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[[Category:Short Stories|*]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Lloyd JonesBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|titlerating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=The Man ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.'' 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 Shedfeeling 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

|summary=The title is certainly attention-grabbing and I hoped that the book would live up to my expectations. It did. The man in 'The Man in the Shed' is not blessed with Got a name. His name (whatever it is) is not important minute to be amused, entertained, or relevant to the tale. Itchallenged?'s all about ''why'' he's in the shed in the first placeThese 100 stories are super short. None is more than 300 words. This particular shed's You can read one in a garden of a house inhabited by a family which includes the young narratorflash. It's pretty clear that the marriage is going through a rocky patch right now'''Some are funny. So who, you could reasonably wonder, is the odd one out here - the husband or the man in the shedSome are poignant. Jones tells us in his own wayAll are short. He's a writer who catches your attention early, or he did in my case. No fancy statements or lazy cliches but good old plain English but with flair.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848544820</amazonuk>}}'

{{newreview|author=Judith Hermann|title=Alice|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''Alice'' is Question: how do you review flash fiction? How do you give a collection flavour of five short stories, linked thematically since they all deal with the subject of death, but they are also linked because the central character, Alice, a fully rounded little story if that story is the same told in each story. So rather fewer than feeling like short stories three hundred words? Or do you try to draw out themes from all the flash fictions in a book has of them? I don't know! Perhaps we could start by explaining that there really isn't a hint fixed definition of the novel to itflash fiction but that for this collection, yet the stories are never completed or fully told so itauthor Mark C Wallfisch has gone for a three hundred word limit. That's about a novel where you're not always sure what's going onsingle page in your average paperback.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668529X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jamil AhmadRachel Harrison|title=The Wandering FalconBad Dolls

|summary=ThereIt's been some time since I've read any horror. I had a bold statement on the front cover from, as it happens, one couple of my favourite authorsmisspent teen years reading Stephen King, [[:Category:A S Byatt|A S Byatt]] saying that Nooteboom is ''one of borrowing the greatest modern novelists'' so books from a boy I thought fancied at school and scaring myself half silly with them to the point that I was in couldn't shut my bedroom curtains at night for a treat. fear of the vampires outside! But I didnDon't enjoy the first worry - this short story. collection isn't like that! Not the greatest of starts. I was disappointed to say the least It doesn't have those jump scares, and was wondering what all the fuss was about. Then I started didn't have to read the story entitled ''Thunderstorm'' it during daylight hours only! But it is creepy, and things started to pick up. I appreciated found most of that feeling came from the sparse fact that these are stories about women, living normal lives, and elegant language. Lines that at least in part, the horrors arises from very normal situations such as 'Five people at an outdoor cafe: two women ... a solitary black man ... breakup, trying a couple at new dieting app, going to a table nearby. Enough for hen party and a film.' How lovely and evocative is that last line, I'm thinking. I read it twice as it was so goodcoping with grief.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857050230</amazonuk>1803363932

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue GeeB0CCCVRSGX|title=Last FlingStories 2|author=Richard F Walker

|summary=Sue Gee This is well known for her novels, but this is her first collection Richard F Walker's second volume of short stories. Short story collections There are not for everyonethirteen in all and I took something from each of them. IThere isn've always enjoyed them since they fit easily into t a busy life, leaving you feeling as if yousingle one that doesn've lived through a whole story in just a short space of timet deserve to be among the others or brings down the overall quality. Itcan be tricky to review short stories without giving too much away, so I's easier ll just pick two to find the time for talk about and I think they give a quick story sometimes than to sit down with a four hundred page novel!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907773061</amazonuk>general flavour.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helen Simpson1739593901|title=In-Flight Entertainment22 Ideas About The Future|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)

