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|genre=Anthologies Women's Fiction|summary=A compilation 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 this should be nigh that, which leave you dependent on brilliantsomeone else's philosophies, to something a little deeper. ItCharles 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 one authorget this woman out of his mind? She's best short works, 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?}}{{Frontpage|author=Marie O'Regan and Paul Kane (editors)|title=Cursed: An Anthology of a dozenDark Fairy Tales|rating=4.5|genre=Fantasy|summary=Curses. ItThey's re there throughout tales of faery and other fantastical folk – people being cursed to do this, or not from one snapshot in timeto be able to do that. Children can be cursed, as some were written can princesses on the year verge of publication marrying, and some in the 1960solder people too. Itseems in a way there's not from one tiny patch no escaping it. Which is why the theme of author's desk or one set this book of laptop keysshort stories is such a standout – we may well think we know all there is to know about this accursed character, but from the entire Nordic worldthat demonised place, whether and that other bewitched person. We'd be urban Scandinaviavery wrong.|isbn=1789091500}}{{Frontpage|isbn=Stibbe_Xmas|title=An Almost Perfect Christmas|author=Nina Stibbe|rating=4.5|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 Faroes 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 other island groupsorganic – but not too organic that you can go and visit it, or Greenlandand get too friendly with it to want to eat it. That Christmas, though, is of course also a world thattime of great boons. It's changing – as 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 Greenlandthank-born author now living you letters to aunties you saw twice a decade that your parents made you write out in Brooklynlong-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 Iraqi blood year?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0954899520|title=A Winter Book|author=Tove Jansson|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Tove Jansson's worldwide fame lasts on these pagesthe 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, testifysimple goodness. It's 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 where new roads and new building works mean a family living on the edge simple life that not only informed those child-like trolls but went far beyond any fantasy of how the forest at world might be.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1911115847|title=Nights of the beginning Creaking Bed|author=Toni Kan|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''Nights of the story are being surrounded by other life Creaking Bed'' is a collection of short stories by Toni Kan. The series of stories tell of the end, lives and with the influence lusts of centuries an assortment of folklore featuredcharacters living in and around Lagos, a lot 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 changes – sometimes it seems allows these cynical stories to be even the characters' species…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782273824</amazonuk>achieve a glimmer of hope.
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{{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>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kenneth Steven1794467440|title=Winter TalesWatchwords |author=Philip Neal
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|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. Philip Neal lost a watch. You are taken around the world as you read stories set in It was a watch he was fond of and had been told was like a variety 1930s Cartier. Instead of places from Helsinki to New Yorkmourning its loss, Germany he began to Russiacollect vintage watches that resembled it. Kenneth Steven cleverly utilises And that's how he became a key component of short stories - that you can read each story watch collector. An eBay purchase led him to the Antique Watch Company watch repairers in one sitting - to his advantage as he gives each story an individual focal subjectClerkenwell. The eBay purchase was a fake, such as bullying, ensuring but the friendship that you are reading grew between the buyer and the repairer of watches was not and the seed of an idea for a distinct story every time you open the bookwas born.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910674508</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Roald Dahl1529006031|title= FearReturn to Wonderland|author=Various Authors|rating= 4.5|genre= Short Stories|summary=Do you 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 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 being scared? Featuring fourteen classic spine-chilling these short stories chosen by Roald Dahlthat come at the core from a tangent, these terrible tales that show the benefits of ghostly goingsthe oblique glance. I've always preferred coming to an author's output through their least obvious, allegedly throw-on will have you shivering away pieces, and it's the same with fear as you turn franchises – I'd more likely go for Bree Tanner's short novella than the pageswhole Twilight saga (although that remains just a hunch, for obvious reasons).|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405933216</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?
