Changes

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.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0CDZRGT1M|title=Super Short Stories: Flash Fiction|author=Mark C Wallfisch|rating=4.5|class-"wikitable" cellpaddinggenre=Short Stories|summary="15" <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->''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.}}{{Frontpage|author=Rachel Harrison|title=Bad Dolls|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|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 -- Davidson -->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.|isbn=1803363932}}{{Frontpage|isbn= B0CCCVRSGX|title=Stories 2|-author=Richard F Walker| stylerating="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"4|genre=Short Stories[[image:150690551X.jpg|linksummary=http://wwwThis is Richard F Walker's second volume of short stories. There are thirteen in all and I took something from each of them.amazonThere isn't a single one that doesn't deserve to be among the others or brings down the overall quality.coIt 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.uk/dp/150690551X/ref}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1739593901|title=nosim?tag22 Ideas About The Future|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=thebookbag''Our future will be more complex than we expected. Instead of flying cars, we got night-21]]vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma.''

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.}}{{Frontpage| styleisbn="vertical1737030942|title=Bag O'Goodies|author=Jolly Walker Bittick|rating=4|genre= Anthologies|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 partying. Right now, I didn't want a full-align: top; textlength novel, so I turned to this anthology of verse and short stories. Bittick's writing has matured -align: left;"and so have his characters. Well... most of them!}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529418100|title=Bruno's Challenge and Other Dordogne Tales|author=Martin Walker|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|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 [[Roses Martin Walker's Commissar Bruno Courreges Mysteries in December by Matthew de Lacey DavidsonChronological 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 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.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B08NF79QXT|title=Cherry Blossom Boutique|author=Brooke Adams|rating=3|genre=Women's Fiction|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.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B08KKQ85FN|title=But Never For Lunch|author=Sandra Aragona|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|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.''

You don't get many better opening sentences than that, do you? We first met His Excellency and The Ambassador's Wife in [[imageSorting the Priorities:4star.jpgAmbassadress and Beagle Survive Diplomacy by Sandra Aragona|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] ''Roses in December'' is a collection 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 twenty-two short storiesFormer Ambassador... They have left The Career and settled in Rome. And when I say short, I mean ''short Well 'settled'rather overstates the situation and their dog, Beagle, with each just a few pages long and some brushing the flash fiction genrehas no intention of slowing down any time soon, such is the brevity. I think the shorter the story, the harder it is to write and the more difficult the task of engaging, then satisfying, the reader. So it is to the immense credit of Matthew de Lacey Davidson that I sighed in appreciation many times while readingdespite being sixteen and deaf. }}{{Frontpage|isbn=B08CHJLNBS|title=Capturing Emilia|author=Brooke Adams|rating=3|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=He has 's Charles Devereaux, thirty-eight and a good sense of which moments of the human experience to capture partner at Wickham Jones, the Mayfair letting agents. She's Emilia, twenty-nine, librarian and archivist in order to make the point he wants to makeheritage library next door. Some highlights: Emilia has read [[Roses in December The Secret by Matthew de Lacey DavidsonRhonda Byrne|Full ReviewThe Secret]] <!-- Onymouse -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|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 [[image:Onymouse_Quick.jpgPersonal by Lee Child|left|link=http://wwwJack Reacher]] man himself, but, above all, he's shocked that Emilia reads ''The Guardian''.amazon.co.uk/dp/1788039122/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align 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: top; textit'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-align: left;"|starter, isn't it?===[[Quick and Quirky: Short Stories with Quips! by Fred Onymouse and Ann Onymouse]]===}}{{Frontpage[[image:1.5star.jpg|linkauthor=CategoryMarie O'Regan and Paul Kane (editors)|title=Cursed:{{{An Anthology of Dark Fairy Tales|rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories=4.5|genre=Fantasy|Short Stories]] Quick, summary=Curses. They're there throughout tales of faery and indeed, quirky, are positive attributes, I'm sure you'd agree other fantastical folk – apart from perhaps in surgeonspeople being cursed to do this, or not to be able to do that. I like things that have a quirkChildren can be cursed, and I approve of as can princesses on the quickyverge of marrying, and older people too. I've been dabbling It seems in the world of creative writing for a few years now, and whenever anyone asks what way there's no escaping it . Which is I mostly write, I define it with why the catch-all safety net theme of ''flippant''. So this book should be right up my street, being as it is a bijou selection of illustrated and fairly large-print short stories. [[Quick is such a standout – we may well think we know all there is to know about this accursed character, that demonised place, and Quirky: Short Stories with Quips! by Fred Onymouse and Ann Onymousethat other bewitched person. We'd be very wrong.