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:4starAmbassadress and Beagle Survive Diplomacy by Sandra Aragona|Sorting the Priorities]] and we learned what it was like to be moved around countries like accompanying baggage by the Italian Government but the time has come for HE to retires and for Sandra Aragona to become The Wife of Former Ambassador..jpg. They have left The Career and settled in Rome. Well 'settled' rather overstates the situation and their dog, Beagle, has no intention of slowing down any time soon, despite being sixteen and deaf.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B08CHJLNBS|title=Capturing Emilia|author=Brooke Adams|rating=3|genre=Women's Fiction|linksummary=CategoryHe's Charles Devereaux, thirty-eight and a partner at Wickham Jones, the Mayfair letting agents. She's Emilia, twenty-nine, librarian and archivist in the heritage library next door. Emilia has read [[The Secret by Rhonda Byrne|The Secret]] but she's moved on from new age books like that, which leave you dependent on someone else's philosophies, to something a little deeper. Charles is more of a [[Personal by Lee Child|Jack Reacher]] man himself, but, above all, he's shocked that Emilia reads ''The Guardian''. They're obviously not at all compatible, so why can Charles not get this woman out of his mind? She's not his usual type at all:it's obvious to his friends. And given that Emilia regularly feels repulsed by Charles's superficiality, why does she feel drawn to him? The relationship's obviously a non-starter, isn't it?}}{{Frontpage|author=Marie O'Regan and Paul Kane (editors)|title=Cursed: An Anthology of Dark Fairy Tales|rating=4.5|genre=Fantasy|summary=Curses. They're there throughout tales of faery and other fantastical folk – people being cursed to do this, or not to be able to do that. Children can be cursed, as can princesses on the verge of marrying, and older people too. It seems in a way there's no escaping it. Which is why the theme of this book of short stories is such a standout – we may well think we know all there is to know about this accursed character, that demonised place, and that other bewitched person. We'd be very wrong.|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 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?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0954899520|title=A Winter Book|author=Tove Jansson|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Tove Jansson's worldwide fame lasts on the Moomin books, written in the 1940s and later becoming television characters of the simplicity, naivety and sheer 'goodness' that would later produce flowerpot men or teletubbies. Simple drawings, simple stories, simple goodness. What is often forgotten outside of her native Finland is that she was a serious writer…that she wrote for adults as well as children…and that she had a feeling for the natural world and the simple life that not only informed those child-like trolls but went far beyond any fantasy of how the world might be.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1911115847|title=Nights of the Creaking Bed|author=Toni Kan|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''Nights of the Creaking Bed'' is a collection of short stories by Toni Kan. The series of stories tell of the lives and lusts of an assortment of characters living in and around Lagos, Nigeria. Nigeria, in this collection, is imbued with its very own heart of darkness. Danger stalks the shadows and people are killed for nothing more than a wrong look. Kan writes with a vitality and passion that allows these cynical stories to achieve a glimmer of hope.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529014484|title=Exhalation |author=Ted Chiang|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=Over the past twenty-eight years, Ted Chiang has published fifteen science fiction short stories, these magnificent stories have won twenty-seven major science fiction awards so if you are a science fiction fan it is likely that you have already come across some of the work by Ted Chiang. If you haven't then take this opportunity to do so now. Trust me; your imagination will be grateful.}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:{{Frontpage|isbn=1794467440|title=Watchwords |author=Philip Neal|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|Short Stories]]summary=This satisfying collection of short stories has a provenance at least as beguiling as the provenance of the antique watches that inspired it.

''Roses in December'' is Philip Neal lost a watch. It was a watch he was fond of and had been told was like a collection 1930s Cartier. Instead of twenty-two short storiesmourning its loss, he began to collect vintage watches that resembled it. And when I say short, I mean that''short'', with each just s how he became a few pages long and some brushing watch collector. An eBay purchase led him to the flash fiction genreAntique Watch Company watch repairers in Clerkenwell. The eBay purchase was a fake, such is but the brevity. I think friendship that grew between the shorter the story, the harder it is to write buyer and the more difficult the task repairer of engaging, then satisfying, watches was not and the reader. So it is to the immense credit seed of Matthew de Lacey Davidson that I sighed in appreciation many times while reading. He has an idea for a good sense of which moments of the human experience to capture in order to make the point he wants to makebook was born. Some highlights: [[Roses in December by Matthew de Lacey Davidson|Full Review]]}}<!