'Blade Runner 2049'' relaunched the Dick-inspired cult classic to reviews of pure praise; and on slightly smaller screensthat would later produce flowerpot men or teletubbies. Simple drawings, Channel 4 has adapted the author's short simple stories , simple goodness. What is often forgotten outside of her native Finland is that she was a serious writer…that she wrote for TV. Startlingly, Dick's current relevance reaches beyond fiction adults as well as children…and that she had a feeling for the natural world and into the factual: his topics from intrusive advertising and loss simple life that not only informed those child-like trolls but went far beyond any fantasy of privacy to how the increasing machination of society are all headline material in today's news. It is as if half a century after their inception, Dick's electric dreams are becoming realityworld might be.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473223288</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Erinna Mettler1911115847|title= Fifteen MinutesNights of the Creaking Bed|author=Toni Kan|rating= 4|genre= Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary=Our world ''Nights of the Creaking Bed'' is obsessed with celebrity culture - 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 this advent of social mediaand around Lagos, the updates on celebrity come 24 hours a dayNigeria. Nigeria, delivered to us on our televisionsin this collection, our magazines, on our phones and our computersis imbued with its very own heart of darkness. In focusing on these heightened Danger stalks the shadows and airbrushed lives though, people are we missing the killed for nothing more interesting than a wrong look. Kan writes with a vitality and human stories passion that are out there? That's what Erinna Mettler considers in ''15 Minutes'' - short allows these cynical stories that feature celebrity encounters told through the eyes to achieve a glimmer of ordinary, but no less compelling, charactershope. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>191158636X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sjon Hodgkinson and Ten Hodgkinson (editors)1529014484|title=The Dark-Blue Winter Overcoat and other stories from the NorthExhalation |author=Ted Chiang|rating=35|genre=Anthologies Science Fiction|summary=A compilation like this should be nigh on brilliant. It's not one author's best Over the past twenty-eight years, Ted Chiang has published fifteen science fiction short worksstories, these magnificent stories have won twenty-seven major science fiction awards so if you are a science fiction fan it's is likely that you have already come across some of a dozenthe work by Ted Chiang. ItIf you haven's not from one snapshot in time, t then take this opportunity to do so now. Trust me; your imagination will be grateful.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1794467440|title=Watchwords |author=Philip Neal|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary=This satisfying collection of short stories has a provenance at least as beguiling as some were written the year provenance of publication and some in the 1960santique watches that inspired it. Philip Neal lost a watch. It's not from one tiny patch was a watch he was fond of author's desk or one set and had been told was like a 1930s Cartier. Instead of laptop keysmourning its loss, but from the entire Nordic world, whether he began to collect vintage watches that be urban Scandinavia, the Faroes and other island groups, or Greenlandresembled it. That is a world And that's changing – as how he became a watch collector. An eBay purchase led him to the Greenland-born author now living Antique Watch Company watch repairers in Brooklyn, and the Iraqi blood on these pages, testifyClerkenwell. It's The eBay purchase was a world where new roads and new building works mean a family living on fake, but the edge of friendship that grew between the forest at buyer and the beginning repairer of the story are being surrounded by other life by the end, watches was not and with the influence seed of centuries of folklore featured, an idea for a lot more than that changes – sometimes it seems to be even the characters' species…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782273824</amazonuk>book was born.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Laura Solomon1529006031|title=Taking WainuiReturn to Wonderland|author=Various Authors|rating=24.5|genre=General FictionShort Stories|summary= This is In following a young girl called Alice down the rabbit hole a few years ago, when the first time I have come across Laura Solomonbook she was in [[Alice's workAdventures in Wonderland (150th Anniversary Edition) by Lewis Carroll and Anthony Browne|hit 150 years of age]], a New Zealand writer who has won writing prizes I found that I didn't really find too much favour with it. The wacky-for both her fiction -the-sake-of-it did not gel, and poetryI don't remember loving it more as a child. Although But I would suggest I am the perfect audience for this book appears . I had every chance to be enjoy these short stories that come at the core from a collection 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 storiesnovella than the whole Twilight saga (although that remains just a hunch, I found its format somewhat confusingfor obvious reasons).|amazonuk=<amazonuk>8193409353</amazonuk> 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?