|Full Review]]isbn=1789091500}}<!-- Hill -->{{Frontpage|-isbn=Stibbe_Xmas| styletitle="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"An Almost Perfect Christmas|author=Nina Stibbe[[image:Hill_Strange.jpg|left|linkrating=https://www4.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/147322117X?ie5|genre=UTF8&tagHumour|summary=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=147322117X]]  | style="vertical-align: top; textChristmas – 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-align: left;"|===[[Strange Weather by Joe Hill]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Horror|Horror]]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, [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]]and get too friendly with it to want to eat it. Christmas, though, [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] Strange Weather is is of course also a collection time of four short novels all linked by, unsurprisingly, strange and cataclysmic weathergreat boons. Each novel is distinct and showcases HillIt's restrained yet vivid style which takes everyday events cash in hand for a lot of plump people who can hire red suits and makes them bitinglybeards, acerbically macabre or blindingly beautiful, often switching from one sentence to the next. As Hill himself says ''it was always a godsend for postmen with all the beauty of the world and the horror of the world were twined together''thank-you letters to aunties you saw twice a decade that your parents made you write out in long-hand as a child, never is this truer than in Strange Weather where moments and as for the makers of abject horror are coupled with raw beauty. [[Strange Weather by Joe Hill|Full Review]]Meltis Newberry Fruits – well, did they even try and sell them any other time of the year?}}<!-- Stibbe -->{{Frontpage|-isbn=0954899520| styletitle="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"A Winter Book|author=Tove Jansson[[image:Stibbe_Xmas.jpg|left|link|rating=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0241309824?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0241309824]] 5| stylegenre="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"Literary Fiction|summary===[[An Almost Perfect Christmas by Nina Stibbe]]=== [[image:4Tove 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.5starSimple drawings, simple stories, simple goodness.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Humour|Humour]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] Christmas – 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 time natural world and the simple life that not only informed those child-like trolls but went far beyond any fantasy of traditional trauma. You only have to think about how the turkey for that – once upon a time it was leaving it sat on world might be.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1911115847|title=Nights of the downstairs loo to defrost overnight, and if that failed the hair-dryer shoved inside it treatment was your next best bet. Nowadays itCreaking Bed|author=Toni Kan|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''s all having to make sure itNights of the Creaking Bed's suitably free-range ' is a collection of short stories by Toni Kan. The series of stories tell of the lives and organic – but not too organic that you can go lusts of an assortment of characters living in and visit itaround Lagos, and get too friendly with it to want to eat itNigeria. ChristmasNigeria, thoughin this collection, is imbued with its very own heart of course also darkness. Danger stalks the shadows and people are killed for nothing more than a time of great boonswrong look. It's cash in hand for Kan writes with a lot vitality and passion that allows these cynical stories to achieve a glimmer of plump people who can hire red suits and beards, it was always a godsend for postmen with all hope.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529014484|title=Exhalation |author=Ted Chiang|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=Over the thankpast 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 letters to aunties you saw twice are a decade science fiction fan it is likely that your parents made you write out in long-hand as a child, and as for have already come across some of 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]]work by Ted Chiang. If you haven't then take this opportunity to do so now. Trust me; your imagination will be grateful.}}<!-- Dick -->{{Frontpage|-isbn=1794467440| styletitle="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"Watchwords |author=Philip Neal[[image:Dick_Electric.jpg|leftrating=4|linkgenre=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1473223288?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1473223288]] Short Stories| stylesummary="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Philip K Dick's Electric Dreams by Philip K Dick]]=== [[image:3star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] 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. [[Philip K Dick's Electric Dreams by Philip K Dick|Full Review]] <!-- Mettler -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Mettler_15.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/191158636X?