-- Onymouse -->{{Frontpage|-isbn=1529006031| styletitle="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"Return to Wonderland|author=Various Authors[[image:Onymouse_Quick.jpg|left|linkrating=http://www4.amazon.co.uk/dp/1788039122/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] 5| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|==genre=[[Quick and Quirky: Short Stories with Quips! by Fred Onymouse and Ann Onymouse]]=== [[image:1.5star.jpg|linksummary=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] In following a young girl called Alice down the rabbit hole a few years ago, when the first book she was in [[:Category:Short StoriesAlice's Adventures in Wonderland (150th Anniversary Edition) by Lewis Carroll and Anthony Browne|Short Storieshit 150 years of age]] Quick, I found that I didn't really find too much favour with it. The wacky-for-the-sake-of-it did not gel, and indeed, quirky, are positive attributes, Idon'm sure you'd agree – apart from perhaps in surgeonst remember loving it more as a child. But I would suggest I am the perfect audience for this book. I like things had every chance to enjoy these short stories that have come at the core from a quirktangent, and I approve that show the benefits of the quickyoblique glance. I've been dabbling in the world of creative writing for a few years nowalways preferred coming to an author's output through their least obvious, allegedly throw-away pieces, and whenever anyone asks what it is I mostly write, 's the same with franchises – I define it with the catch-all safety net of ''flippant'd more likely go for Bree Tanner's short novella than the whole Twilight saga (although that remains just a hunch, for obvious reasons). So this book should be right up my street For another thing, being as it is a bijou selection there was every reason to expect some kind of illustrated and fairly large-print short stories. [[Quick and Quirky: Short Stories greatness here – with Quips! Carroll much loved by Fred Onymouse and Ann Onymouse|Full Review]]millions, surely pieces written with that love in mind could only provide for success after success? }}<!-- Hill -->{{Frontpage|-isbn=1846974658| styletitle="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|The Long Path To Wisdom[[image:Hill_Strange.jpg|left|linkauthor=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/147322117X?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbagJan-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=147322117X]] Philipp Sendker| stylerating="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"4|===[[Strange Weather by Joe Hill]]==genre=Short Stories [[image:5star.jpg|linksummary=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Horror|Horror]]On my travels around the world, [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] Strange Weather I have a tendency to end up in any bookshop that is a collection of four short novels all linked byselling English-language books, unsurprisinglyand while I buy as many second-hand escapist tales as the next person, strange and cataclysmic weather. Each novel what I'm really looking for is distinct and showcases Hill's restrained yet vivid style which takes everyday events and makes them bitingly, acerbically macabre or blindingly beautiful, often switching from one sentence to the next. As Hill himself says 'local'– the beauty of cookbook maybe, the world and maps definitely, but above all: the horror of the world were twined together'folk tales. If I ever get to Burma, I won't need to hunt, never is this truer than in Strange Weather where moments of abject horror are coupled with raw beautyI can read before I go. [[Strange Weather by Joe Hill|Full Review]]}}<!-- Stibbe -->{{Frontpage|-isbn=B077969HN8| styletitle="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|Alternative Medicine[[image:Stibbe_Xmas.jpg|left|linkauthor=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0241309824?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0241309824]] Laura Solomon| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|==rating=[[An Almost Perfect Christmas by Nina Stibbe]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg5|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Humour|Humour]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] Christmas – summary=Laura Solomon's publisher describes the time short stories in ''Alternative Medicine'' as ''black comedy with a twist of traditional traumasurrealism''. You only have I'm rather glad that I didn't see this until ''after'' I'd finished reading as I'm not normally a fan of either, but I've come to think two conclusions about the turkey for that – once upon a time it was leaving it sat on book: what the downstairs loo to defrost overnight, publisher says is correct - and if that failed the hair-dryer shoved inside I really enjoyed it treatment was your next best bet. Nowadays it The comedy is not 's all having to make sure it's suitably free-range and organic – but not too organic that you can go '' black and visit it, the surrealism is gentle and get too friendly with it to want to eat it. Christmas, though, is of course also perhaps best described as a time twist or flick of great boonsreality when you were least expecting it. 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 Your comfort zones are going to aunties you saw twice a decade that your parents made you write out be invaded 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]]nicest possible way.}}<!-- Dick -->{{Frontpage|-isbn=9386897504| styletitle="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|Tales of Love and Disability[[image:Dick_Electric.jpg|left|linkauthor=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1473223288?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1473223288]] Laura Solomon| stylerating="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|4===[[Philip K Dick's Electric Dreams by Philip K Dick]]=== [[image:3star.jpg|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] Philip K Dicksummary=I's stories were originally published in the 50s, but they are more present than past. On the big screen ''Blade Runner 2049'' relaunched the Dickve always believed that less-inspired cult classic to reviews able writers produce longer books: it takes a great deal of pure praise; skill and on slightly smaller screens, Channel 4 has adapted talent to write a short story which holds the author's short stories reader and keeps them coming back for TVmore. Startlingly, Dick's current relevance reaches beyond fiction and into the factual: his topics from intrusive advertising and loss There are far too many collections of privacy to the increasing machination of society short stories which are all headline material in todaytoo easy to put down and forget after you's newsve read a couple of pieces. It is as if half I've recently read a century after their inception, Dick's electric dreams are becoming reality. couple of novellas by Laura Solomon - [[Philip K DickMarsha's Electric Dreams Deal by Philip K DickLaura Solomon|Full ReviewMarsha's Deal]] <!