|genre=Short StoriesScience Fiction|summary=I am always thrilled to see that Helen Simpson has brought out a new book''Our future will be more complex than we expected. I am a big fan Instead of her crispflying cars, funny, observant short storieswe got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma. So I picked up 'In Flight Entertainment' with some anticipation. I was not disappointed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546124</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=John E Flannery|title=TobyI's Little Eden|rating=3ve got a couple of confessions to make.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=John E Flannery I's debut collection contains four m not keen on short stories (although one is more of as I find it easy to read a novella) few stories and a series of amusing sketches about the ground staff at a new Golf Course in north Manchester. They're more varied than they might appear at first glance and demonstrate Flannery's ability then forget to get straight return to the heart of the story without wasting words and to develop character as economically as possible, whilst still holding the reader's imaginationbook. I knew as soon as I began There''The Ghostwriter'' that I wasn't going s got to be disappointed as a man who has written successful thrillers is possessed by the spirit of Charles Dickensvery compelling hook to keep me engaged. ItThen there's a neat riff on John Braine's idea that novelist wait for an idea to descend on them and Graham Greenescience fiction: far too often it's belief that novelists are like mediums.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445777940</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Dorothy Parker|title=The Sexes|rating=5|genre=Short Stories|summary=From the young woman who examined her handkerchief in minute detail, to the soldier's leave technology which didn't live up to expectation, through the thoughts of the early hours of the morning to the actress who proved a disappointment to her fan and on to the glorious culmination of takes centre stage along with the child who should never have been called Lolita we have five wonderful short storiesworld-building. They're in a book thatIt's no bigger than most short stories but buy it human beings who fascinate me: the technology and it could well be the best buy that you make this yearworld scape are purely incidental.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>014119619X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Aidan Chambers|title=The Kissing Game|rating=4.5|genre=Teens|summary=You don't see that many short story collections in YA circles. But when they do appear So, you often wonder why there aren't more what did I think of them. And this is absolutely the case with The Kissing Game. Ranging from short pieces a book of flash twenty-two science fiction to "proper" short stories? Well, each one will incite, surprise and stimulateI loved it. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0370331974</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=William StyronB09XZMCDVF|title=The Suicide RunStories: 13 tantalising tales|author=Richard F Walker

|summary=''A WW2 naval soldier, guarding news vendor is crying out the headlines in the middle of the night; a prison island for those found guilty at courtmartials, is forced to wonder if wheelchair user loses touch with reality when he is winning tries walking around in his own battles against those arriving and leaving. A soldier remembers calming memories, and those causing tension, as he rests up before action. And imagination; a stickler for correct grammar goes back in time to correct an iconic quote; a highly-charged young man, there may be too much risk volunteer teacher proves the ideal person to be found have around in a lawless village; the new boy on the pub football team is very useful with his high-octane downtime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532220</amazonuk>}}feet, and awfully familiar…''

{{newreview|author=John Saunders|title=The Vernham Chronicles|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=Set amidst This collection of thirteen short stories by Richard F Walker has a lot to offer the rolling British countryside around Vernbury Vale eclectic reader. Tying them together is the little village of Vernham. Anyone who lives in a village will recognise it immediatelyidea that remarkable and strange, even miraculous, with its cobbled streets and Tudor buildingsthings can happen to ordinary people. There was some damage during the war (which might, And that ordinary doesn't mean boring or might not have been down to a lighthouse folly constructed by a local landowner on his lake) but the gaps have been filled with some beautiful, er, mock Tudor buildingsuninteresting. Almost unique Form and nearly beautiful as the village tone varies so this little treasury of short fiction is, itnever boring and you're never quite sure what's not the star of The Vernham Chronicles. The stars are the people who live in Vernhamcoming next.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907499598</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John H Watson, Tony Reynolds and Chris Coady1737030942|title=The Lost Stories of Sherlock HolmesBag O'Goodies|author=Jolly Walker Bittick

|genre=Short StoriesAnthologies|summary=It is Sometimes, you deserve a truth universally acknowledged that treat and mine was Jolly Walker Bittick's ''Bag O'Goodies''. I first encountered his writing about a successful detective character will have far too many cases in year ago, when I read his career [[Cape Henry House by Jolly Walker Bittick|Cape Henry House]], a rollicking tale of what happens when five young men find a base for it to be at all realistictheir partying. The worst case in point are the Hardy BoysRight now, who have had two hundred or more adventures I didn't want a full-length novel, so I turned to this anthology of verse and are still not 20short stories. Slightly more literary, but no less busy it can seem, was Sherlock Holmes, for Watson declaimed many times that he did not write down all that manBittick's exploitswriting has matured - and so have his characters. Tony Reynolds here gives us eight more cases, making Holmes' workload even more impressiveWell...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907685618</amazonuk>most of them!