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=191158636X]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Fifteen Minutes by Erinna Mettler]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] Our world is obsessed with celebrity culture - and in this advent of social media, the updates on celebrity come 24 hours a day, delivered to us on our televisions, our magazines, on our phones and our computers. In focusing on these heightened and airbrushed lives though, are we missing the more interesting and human stories that are out there? That's what Erinna Mettler considers in ''15 Minutes'' - short stories that feature celebrity encounters told through the eyes of ordinary, but no less compelling, characters. [[Fifteen Minutes by Erinna Mettler|Full Review]] <!-- Hodgkinson -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Hodgkinson_Dark.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1782273824/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Dark-Blue Winter Overcoat and other stories from the North by Sjon Hodgkinson and Ten Hodgkinson (editors)]]=== [[image:3star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Anthologies|Anthologies]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] A compilation like this should be nigh on brilliant. It's not one author's best short works, it's that of a dozen. It's not from one snapshot in time, as some were written the year of publication and some in the 1960s. It's not from one tiny patch of author's desk or one set of laptop keys, but from the entire Nordic world, whether that be urban Scandinavia, the Faroes and other island groups, or Greenland. That is a world that's changing – as the Greenland-born author now living in Brooklyn, and the Iraqi blood on these pages, testify. It's 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 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 characters' species… [[The Dark-Blue Winter Overcoat and other stories from the North by Sjon Hodgkinson and Ten Hodgkinson (editors)|Full Review]] <!-- Solomon -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Solomon_Taking.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/8193409353/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Taking Wainui by Laura Solomon]]=== [[image:2star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] This is the first time I have come across Laura Solomon's work, a New Zealand writer who has won writing prizes for both her fiction and poetry. Although this book appears to be a collection of short stories, I found its format somewhat confusing. [[Taking Wainui by Laura Solomon|Full Review]] <!-- STEVEN -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Steven_Winter.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1910674508/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Winter Tales by Kenneth Steven]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] 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 around the world as you read stories set in a variety of places from Helsinki to New York, Germany to Russia. Kenneth Steven cleverly utilises a key component of short stories - that you can read each story in one sitting - to his advantage as he gives each story an individual focal subject, such as bullying, ensuring that you are reading a distinct story every time you open the book. [[Winter Tales by Kenneth Steven|Full Review]] <!-- Dahl -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Dahl_Fear.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1405933216/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Fear by Roald Dahl]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] Do you enjoy being scared? Featuring fourteen classic spine-chilling stories chosen by Roald Dahl, these terrible tales of ghostly goings-on will have you shivering with fear as you turn the pages. [[Fear by Roald Dahl|Full Review]] <!-- Dahl -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[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]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[War by Roald Dahl]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=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]] <!-- Dahl -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Dahl_Trickery.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1405933232/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Trickery by Roald Dahl]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] How underhand could you be to get what you want? In these ten tales of dark and twisted trickery Roald Dahl reveals that we are at our smartest and most cunning when we set out to deceive others - and, sometimes, even ourselves. Here, among others, you'll read of the married couple and the parting gift which rocks their marriage, the light fingered hitch-hiker and the grateful motorist, and discover why the serious poacher keeps a few sleeping pills in his arsenal. [[Trickery by Roald Dahl|Full Review]] <!-- Dahl -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Dahl_Innocence.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1405933259/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Innocence by Roald Dahl]]=== [[image:5starThis satisfying collection of short stories has a provenance at least as beguiling as the provenance of the antique watches that inspired it.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]]