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kenneth Steven1846974658|title=Winter TalesThe Long Path To Wisdom|author=Jan-Philipp Sendker

|summary= Upon opening this book you are presented with an eclectic collection of twelve short stories centred around a common theme of Winter. You are taken On my travels around the world as you read stories set in , I have a variety of places from Helsinki tendency to New Yorkend up in any bookshop that is selling English-language books, Germany to Russia. Kenneth Steven cleverly utilises a key component of short stories and while I buy as many second- that you can read each story in one sitting - to his advantage hand escapist tales as he gives each story an individual focal subjectthe next person, such as bullyingwhat I'm really looking for is the 'local' – the cookbook maybe, the maps definitely, ensuring that you are reading a distinct story every time you open but above all: the bookfolk tales. If I ever get to Burma, I won't need to hunt, I can read before I go.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910674508</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Roald DahlB077969HN8|title= FearAlternative Medicine|author=Laura Solomon|rating= 4.5|genre= Short Stories|summary=Do you enjoy being scared? Featuring fourteen classic spine-chilling Laura Solomon's publisher describes the short stories chosen by Roald Dahlin ''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, these terrible tales of ghostly goingsbut I've come to two conclusions about the book: what the publisher says is correct -on will have you shivering with fear 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 turn were least expecting it. Your comfort zones are going to be invaded in the pagesnicest possible way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405933216</amazonuk>

{{Frontpage<!-- Dahl -->[[image:Dahl_War.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1405933194?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1405933194]] ===[[War by Roald Dahl]]isbn===9386897504[[image:5star.jpg|linktitle=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]], [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]] In war, are we at our heroic best or our cowardly worst? Featuring the autobiographical stories from Roald Dahl's time as a fighter pilot in the Second World War as well as seven other tales Tales of conflict Love and strife, Dahl reveals the human side of our most inhumane activity. [[War by Roald Dahl|Full Review]]<br> {{newreviewDisability|author= Roald Dahl|title= TrickeryLaura Solomon|rating= 54|genre= Short Stories|summary=How underhand could you be I've always believed that less-able writers produce longer books: it takes a great deal of skill and talent to get what you want? In these ten tales write a short story which holds the reader and keeps them coming back for more. There are far too many collections of dark and twisted trickery Roald Dahl reveals that we short stories which are at our smartest and most cunning when we set out all too easy to deceive others - put down and, sometimes, even ourselves. Here, among others, forget after you'll ve read a couple of the married pieces. I've recently read a couple and the parting gift which rocks their marriage, the light fingered hitchof novellas by Laura Solomon -hiker and the grateful motorist, and discover why the serious poacher keeps a few sleeping pills in his arsenal.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405933232</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Roald Dahl|title= Innocence|rating= 5[[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon|genre= Short Stories|summary=What makes us innocent and how do we come to lose it? Featuring the autobiographical stories telling of Roald DahlMarsha's boyhood Deal]] and youth as well as four further tales of innocence betrayed, Dahl touches on the joys and horrors of growing up. Among other stories, you[[Hell'll read about the wager that destroys a girls Unveiling by Laura Solomon|Hell's faith in her fatherUnveiling]] and enjoyed them, the landlady who has plans for her unsuspecting young guest and the commuter who is horrified so I was intrigued to discover that a fellow passenger once bullied him at schoolsee what she could do with an even shorter form.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405933259</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tania Hershman1986586898|title=Some of Us Glow More Than OthersGoing To The Last: Short Stories About Horse Racing|author=K D Knight

|genre=Short Stories |summary=I won't be alone In the opening story, a man whose wife has deserted him visits Sandown with little money but comes away with cash in stating that reading short story collections can be slightly awkwardhis pocket - and his wife. Going through from In ''A-Z, witnessing a bounty Grey Day'' an owner struggles with the problem of ideas and characters whether or not to run his horse in short order can be too much, but do you have the right to pick and choose according to what appeals, and what time you have to fill? Gold Cup when the ground is against him. My favourite was ''The sequence has carefully been consideredStory of H'', surelythe story of Foinavon. Such would appear H is depicted as a kind horse who only wanted to be please people. After changing hands on various occasions he came to the yard of John Kempton. H (or Foinavon) was entered in the case hereGrand National and considered a no-hoper. The last time I read In one of this author's collectionsthe most dramatic runnings of the race, a pile-up occurred at the 23rd fence. Foinavon, with [[The White Road by Tania Hershman|The White Road]]who had been many lengths adrift, cleared the only real difficulty was holding back fence and rationing themgalloped to the line, but here you not only get a whopping forty pieces winning the race at odds of writing, they are also spread into sections100/1.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910061484</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James Kelman9386897296|title=That Was a Shiver, and Other StoriesHell's Unveiling|author=Laura Solomon