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Polly Samson1529418100|title=Perfect Lives|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=The eleven short stories in Perfect Lives are about a group of people living in an English seaside town. Each story of challenged relationships, devastating discoveries and objects and people with a history is carefully and beautifully crafted, stands alone and works well in its own right, but the connections between all the stories offer an extra, fascinating dimension. Each story made me want to look at the others again to understand how they all connect, to piece together the different bits of peopleBruno's lives in each story. This format also offers an opportunity to see some of the characters from several different perspectives, and perhaps make the short stories more satisfying to those who are dissatisfied by their brevity, as some of the same characters reappear, so offering some of the advantages of the novel while staying in the short story form. There are four stories told in the first person by an unnamed woman who is married with two young sons, Challenge and then one of her sons has a story of his own (Ivan Knows). There are a variety of narrative viewpoints – women, men, a little boy, a teenage girl, first and third person.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1860499929</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewOther Dordogne Tales|author=Shena Mackay|title=The Atmospheric Railway: New and Selected Stories|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=This volume of short stories, first published in 2008 but new in paperback, has a lot to offer those familiar with Shena Mackay's previous work and readers coming to her stories for the first time, with a generous thirty six stories - thirteen recent stories collected in book form for the first time are combined with twenty three from Shena Mackay's previous collections.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099469677</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sheila O'Flanagan|title=A Season to Remember|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=We first meet the Lodge owners, a likable couple. They find running their upmarket country house type hotel both exhilarating and exhausting. The novel is bang up to date so O'Flanagan gets in the whole recession/banker-bashing thing early on. As the festive season looms, the unthinkable has happened. Empty rooms. They're not used to empty rooms, at any time of the year. Normally the Lodge is a full house. But then a slow and steady trickle starts as our characters book in - and the story starts proper, so to speak.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755375157</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Mortimer|title=Rumpole at ChristmasMartin Walker

|summary=This I'm not usually a fan of short stories - I find it all too easy to put the book is as slim as one down between stories and forget to pick it up again - but I am a fan of RumpoleMartin Walker's [[Martin Walker's beloved packets of cigars and it can also be read Commissar Bruno Courreges Mysteries in Chronological Order|Bruno Courreges Mysteries]] so the time it takes an average turkey temptation to read ''Bruno's Challenge'' was hard to cook in the oven on Christmas Dayresist and I'm rather glad that I didn't even try. A handful of festive, short stories is covered in this book with its appealing front cover. Most of For those new to the stories have been previously published elsewhereseries, mainly in there'The Strand Magazines an excellent introduction that will tell you all you need to know about who' but also s who and the background to why Bruno is in some of the national newspapersSt Denis.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141039779</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Raymond CarverB08NF79QXT|title=BeginnersCherry Blossom Boutique|author=Brooke Adams|rating=4.53|genre=Short StoriesWomen's Fiction|summary= One thing you soon surmise from reading Raymond Carver is that he was an alcoholicThirty-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. Carver She's characters tend to drink excessively, delighted and his stories often examine the negative impact of drinking on his central charactertwo people she's relationshipsbrought with her to the event couldn't be more pleased. But nowadays Sonja, her mother, what we talk about when we talk about Carver is the role of his editor, Gordon Lishan ex-model and Brazilian: you can see where Liberty got her looks from.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099540320</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Colm Toibin|title=The Empty Family|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=In his first book since the pitchJessica's thirty-perfect [[Brooklyn by Colm Toibin|Brooklyn]], Colm Toibin once more examines the great Irish theme of exile four and homecoming in his new collection of short stories, Liberty's best friend: they'The Empty Familyve known each other since university and Liberty adores Jessica'. As the title suggests, many of the stories also revolve around family relationshipss husband, Charles and their sweet and sour Naturefour-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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918172</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kurt VonnegutB08KKQ85FN|title=Look at the BirdieBut Never For Lunch|author=Sandra Aragona