-- Mettler -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|and [[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 Hell's Unveiling by Erinna Mettler]]=== [[image:4star.jpgLaura Solomon|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short StoriesHell's Unveiling]] Our world is obsessed with celebrity culture - and in this advent of social mediaenjoyed them, the updates on celebrity come 24 hours a day, delivered so I was intrigued 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 see what Erinna Mettler considers in ''15 Minutes'' - short stories that feature celebrity encounters told through the eyes of ordinary, but no less compelling, charactersshe could do with an even shorter form. [[Fifteen Minutes by Erinna Mettler|Full Review]]}}<!-- Hodgkinson -->{{Frontpage|-isbn=1986586898| styletitle="widthGoing To The Last: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"Short Stories About Horse Racing|author=K D Knight[[image:Hodgkinson_Dark.jpg|linkrating=http://www4.amazon.co.uk/dp/1782273824/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] 5| stylegenre="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"Short Stories|summary===[[The DarkIn the opening story, a man whose wife has deserted him visits Sandown with little money but comes away with cash in his pocket -Blue Winter Overcoat and other stories from the North by Sjon Hodgkinson and Ten Hodgkinson (editors)]]=== [[image:3starhis wife.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Anthologies|Anthologies]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]]  In ''A compilation like this should be nigh on brilliant. ItGrey Day's not one author's best short works, it's that an owner struggles with the problem of a dozen. It's whether or not from one snapshot to run his horse in time, as some were written the year of publication and some in Gold Cup when the 1960sground is against him. It My favourite was ''s not from one tiny patch The Story of authorH''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 Greenlandstory of Foinavon. That H is depicted as a world that's kind horse who only wanted to please people. After changing – as hands on various occasions he came to the Greenland-born author now living yard of John Kempton. H (or Foinavon) was entered in Brooklyn, and the Iraqi blood on these pages, testify. It's a world where new roads Grand National and new building works mean considered a family living on no-hoper. In one of the edge most dramatic runnings of the forest race, a pile-up occurred at the beginning of 23rd fence. Foinavon, who had been many lengths adrift, cleared the story are being surrounded by other life by fence and galloped to the endline, and with winning the influence race at odds 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]]100/1.}}<!-- Solomon -->{{Frontpage|-isbn=9386897296| styletitle="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"Hell's Unveiling|author=Laura Solomon[[image:Solomon_Taking.jpg|linkrating=http://www3.amazon.co.uk/dp/8193409353/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] 5| stylegenre="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"Short Stories|==summary=A little while ago I really enjoyed [[Taking Wainui Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon]]=== [[image:2star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General FictionMarsha's Deal]]and I was delighted by the opportunity to read the sequel, [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] This is ''Hell's Unveiling''. It's probably not much of a spoiler to say that Marsha bested the first time I have come across Laura Solomondevil in ''Marsha's workDeal'', but the devil is not one to take defeat lying down. He's out to wage war on Planet Earth and particularly on Marsha (who's thought of as a New Zealand writer who has won writing prizes for both her fiction and poetry'goody two shoes' in Hell). Although this book appears to be a collection of short storiesstrong person, 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 she's vulnerable where her foster children are presented with an eclectic collection of twelve short stories centred around a common theme of Winterconcerned. You are taken around the world as you read stories set in Daniel is framed for a variety of places from Helsinki crime he didn't commit and sent to juvenile detention and refused permission to New York, Germany return to Russialive with Marsha. Kenneth Steven cleverly utilises a key component Then, of short stories - that you can read each story in one sitting - to his advantage as he gives each story an individual focal subjectcourse, such as bullying, ensuring that you there are reading a distinct story every time you open all the book. [[Winter Tales by Kenneth Steven|Full Review]] <!other children who are not only targeted but -worst of all - Dahl -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Dahl_Fearsubverted to the devil's evil ends.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1405933216/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag He's out to prey on their fears and weaknesses and as with many foster children, their self-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Fear by Roald Dahl]]=== [[image:5staresteem is very fragile.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] Do you enjoy being scared? Featuring fourteen classic spine This is no small-chilling stories chosen by Roald Dahlscale operation, these terrible tales of ghostly goingseither -the devil has set up a training complex on will have you shivering earth, complete 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_Waran elevator to Hell.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:5star.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 of Roald Dahl's boyhood 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'll read about the wager 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 a fellow passenger once bullied 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 in stating that reading short story collections can be slightly awkward. Going through from A-Z, witnessing a bounty of ideas and characters 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? The sequence has carefully been considered, surely. Such would appear to be the case here. The last time I read one of this author's collections, with [[The White Road by Tania Hershman|The White Road]], the only real difficulty 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]] <!