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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

{{Frontpage<!-- Stibbe -->*[[image:Stibbe_Xmas.jpg|left|linkisbn=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0241309824?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0241309824]]Stibbe_Xmas ==|title=[[An Almost Perfect Christmas by |author=Nina Stibbe]]|rating=== [[image:4.5star.jpg5|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Humour|Humour]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] 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? [[An Almost Perfect Christmas by Nina Stibbe|Full Review]]<br> {{newreview|author= Philip K Dick|title= Philip K Dick's Electric Dreams|rating= 3|genre= Science Fiction|summary= Philip K Dick's stories were originally published in the 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 author's short stories for TV. Startlingly, Dick's current relevance reaches beyond fiction and into the factual: his topics from intrusive advertising and loss of privacy to 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 reality.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473223288</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Erinna Mettler0954899520|title= Fifteen MinutesA Winter Book|author=Tove Jansson|rating= 45|genre= Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary=Our world is obsessed with celebrity culture - Tove Jansson's worldwide fame lasts on the Moomin books, written in the 1940s and in this advent later becoming television characters of social media, the updates on celebrity come 24 hours a daysimplicity, delivered to us on our televisionsnaivety and sheer 'goodness' that would later produce flowerpot men or teletubbies. Simple drawings, our magazinessimple stories, on our phones and our computerssimple goodness. In focusing on these heightened 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 airbrushed lives though, are we missing the more interesting and human stories simple life that are out there? That's what Erinna Mettler considers in ''15 Minutes'' not only informed those child- short stories that feature celebrity encounters told through like trolls but went far beyond any fantasy of how the eyes of ordinary, but no less compelling, charactersworld might be. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>191158636X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sjon Hodgkinson and Ten Hodgkinson (editors)1911115847|title=The Dark-Blue Winter Overcoat and other stories from Nights of the NorthCreaking Bed|author=Toni Kan|rating=34|genre=Anthologies Literary Fiction|summary=A compilation like this should be nigh on brilliant. It's not one author's best short works, itNights of the Creaking Bed''s that of is a dozen. It's not from one snapshot in time, as some were written the year collection of publication and some in the 1960sshort stories by Toni Kan. It's not from one tiny patch The series of author's desk or one set stories tell of laptop keys, but from the entire Nordic world, whether that be urban Scandinavia, the Faroes lives and other island groups, or Greenland. That is a world that's changing – as the Greenland-born author now lusts of an assortment of characters living in Brooklyn, and the Iraqi blood on these pagesaround Lagos, testifyNigeria. It's a world where new roads and new building works mean a family living on the edge Nigeria, in this collection, is imbued with its very own heart of darkness. Danger stalks the forest at the beginning of the story shadows and people are being surrounded by other life by the end, and killed for nothing more than a wrong look. Kan writes with the influence of centuries of folklore featured, a lot more than vitality and passion that changes – sometimes it seems allows these cynical stories to be even the characters' species…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782273824</amazonuk>achieve a glimmer of hope.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Laura Solomon1529014484|title=Taking WainuiExhalation |author=Ted Chiang|rating=25|genre=General Science Fiction|summary= This 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 the first time I likely that you have already come across Laura Solomon's some of the work, a New Zealand writer who has won writing prizes for both her fiction and poetryby Ted Chiang. Although If you haven't then take this book appears opportunity to do so now. Trust me; your imagination will be a collection of short stories, I found its format somewhat confusinggrateful.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>8193409353</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kenneth Steven1794467440|title=Winter TalesWatchwords |author=Philip Neal

|summary= Upon opening this book you are presented with an eclectic This satisfying collection of twelve short stories centred around has a common theme provenance at least as beguiling as the provenance of Winterthe antique watches that inspired it. You are taken around  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 world as you read stories set Antique Watch Company watch repairers in Clerkenwell. The eBay purchase was a variety fake, but the friendship that grew between the buyer and the repairer of places from Helsinki watches was not and the seed of an idea for a book was born.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529006031|title=Return to New YorkWonderland|author=Various Authors|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=In following a young girl called Alice down the rabbit hole a few years ago, Germany to Russiawhen 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 it. Kenneth Steven cleverly utilises The wacky-for-the-sake-of-it did not gel, and I don't remember loving it more as a key component of child. But I would suggest I am the perfect audience for this book. I had every chance to enjoy these short stories - that you can read each story in one sitting - come at the core from a tangent, that show the benefits of the oblique glance. I've always preferred coming to his advantage as he gives each story an individual focal subjectauthor's output through their least obvious, such as bullyingallegedly throw-away pieces, ensuring 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 you are reading remains just a distinct story hunch, for obvious reasons). For another thing, there was every time you open the book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910674508</amazonuk>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= Roald Dahl1846974658|title= FearThe Long Path To Wisdom|author=Jan-Philipp Sendker|rating= 54|genre= Short Stories|summary=Do you enjoy being scared? Featuring fourteen classic spineOn my travels around the world, I have a tendency to end up in any bookshop that is selling English-chilling stories chosen by Roald Dahllanguage books, these terrible and while I buy as many second-hand escapist tales of ghostly goings-on will have you shivering with fear as you turn the pagesnext 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.|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=B077969HN8 [[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 of conflict and strife, Dahl reveals the human side of our most inhumane activity. [[War by Roald Dahl|Full Review]]<br> {{newreviewAlternative Medicine|author= Roald Dahl|title= TrickeryLaura Solomon|rating= 4.5|genre= Short Stories|summary=How underhand could you be to get what you want? In these ten tales Laura Solomon's publisher describes the short stories in ''Alternative Medicine'' as ''black comedy with a twist of dark and twisted trickery Roald Dahl reveals surrealism''. I'm rather glad that we are at our smartest and most cunning when we set out 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 deceive others two conclusions about the book: what the publisher says is correct - and, sometimes, even ourselvesI really enjoyed it. Here, among others, you The comedy is not ''too''ll read of the married couple and the parting gift which rocks their marriage, the light fingered hitch-hiker black and the grateful motorist, surrealism is gentle and discover why the serious poacher keeps perhaps best described as a few sleeping pills twist or flick of reality when you were least expecting it. Your comfort zones are going to be invaded in his arsenalthe nicest possible way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405933232</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Roald Dahl9386897504|title= InnocenceTales of Love and Disability|author=Laura Solomon|rating= 54|genre= Short Stories|summary=What makes us innocent I've always believed that less-able writers produce longer books: it takes a great deal of skill and how do we come talent to lose it? Featuring write a short story which holds the autobiographical stories telling of Roald Dahl's boyhood reader and youth as well as four further tales keeps them coming back for more. There are far too many collections of innocence betrayed, Dahl touches on the joys short stories which are all too easy to put down and horrors forget after you've read a couple of growing uppieces. Among other stories, you I'll ve recently read about the wager that destroys a girlcouple of novellas by Laura Solomon - [[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon|Marsha's faith in her fatherDeal]] and [[Hell's Unveiling by Laura Solomon|Hell's Unveiling]] 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…