|summary=Kurt Vonnegut died ''If a couple of years ago after woman approaching the menopause can be likened to a sci fi writing career spanning over fifty years; he was well-known for his humanist views. This collection of unpublished short stories shows Vonnegut at his dark bestRottweiler in lipstick, his theme, individuals out for themselves in an uncaring society. A colleague at The Bookbag [[Armageddon in Retrospect by Kurt Vonnegut|recently wrote]] that Kurt Vonnegut's early writing is his strongest. If that is soAmbassador nearing retirement resembles a pampered peacock about to be released into the company of carrion crows or, then this collectionmore to the point, illustrated with cartoons by about to discover the author, will be good news for real world of bus timetables and paying his many fansown gas bills.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548852</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=Ryunosuke Akutagawa|title=You don't get many better opening sentences than that, do you? We first met His Excellency and The Beautiful Ambassador's Wife in [[Sorting the Priorities: Ambassadress and the GrotesqueBeagle Survive Diplomacy by Sandra Aragona|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary=The author, Sorting the tongue-twisting Akutagawa is 'hailed as one of Priorities]] and we learned what it was like to be moved around countries like accompanying baggage by the greatest short story writers in world literature' says Italian Government but the back book cover. I was truly impressed time has come for HE to retires and very keen for Sandra Aragona to get readingbecome The Wife of Former Ambassador... They have left The front cover is both eye-catching Career and colourful, there's no doubt that this book is about Japansettled in Rome. There is a comprehensive Introduction with its lovely title 'Well 'A Sprig Of Wild Orangesettled'' written by rather overstates the translator. And straight away I got a strong sense situation and their dog, Beagle, has no intention of his enthusiasm for the short stories to follow. It is a good lead-in as it informs the reader of the gulf which exists between Western and Japanese values (a gulf as big as it getsslowing down any time soon, apparently) despite being sixteen and of the conservative nature of the Japanese peopledeaf.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0871401924</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lydia DavisB08CHJLNBS|title=The Collected Short Stories of Lydia DavisCapturing Emilia|author=Brooke Adams|rating=53|genre=Short StoriesWomen's Fiction|summary=As you might expect with short storiesHe's Charles Devereaux, thirty-eight and a partner at Wickham Jones, the themes are as varied as 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 Fears of Mrs OrlandoSecret]] but she' to s moved on from new age books like that, which leave you dependent on someone else'Mothers' and of courses philosophies, I have my own particular favouritesto something a little deeper. Most Charles is more of these short stories cover a couple of pages[[Personal by Lee Child|Jack Reacher]] man himself, but others are merely a sentence or two, above all, he's shocked that Emilia reads ''The Guardian''. AndThey're obviously not at all compatible, for me, the less on the page, the more impart the words usually haveso 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. In short (no pun intended) there would seem And given that Emilia regularly feels repulsed by Charles's superficiality, why does she feel drawn to be something for everyone in these 700+ pages.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>024114504X</amazonuk>him? The relationship's obviously a non-starter, isn't it?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kelly LinkMarie O'Regan and Paul Kane (editors)|title=Pretty MonstersCursed: An Anthology of Dark Fairy Tales|rating=34.5

|summary=It goes without sayingCurses. They're there throughout tales of faery and other fantastical folk – people being cursed to do this, but the greatest thing about fantasy fiction is or not to be able to do that one . Children can go anywhere with itbe cursed, as can princesses on the verge of marrying, and do anythingolder people too. So It seems in a young man can easily try and dig his girlfriend up and retrieve some poetry he romantically left with her - only to have a hairy evening as a resultway there's no escaping it. There can be Which is why the theme of this book of short stories is such a psychic link between a young ladstandout – we may well think we know all there is to know about this accursed character, called Onion and doomed to die in a terrorist attackthat demonised place, and his cousin while she works as slave in an odd community of wizardsthat other bewitched person. Several worlds can We'd be accessed through an elderly woman's handbag, for better or worsevery wrong.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847677843</amazonuk>1789091500

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=A L KennedyStibbe_Xmas|title=What BecomesAn Almost Perfect Christmas|author=Nina Stibbe|rating=4.5|genre=Short StoriesHumour|summary=Christmas – the time of traditional trauma. You're three stories into this collection and two people only have cut their hands open preparing food - to think about the turkey for that – once upon a man with love drooping away from his marriagetime it was leaving it sat on the downstairs loo to defrost overnight, making soupand 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 anotherget too friendly with it to want to eat it. Christmas, a greengrocerthough, preparing stock and thinking about his own relationship. But there is no pattern to thatof course also a time of great boons. Four stories It's cash in hand for a lot of plump people who can hire red suits and there have been two bursts of non-sequitur comedy. Why your fruit might be ruined by stray fingersbeards, and it was always a godsend for postmen with all the thoughts of thank-you letters to aunties you saw twice a woman decade that your parents made you write out in long-hand as a flotation tankchild, remembering Doctor Who, locked parental doors - and as for the urban myths makers of gerbils. But there's still no pattern - Meltis Newberry Fruits – well, did they even try and that's sell them any other time of the point of these combined stories. Life and all of its emotions does not live to rule.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009949406X</amazonuk>year?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0954899520|title=A Winter Book