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{{Frontpage<!-- Dahl -->|isbn=1846974658[[image:Dahl_War.jpg|lefttitle=The Long Path To Wisdom|linkauthor=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1405933194?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbagJan-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1405933194]]Philipp Sendker ===[[War by Roald Dahl]]==|rating=4 [[image:5star.jpg|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]]summary=On my travels around the world, I have a tendency to end up in any bookshop that is selling English-language books, [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]] In warand while I buy as many second-hand escapist tales as the next person, are we at our heroic best or our cowardly worst? Featuring what I'm really looking for is the autobiographical stories from Roald Dahl's time as a fighter pilot in local' – the cookbook maybe, the maps definitely, but above all: the Second World War as well as seven other folk tales of conflict and strife. If I ever get to Burma, I won't need to hunt, Dahl reveals the human side of our most inhumane activityI can read before I go. [[War by Roald Dahl|Full Review]]<br>}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Roald DahlB077969HN8|title= TrickeryAlternative Medicine|author=Laura 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 black and the parting gift which rocks their marriage, the light fingered hitch-hiker surrealism is gentle and the grateful motorist, 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>
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{{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>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tania Hershman1986586898|title=Some of Us Glow More Than OthersGoing To The Last: Short Stories About Horse Racing|author=K D Knight
|rating=4.5
|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>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James Kelman9386897296|title=That Was a Shiver, and Other StoriesHell's Unveiling|author=Laura Solomon
|rating=3.5
|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>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1979217440|title=Marsha's Deal|author=Various AuthorsLaura Solomon|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary=Marsha didn't have an easy ride in life the first time around. She'd been afflicted with [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibrodysplasia_ossificans_progressiva fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva], a rare disease which turned parts of her body to bone when they were damaged. Finally, she was unable to stand her life any longer and went to Dignitas, the Swiss euthanasia clinic. She'd thought that would be the end, but after cremation, her body went straight to hell and she found herself face-to-face with the devil. And that 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.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=150690551X|title= A Change Is Gonna ComeRoses in December|author=Matthew de Lacey Davidson|rating= 54|genre= TeensShort Stories|summary= ''A Change Is Gonna ComeRoses in December'' is an anthology a collection of twenty-two short stories . And when I say short, I mean ''short'', with each just a few pages long and some brushing the flash fiction genre, such is the brevity. I think the shorter the story, the harder it is to write and poems interpreting the theme more difficult the task of change by twelve BAME writersengaging, then satisfying, the reader. It's Stripes Publishing's response So it is to the under-representation immense credit of Matthew de Lacey Davidson that I sighed in appreciation many times while reading. He has a good sense of which moments of BAME authors the human experience to capture in order to make the UKpoint he wants to make. And Some highlights:}}{{Frontpage|isbn=Onymouse_Quick|title=Quick and Quirky: Short Stories with Quips!|author=Fred Onymouse and Ann Onymouse|rating=1.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=Quick, and indeed, quirky, are positive attributes, I'm sure you'd agree – apart from perhaps in surgeons. I like things that have a quirk, and I approve of the quicky. I've been dabbling in the world of creative writing for a few years now, and whenever anyone asks what it is I mostly write, I define itwith the catch-all safety net of 's 'flippant''. So this book should be right up my street, being as it is a great responsebijou selection of illustrated and fairly large-print short stories.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847158390</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Helen StanceyHill_Strange|title= The Madonna of the PoolStrange Weather|author=Joe Hill|rating= 3.5|genre= Short Stories|summary= In most Strange Weather is a collection of four short story collectionsnovels all linked by, an overarching theme unsurprisingly, strange and cataclysmic weather. Each novel is usually present in each of the narratives distinct and showcases Hill's restrained yet vivid style which help each story gently flow in takes everyday events and makes them bitingly, acerbically macabre or blindingly beautiful, often switching from one sentence to the next. In this debut collection Helen Stancey explores As Hill himself says ''the quiet disappointments, achievements, and complications that each beauty of us experience through everyday life. She draws attention to the small events world and decisions that can both disrupt and significantly alter the lives horror of others and ourselvesthe world were twined together'', all while maintaining a delicately poetic tone throughoutnever is this truer than in Strange Weather where moments of abject horror are coupled with raw beauty.