|genre=Short Stories |summary=This is 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 ninth book of short stories by this authorsequel, which means he''Hell's Unveiling''. It's presented just as many collections probably not much of a spoiler to say that Marsha bested the short form as he has novelsdevil in ''Marsha's Deal'', but the devil is not one to take defeat lying down. You will find it hard He's out to think wage war on Planet Earth and particularly on Marsha (who's thought of another author that has been so noted as a 'goody two shoes' in Hell). Although a strong person, she's vulnerable where her foster children are concerned. Daniel is framed for longer works (what a crime he didn't commit and sent to juvenile detention and refused permission to return to live with [[How Late It WasMarsha. Then, How Late by James Kelman|How Late It Wasof course, How Late]] winning there are all the Booker) other children who are not only targeted but who is so generous in presenting shorter pieces for the time-poor, or those like me who see worst of all - subverted to the variety in a writerdevil's evil ends. He's short or less typical works out to be the more interesting places to turnprey on their fears and weaknesses and as with many foster children, their self-esteem is very fragile. Opening these pagesThis is no small-scale operation, from either - the pen of such an esteemed prodevil has set up a training complex on earth, came complete with no small sense of anticipationan elevator to Hell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786890909</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Various Authors1979217440|title= A Change Is Gonna ComeMarsha's Deal|author=Laura Solomon|rating= 54|genre= TeensShort Stories|summary= Marsha didn't have an easy ride in life the first time around. She'A Change Is Gonna Come'' is an anthology d been afflicted with [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibrodysplasia_ossificans_progressiva fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva], a rare disease which turned parts of stories her body to bone when they were damaged. Finally, she was unable to stand her life any longer and poems interpreting went to Dignitas, the theme of change by twelve BAME writersSwiss euthanasia clinic. It She's Stripes Publishing's response d thought that would be the end, but after cremation, her body went straight to hell and she found herself face-to the under-representation of BAME authors in face with the UKdevil. And it's a great responsethat was when she made the pact. In exchange for details about some of those who had been close to her - their strengths and weaknesses - she would be reborn on the same day to the same parents but would live her life free of disease.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847158390</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Helen Stancey150690551X|title= The Madonna of the PoolRoses in December|author=Matthew de Lacey Davidson|rating= 3.54|genre= Short Stories|summary= In most ''Roses in December'' is a collection of twenty-two short story collectionsstories. And when I say short, I mean ''short'', with each just a few pages long and some brushing the flash fiction genre, an overarching theme such is usually present in each of the narratives which help each brevity. I think the shorter the story gently flow in , the harder it is to write and the next. In this debut collection Helen Stancey explores more difficult the quiet disappointmentstask of engaging, achievementsthen satisfying, and complications that each of us experience through everyday lifethe reader. She draws attention So it is to the small events and decisions immense credit of Matthew de Lacey Davidson that can both disrupt and significantly alter the lives of others and ourselves, all I sighed in appreciation many times while maintaining reading. He has a delicately poetic tone throughoutgood sense of which moments of the human experience to capture in order to make the point he wants to make.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1912054000</amazonuk>Some highlights:

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joanna WalshOnymouse_Quick|title=Worlds from the Word's EndQuick and Quirky: Short Stories with Quips!|author=Fred Onymouse and Ann Onymouse|rating=31.5

|summary=We here at The Bookbag liked this authorQuick, and indeed, quirky, are positive attributes, I'm sure you's fairly recent collection of short stories, [[Vertigo by Joanna Walsh|Vertigo]]d agree – apart from perhaps in surgeons. I myself missed out, but like things that seemed to be vignettes from one character's narration – here we get homosexual male narrators and have a host morequirk, as well as much less and I approve of the sadness prevalent beforequicky. Having had I've been dabbling in the world of creative writing for a brief encounter with this author courtesy of her entry into the [[Bookshelf (Object Lessons) by Lydia Pyne|Object Lessons]] seriesfew years now, and whenever anyone asks what it is I mostly write, I was intrigued by her name being stamped on a selection of shorts. Was define it with the ideal calling card? Letcatch-all safety net of ''flippant's face it, the very short story itself can be a postcard – let's say, from a specific hotel or two, as we see here. Perhaps I So this book should have geared myself be right upmy street, however, for such intricate writing on said postcards – being as it is a bijou selection of illustrated and for the exotic locations from which they came…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911508105</amazonuk>fairly large-print short stories.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helen PhillipsHill_Strange|title=Some Possible SolutionsStrange Weather|author=Joe Hill|rating=45