|summary=In her home country of Finland – Tove Jansson's worldwide fame lasts on the Moomin books, written in the 1940s and no doubt throughout much later becoming television characters of the rest of Europe which is not quite so sniffy about foreign literature as Britain tends to be – Jansson is generally recognised as an author of talentsimplicity, skill, verve naivety and wit sheer 'goodness' that extended far beyond the Moomin Troll 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 which she is best known in this country. Those children's books were first published in England sixty years ago and have remained in print ever since (adults as well as being adapted children…and that she had a feeling for just about every other medium going), the natural world and a joy they are too, the simple life that not only informed those child-like trolls but it is only recently that we have been granted went far beyond any fantasy of how the pleasures of reading her fiction for adultsworld might be.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095489958X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Grisham1911115847|title=Ford CountyNights of the Creaking Bed|author=Toni Kan

|genre=Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary=When I think of John Grisham I tend to think firstly of lawyers. Well, actually, I think ''Nights of Tom Cruise first to be honest, and then the whole lawyer thing. I expect surprising twists and long, detailed plots. This collection, however, Creaking Bed'' is a book collection of short stories so has to work differentlyby Toni Kan. There isn't room within a short story for a lengthy, twisting plot, and so Grisham has to rely on other skills to make them work. My feeling was that some do and some don't. Set in America's Deep South all the The series of stories revolve around a rather mixed bag tell of characters from Ford County, with the ever-present lawyers but also gamblers, murderers, con artists, drunks lives and scoundrels.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099545780</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Harvey|title=A Darker Shade lusts of Blue|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=There are eighteen short stories covering the East Midlands, those parts an assortment of London you'd generally really rather avoid characters living in and rural East Angliaaround Lagos, Nigeria. You'll see broken familiesNigeria, revenge killingsin this collection, prostitution is imbued with its very own heart of darkness. Danger stalks the shadows and drugspeople are killed for nothing more than a wrong look. There's corruption – not unusual when you have an overstretched police force Kan writes with a vitality and underpaid men and women staffing it. And then there are the people who, in spite passion that allows these cynical stories to achieve a glimmer of everything, fight for justicehope.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548232</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ben Okri1529014484|title=Tales of FreedomExhalation |author=Ted Chiang

|genre=Literary Science Fiction|summary=Tales of Freedom is a book of two halvesOver the past twenty-eight years, with a Ted Chiang has published fifteen science fiction short story entitled Comic Destiny taking up the majority of the book. Comic Destiny is made up of a series of short pieces that follow on from each other and stories, these magnificent stories have won twenty-seven major science fiction awards so if you are probably best described as being closer to prose poetry than anything else.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846041597</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jane Feaver|title=Love Me Tender|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=A woman remembers her dead husband playing Love Me Tender (the song made famous by Elvis Presley) on his tenor horn. She is in a daze, feeling the grief of the bereaved widow she science fiction fan it is, the betrayal likely that you have already come across some of the deceived wife, and the guilt of having murdered himwork by Ted Chiang. The title story of If you haven't then take this collection is all the more moving and startling because of its understated style, and what is not said as well as what isopportunity to do so now. Trust me; your imagination will be grateful.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099521288</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Aravind Adiga1794467440|title=Between the AssassinationsWatchwords |author=Philip Neal

|summary=''Between the Assassinations'' is a This satisfying collection of short stories set in has a provenance at least as beguiling as the fictional South Indian town provenance of Kittur, which is almost certainly Mangalore (where the Adiga grew up). But the plight of the residents can be found in any Indian city - which I imagine is Adiga's point of setting antique watches that inspired it in a fictional location. The twelve stories are vaguely interlinked (there are some recurring characters) but for the most part the stories stand alone. The time period is set between the assassinations of Indira Gandhi in 1984 and the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, although like the location, the time period and the assassinations of the title have little bearing on the events themselves.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848871236</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=David Eagleman|title=Sum: Tales from the Afterlives|rating=4Philip Neal lost a watch. It was a watch he was fond of and had been told was like a 1930s Cartier.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=For some reason I find myself unable Instead of mourning its loss, he began to start this reviewcollect vintage watches that resembled it. So IAnd that'll mention this book starts with s how he became a watch collector. An eBay purchase led him to the end, and see where we go from thereAntique Watch Company watch repairers in Clerkenwell. Of courseThe eBay purchase was a fake, but the friendship that's grew between the key – this book does just that – starts with buyer and the end repairer of our human life here on Earth (or wherever you happen to be reading this) watches was not and posits forty possibilities the seed of what happens thereafter, in the hereafter. It's not so much 'Five People You Meet in Heaven' as 'Forty Heavens you Might Meet People In'an idea for a book was born.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847674283</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James Lasdun1529006031|title=It's Beginning To HurtReturn to Wonderland|author=Various Authors