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1912054000</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joanna WalshDick_Electric|title=Worlds from the WordPhilip K Dick's EndElectric Dreams|author=Philip K Dick|rating=3.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=We here at The Bookbag liked this 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 fairly recent collection of short stories, [[Vertigo by Joanna Walsh|Vertigo]]for TV. I myself missed outStartlingly, but that seemed to be vignettes from one characterDick's narration – here we get homosexual male narrators current relevance reaches beyond fiction and a host more, as well as much less of into the sadness prevalent before. Having had a brief encounter with this author courtesy factual: his topics from intrusive advertising and loss of her entry into privacy to the [[Bookshelf (Object Lessons) by Lydia Pyne|Object Lessons]] series, I was intrigued by her name being stamped on a selection increasing machination of shorts. Was it the ideal calling card? Letsociety are all headline material in today's face itnews. It is as if half a century after their inception, the very short story itself can be a postcard – letDick's say, from a specific hotel or two, as we see hereelectric dreams are becoming reality. Perhaps I should have geared myself up, however, for such intricate writing on said postcards – and for the exotic locations from which they came…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911508105</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helen PhillipsMettler_15|title=Some Possible SolutionsFifteen Minutes|author=Erinna Mettler
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=Picture a Our world where youis obsessed with celebrity culture - and in this advent of social media, the updates on celebrity come 24 hours a new motherday, move delivered to a town where you slowly start to realise that every other woman seems a replica of you – dressing us on our televisions, our magazines, on our phones and doing as you doour computers. Consider a place where you have a perfect other half – most literally – but it's only to be found In focusing on an alien planet. Or how about the woman who suddenly finds she can see everything these heightened and everyone else alive as having no skinairbrushed lives though, just organs, tissue are we missing the more interesting and bone as if everyone was having a Gunther von Hagens plastination job? A lot of these human stories that are hard to summarise without dropping into the voice of the out there? That's what Erinna Mettler considers in 'Twilight Zone'15 Minutes' narration, but they're not specifically genre works – they're just further examples of this author's unsettling look at - short stories that feature celebrity encounters told through the bizarre elements eyes of lifeordinary, but no less compelling, characters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782273425</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Cixin LiuHodgkinson_Dark|title= The Wandering Earth|rating= 5|genre= Science Fiction|summary= If anyone thought that the short story as a form had been relegated to the pages of women's magazines (no disrespect) – think again. One genre that has always been a stalwart supporter and encourager of the short form is SciDark-fi. So when you pick up a collection of Sci-fi shorts, you know that it will have just as much depth Blue Winter Overcoat and thought-provoking philosophy as any similar novel. Add to that the intrigue of seeing how the concepts are approached by someone other stories from China which – to be polite – has a somewhat different world-view in many ways to much of the rest of the planet…and add to that an author who is not only 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>}}{{newreviewNorth|author= Fleur Jaeggy Sjon Hodgkinson and Gini Alhadeff Ten Hodgkinson (translatoreditors)|title= I Am The Brother Of XX|rating= 43|genre= Short Stories|summary=A compilation like this should be nigh on brilliant. It's not one author'I Am The Brother s best short works, it's that of XXa dozen. It'' is a collection of twenty s not from one short stories from Fleur Jaeggysnapshot in time, who expertly wields malevolence and spite throughout, from as some were written the evil done between husband year of publication and wife some in the 1960s. It's not from one tiny patch of author'The Aviary'', a nasty tale s desk or one set of Oedipal menace and viciouslaptop keys, although admittedlybut from the entire Nordic world, artful crueltywhether that be urban Scandinavia, to senseless annihilation the Faroes and immolation in ''The Heir''other island groups, or Greenland. Jaeggy also appears to have That is a particular fascination with religionworld that's changing – as the Greenland-born author now living in Brooklyn, from and the nun receiving Iraqi blood on these pages, testify. It's a rather special sort of communion in ''The Visitor'' to general references to the Church world where new roads and religious devotion throughout many of her stories. Family is also new building works mean a recurrent theme; whether focused family living on the distance between siblings in edge of the forest at the beginning of the titular storyare being surrounded by other life by the end, told from and with the point influence of view centuries of folklore featured, a brother filled with longing and loneliness trying lot more than that changes – sometimes it seems to create a bond with his distant older sister, or be even the primal need to protect the bond between mother and son, regardless of the cost in ''Adelaide'characters'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911508024</amazonuk>species…
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