|summary=Picture Strange Weather is a world where youcollection of four short novels all linked by, a new motherunsurprisingly, move to a town where you slowly start to realise that every other woman seems a replica of you – dressing strange and doing as you docataclysmic weather. Consider a place where you have a perfect other half – most literally – but itEach novel is distinct and showcases Hill's only restrained yet vivid style which takes everyday events and makes them bitingly, acerbically macabre or blindingly beautiful, often switching from one sentence to be found on an alien planetthe next. Or how about As Hill himself says ''the woman who suddenly finds she can see everything and everyone else alive as having no skin, just organs, tissue beauty of the world and bone as if everyone was having a Gunther von Hagens plastination job? A lot of these stories are hard to summarise without dropping into the voice horror of the world were twined together''Twilight Zone'' narration, but they're not specifically genre works – they're just further examples of never is this author's unsettling look at the bizarre elements truer than in Strange Weather where moments of lifeabject horror are coupled with raw beauty.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782273425</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Cixin LiuDick_Electric|title= The Wandering EarthPhilip K Dick's Electric Dreams|author=Philip K Dick|rating= 53|genre= Science FictionShort Stories|summary= If anyone thought that Philip K Dick's stories were originally published in the short story as a form had been relegated 50s, but they are more present than past. On the big screen ''Blade Runner 2049'' relaunched the Dick-inspired cult classic to reviews of pure praise; and on slightly smaller screens, Channel 4 has adapted the pages of womenauthor's magazines (no disrespect) – think againshort stories for TV. One genre that has always been a stalwart supporter Startlingly, Dick's current relevance reaches beyond fiction and encourager of into the short form is Sci-fi. So when you pick up a collection factual: his topics from intrusive advertising and loss of Sci-fi shorts, you know that it will have just as much depth and thought-provoking philosophy as any similar novel. Add privacy to that the intrigue increasing machination of seeing how the concepts society are approached by someone from China which – to be polite – has a somewhat different world-view all headline material in many ways to much of the rest of the planet…and add to that an author who today's news. It is not only as if half a best-seller in his home country but has the distinction of having produced the first translated work of SF ever to win the Hugo Award…this has got to be good!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784978493</amazonuk>century after their inception, Dick's electric dreams are becoming reality.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Fleur Jaeggy and Gini Alhadeff (translator)Mettler_15|title= I Am The Brother Of XXFifteen Minutes|author=Erinna Mettler|rating= 4|genre= Short Stories|summary=''I Am The Brother of XX'' Our world is a collection obsessed with celebrity culture - and in this advent of twenty one short stories from Fleur Jaeggysocial media, who expertly wields malevolence and spite throughout, from the evil done between husband and wife in ''The Aviary'', updates on celebrity come 24 hours a nasty tale of Oedipal menace and viciousday, although admittedlydelivered to us on our televisions, artful crueltyour magazines, to senseless annihilation on our phones and immolation in ''The Heir''our computers. Jaeggy also appears to have a particular fascination with religionIn focusing on these heightened and airbrushed lives though, from are we missing the nun receiving a rather special sort of communion more interesting and human stories that are out there? That's what Erinna Mettler considers in ''The Visitor15 Minutes'' to general references to the Church and religious devotion throughout many of her - short stories. Family is also a recurrent theme; whether focused on the distance between siblings in the titular story, that feature celebrity encounters told from through the point eyes of view of a brother filled with longing and loneliness trying to create a bond with his distant older sisterordinary, or the primal need to protect the bond between mother and sonbut no less compelling, regardless of the cost in ''Adelaide''characters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911508024</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Malcolm DevlinHodgkinson_Dark|title= You Will Grow Into ThemThe Dark-Blue Winter Overcoat and other stories from the North|author=Sjon Hodgkinson and Ten Hodgkinson (editors)|rating= 53|genre= Short Stories|summary=A compilation like this should be nigh on brilliant. It's not one author'You Will Grow Into Thems best short works, it's that of a dozen. It' is a thrilling collection s not from one snapshot in time, as some were written the year of ten short stories all centred on publication and some in the nature 1960s. It's not from one tiny patch of author's desk or one set of transition laptop keys, but from the entire Nordic world, whether that be urban Scandinavia, the Faroes and changeother island groups, or Greenland. The often grislyThat is a world that's changing – as the Greenland-born author now living in Brooklyn, macabre and ghoulish nature of the stories included in DevlinIraqi blood on these pages, testify. It's debut collection a world where new roads and new building works mean a family living on the edge of the forest at the beginning of the story are intoxicatingly illicit being surrounded by other life by the end, and with the influence of centuries of folklore featured, a lot more than that changes – sometimes it seems to be even the darkness within each tale is deviously addictive.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907389431</amazonuk>characters' species…