-- Kelman -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Kelman_Shiver.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1786890909/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[That Was a Shiver, and Other Stories by James Kelman]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] This is the ninth book 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 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 anticipation. [[That Was a Shiver, and Other Stories by James Kelman|Full Review]] <!-- Various -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:VA_Change.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1847158390/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[A Change Is Gonna Come by Various Authors]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] ''A Change Is Gonna Come'' is an anthology of stories and poems interpreting the theme of change by twelve BAME writers. It's Stripes Publishing's response Move to the under-representation of BAME authors in the UK. And it's a great response. I loved it. [[A Change Is Gonna Come by Various Authors|Full Review]] <!-- Stancey -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Stancey_Madonna.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1912054000/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Madonna of the Pool by Helen Stancey]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] In most short story collections, an overarching theme is usually present in each of the narratives which help each story gently flow in to the next. In this debut collection Helen Stancey explores the quiet disappointments, achievements, Newest Spirituality and complications that each of us experience through everyday life. She draws attention to the small events and decisions that can both disrupt and significantly alter the lives of others and ourselves, all while maintaining a delicately poetic tone throughout. [[The Madonna of the Pool by Helen Stancey|Full Review]] <!-- Walsh -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Walsh_Worlds.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1911508105/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Worlds from the Word's End by Joanna Walsh]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Religion Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] We here at The Bookbag liked this author's fairly recent collection of short stories, [[Vertigo by Joanna Walsh|Vertigo]]. I myself missed out, but that seemed to be vignettes from one character's narration – here we get homosexual male narrators and a host more, as well as much less of the sadness prevalent before. Having had a brief encounter with this author courtesy of her entry into the [[Bookshelf (Object Lessons) by Lydia Pyne|Object Lessons]] series, I was intrigued by her name being stamped on a selection of shorts. Was it the ideal calling card? Let'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 should have geared myself up, however, for such intricate writing on said postcards – and for the exotic locations from which they came… [[Worlds from the Word's End by Joanna Walsh|Full Review]] <!-- Phillips -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Phillips_Some.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1782273425/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Some Possible Solutions by Helen Phillips]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] Picture a world where you, a new mother, move to a town where you slowly start to realise that every other woman seems a replica of you – dressing and doing as you do. Consider 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 the woman who suddenly finds she can see everything and everyone else alive as having no skin, just organs, tissue 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 of the Twilight Zone narration, but they're not specifically genre works – they're just further examples of this author's unsettling look at the bizarre elements of life. [[Some Possible Solutions by Helen Phillips|Full Review]] <!-- Liu -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Liu_Wandering.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1784978493/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Wandering Earth by Cixin Liu]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]],[[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] 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 Sci-fi. So when you pick up a collection of Sci-fi shorts, you know that it will have just as much depth and thought-provoking philosophy as any similar novel. Add to that the intrigue of seeing how the concepts are approached by someone 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! [[The Wandering Earth by Cixin Liu|Full Review]]  <!-- DO NOT REMOVE ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE -->|}  {{newreview|author= Fleur Jaeggy and Gini Alhadeff (translator)|title= I Am The Brother Of XX|rating= 4|genre= Short Stories|summary=''I Am The Brother of XX'' is a collection of twenty one short stories from Fleur Jaeggy, who expertly wields malevolence and spite throughout, from the evil done between husband and wife in ''The Aviary'', a nasty tale of Oedipal menace and vicious, although admittedly, artful cruelty, to senseless annihilation and immolation in ''The Heir''. Jaeggy also appears to have a particular fascination with religion, from the nun receiving a rather special sort of communion in ''The Visitor'' to general references to the Church and religious devotion throughout many of her stories. Family is also a recurrent theme; whether focused on the distance between siblings in the titular story, told from the point of view of a brother filled with longing and loneliness trying 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''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911508024</amazonuk>}}