What makes us innocent and how do we come to lose it? Featuring the autobiographical stories telling Philip Neal lost a watch. It was a watch he was fond of Roald Dahl's boyhood and youth as well as four further tales had been told was like a 1930s Cartier. Instead of innocence betrayedmourning its loss, Dahl touches on the joys and horrors of growing uphe began to collect vintage watches that resembled it. Among other stories, you'll read about the wager And that destroys a girl's faith in her father, the landlady who has plans for her unsuspecting young guest and the commuter who is horrified to discover that how he became a fellow passenger once bullied watch collector. An eBay purchase led him at school. [[Innocence by Roald Dahl|Full Review]] <!-- Hershman -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Hershman_Some.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1910061484/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Some of Us Glow More Than Others by Tania Hershman]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] I won't be alone to the Antique Watch Company watch repairers in stating that reading short story collections can be slightly awkwardClerkenwell. Going through from A-Z, witnessing The eBay purchase was a bounty of ideas and characters in short order can be too muchfake, but do you have the right to pick and choose according to what appeals, friendship that grew between the buyer and what time you have to fill? The sequence has carefully been considered, surely. Such would appear to be the case here. The last time I read one repairer of this author's collections, with [[The White Road by Tania Hershman|The White Road]], the only real difficulty watches was holding back and rationing them, but here you not only get a whopping forty pieces of writing, they are also spread into sections. [[Some of Us Glow More Than Others by Tania Hershman|Full Review]]  <!-- DO NOT REMOVE ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE -->|} {{newreview|author=James Kelman|title=That Was a Shiver, and Other Stories|rating=3.5|genre=Short Stories |summary=This is the ninth book seed of short stories by this author, which means he's presented just as many collections of the short form as he has novels. You will find it hard to think of another author that has been so noted an idea for longer works (what with [[How Late It Was, How Late by James Kelman|How Late It Was, How Late]] winning the Booker) but who is so generous in presenting shorter pieces for the time-poor, or those like me who see the variety in a writer's short or less typical works to be the more interesting places to turn. Opening these pages, from the pen of such an esteemed pro, came with no small sense of anticipationbook was born.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786890909</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529006031|title=Return to Wonderland

|title= A Change Is Gonna Come|rating= 4.5|genre= TeensShort Stories|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'A Change Is Gonna Comet really find too much favour with it. The wacky-for-the-sake-of-it did not gel, and I don'' is an anthology of 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 and poems interpreting that come at the core from a tangent, that show the theme benefits of change by twelve BAME writersthe oblique glance. It I've always preferred coming to an author's Stripes Publishingoutput through their least obvious, allegedly throw-away pieces, and it's response to the under-representation of BAME authors in the UK. And itsame with franchises – I'd more likely go for Bree Tanner's short novella than the whole Twilight saga (although that remains just a great responsehunch, for obvious reasons).|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847158390</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= Helen Stancey1846974658|title= The Madonna of the PoolLong Path To Wisdom|author=Jan-Philipp Sendker|rating= 3.54|genre= Short Stories|summary= In most short story collectionsOn my travels around the world, an overarching theme I have a tendency to end up in any bookshop that is usually present in each of selling English-language books, and while I buy as many second-hand escapist tales as the narratives which help each story gently flow in to next person, what I'm really looking for is the next. In this debut collection Helen Stancey explores 'local' – the quiet disappointmentscookbook maybe, achievementsthe maps definitely, and complications that each of us experience through everyday lifebut above all: the folk tales. She draws attention If I ever get to Burma, I won't need to the small events and decisions that hunt, I can both disrupt and significantly alter the lives of others and ourselves, all while maintaining a delicately poetic tone throughoutread before I go.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1912054000</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joanna WalshB077969HN8|title=Worlds from the Word's EndAlternative Medicine|author=Laura Solomon|rating=34.5

|summary=We here at The Bookbag liked this authorLaura Solomon's fairly recent collection of publisher describes the short stories, [[Vertigo by Joanna Walsh|Vertigo]]in ''Alternative Medicine'' as ''black comedy with a twist of surrealism''. I myself missed out, but 'm rather glad that seemed to be vignettes from one characterI didn't see this until ''after'' I'd finished reading as I's narration – here we get homosexual male narrators and m not normally a host morefan of either, as well as much less of but I've come to two conclusions about the sadness prevalent before. Having had a brief encounter with this author courtesy of her entry into book: what the [[Bookshelf (Object Lessons) by Lydia Pyne|Object Lessons]] series, publisher says is correct - and I was intrigued by her name being stamped on a selection of shortsreally enjoyed it. Was it the ideal calling card? Let The comedy is not ''too''s face it, black and the very short story itself can be surrealism is gentle and perhaps best described as a postcard – let's say, from a specific hotel twist or two, as we see hereflick of reality when you were least expecting it. Perhaps I should have geared myself up, however, for such intricate writing on said postcards – and for Your comfort zones are going to be invaded in the exotic locations from which they came…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911508105</amazonuk>nicest possible way.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helen Phillips9386897504|title=Some Possible SolutionsTales of Love and Disability|author=Laura Solomon

|summary=Picture a world where you, a new mother, move to a town where you slowly start to realise I've always believed that every other woman seems less-able writers produce longer books: it takes a replica great deal of you – dressing skill and doing as you do. Consider talent to write a place where you have a perfect other half – most literally – but it's only to be found on an alien planet. Or how about short story which holds the woman who suddenly finds she can see everything reader and everyone else alive as having no skin, just organs, tissue and bone as if everyone was having a Gunther von Hagens plastination job? keeps them coming back for more. A lot There are far too many collections of these short stories which are hard all too easy to summarise without dropping into the voice put down and forget after you've read a couple of the pieces. I've recently read a couple of novellas by Laura Solomon - [[Marsha'Twilight Zones Deal by Laura Solomon|Marsha's Deal]] and [[Hell' narration, but they're not specifically genre works – they're just further examples of this authors Unveiling by Laura Solomon|Hell's unsettling look at the bizarre elements of lifeUnveiling]] and enjoyed them, so I was intrigued to see what she could do with an even shorter form.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782273425</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Cixin Liu1986586898|title= Going To The Wandering EarthLast: Short Stories About Horse Racing|author=K D Knight|rating= 4.5|genre= Science FictionShort Stories|summary= If anyone thought that In the short opening story as , a form had been relegated to the pages of women's magazines (no disrespect) – think againman whose wife has deserted him visits Sandown with little money but comes away with cash in his pocket - and his wife. One genre that has always been a stalwart supporter and encourager In ''A Grey Day'' an owner struggles with the problem of whether or not to run his horse in the short form Gold Cup when the ground is Sci-fiagainst him. So when you pick up a collection My favourite was ''The Story of Sci-fi shortsH'', you know that it will have just the story of Foinavon. H is depicted as much depth and thought-provoking philosophy as any similar novela kind horse who only wanted to please people. Add After changing hands on various occasions he came to that the intrigue yard of seeing how John Kempton. H (or Foinavon) was entered in the concepts are approached by someone from China which – to be polite – has Grand National and considered a somewhat different worldno-view in many ways to much hoper. In one of the rest most dramatic runnings of the planet…and add to that an author who is not only race, a bestpile-seller in his home country but has up occurred at the distinction of having produced 23rd fence. Foinavon, who had been many lengths adrift, cleared the first translated work of SF ever fence and galloped to win the Hugo Award…this has got to be good!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784978493<line, winning the race at odds of 100/amazonuk>1.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Fleur Jaeggy and Gini Alhadeff (translator)9386897296|title= I Am The Brother Of XXHell's Unveiling|author=Laura Solomon|rating= 43.5|genre= Short Stories|summary=A little while ago I really enjoyed [[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon|Marsha's Deal]] and I Am The Brother of XXwas delighted by the opportunity to read the sequel, ''Hell's Unveiling'' is . It's probably not much of a collection of twenty one short stories from Fleur Jaeggy, who expertly wields malevolence and spite throughout, from spoiler to say that Marsha bested the evil done between husband and wife devil in ''The AviaryMarsha's Deal'', a nasty tale of Oedipal menace and vicious, although admittedly, artful cruelty, but the devil is not one to take defeat lying down. He's out to senseless annihilation wage war on Planet Earth and immolation in particularly on Marsha (who's thought of as a 'The Heirgoody two shoes'in Hell). Although a strong person, she's vulnerable where her foster children are concerned. Jaeggy also appears Daniel is framed for a crime he didn't commit and sent to juvenile detention and refused permission to have a particular fascination return to live with religionMarsha. Then, from of course, there are all the nun receiving a rather special sort other children who are not only targeted but - worst of communion in ''The Visitorall - subverted to the devil's evil ends. He' s out to general references to the Church prey on their fears and weaknesses and religious devotion throughout as with many of her storiesfoster children, their self-esteem is very fragile. Family This is also no small-scale operation, either - the devil has set up a recurrent theme; whether focused training complex on the distance between siblings in the titular storyearth, told from the point of view of a brother filled complete with longing and loneliness trying an elevator to create a bond with his distant older sister, or the primal need to protect the bond between mother and son, regardless of the cost in ''Adelaide''Hell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911508024</amazonuk>