|summary=ItIn following a young girl called Alice down the rabbit hole a few years ago, when the first book she was in [[Alice's Beginning 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 Hurt is a collection of sixteen enjoy these short storiesthat come at the core from a tangent, all bound together by that show the theme benefits of hurt in various formsthe oblique glance. It is James Lasdun I've always preferred coming to an author's output through their least obvious, allegedly throw-away pieces, and it's the same with franchises – I'd more likely go for Bree Tanner's third collection of short stories andnovella than the whole Twilight saga (although that remains just a hunch, chances arefor obvious reasons). For another thing, if you are a fan there was every reason to expect some kind of the short story then you will have read something greatness here – with Carroll much loved by him before.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099512327</amazonuk>millions, surely pieces written with that love in mind could only provide for success after success?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew Porter1846974658|title=The Theory of Light and MatterLong Path To Wisdom|author=Jan-Philipp Sendker

|summary=Both On my travels around the book cover and its title are enticing, quirky, eye-catching. Personallyworld, I'm have a fan of most things American including American fictiontendency to end up in any bookshop that is selling English-language books, so and while I couldn't wait to start reading. I was not disappointed. Porter introduces us to characters, buy as many of whom would probably be described second-hand escapist tales as deeply flawed. He shares the darker side of modern-day American life with the reader - which next person, what I'm really looking for is far from the bright lights of glitzy New York or the sun-drenched beaches of California. You could say that this is all about real life. To underline his point, Porter's characters are mostly local folks (to use a favourite American word) shuffling through life as best they can.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>022408982X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=James Kelman|title=If it is Your Life|rating=3|genre=Short Stories|summary=''If This Is Your Life'' is not so much a collection of short stories as a collection of pieces of creative writing. Kelman doesn't really do 'stories'. In nineteen pieces of writing of varying length from just a single page to more lengthy pieces, such as – the story that gives its title to this collectioncookbook maybe, Kelman writes (mostly) about people on the edge of society. He addresses issues such as classmaps definitely, politics, gender, age and ill health.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241142423</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Christopher Golden (Editor)|title=Zombiebut above all: An Anthology of the Undead|rating=5|genre=Horror|summary=Anyone who enjoys a good horror story and likes zombie films will love this book, which is a collection of nineteen short stories by a variety of authorsfolk tales. If I have ever get to admit that I have only heard of one of the authors before - [[:Category:Mike Carey|Mike Carey]]Burma, who writes the [[The Naming of the Beasts (Felix Castor) by Mike Carey|Felix Castor]] novels - but I am not an avid reader of the genre and donwon't doubt that the authors will be known need to readers more familiar with it. Despite this unfamiliarityhunt, I thoroughly enjoyed most of the stories, with just one or two seemingly not up to scratchcan read before I go.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749952539</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Katie Fforde (Editor) and Sue Moorcroft (Editor)B077969HN8|title=Loves Me, Loves Me NotAlternative Medicine|author=Laura Solomon

|summary=What Laura Solomon's publisher describes the short stories in ''Alternative Medicine'' as ''black comedy with a feast is presented in these forty stories from well-loved and prolific romantic authors, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary twist of the Romantic Novelistssurrealism'' Association. In I'm rather glad that I didn't see this until ''after'' I'd finished reading as I'm not normally a Whofan of either, but I've come to two conclusions about the book: what the publisher says is correct - and I really enjoyed it. The comedy is not ''too''s Who of black and the genre, there are writers from every age group, including one surrealism is gentle and perhaps best described as a twist or two who might even have been founder members flick of the RNA, back in 1960reality when you were least expecting it. My advice is Your comfort zones are going to sip through be invaded in the stories slowly, rather than gobbling them up quickly and suffering from indigestionnicest possible way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778303373</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephanie Tillotson9386897504|title=Cut on the Bias|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=If ''Cut on the Bias'' is in your local bookshop, you will surely be won over by the feisty cover. Stories about women Tales of Love and their clothes are about identity, so what better start to a set of short stories than a fashion statement cover featuring the bags in which said clothes arrive home?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906784132</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDisability|author=Janice Galloway|title=Collected StoriesLaura Solomon|rating=54

|summary=In this collection, stories are taken from two previous volumes, Blood and Where You Find It. The fortyI've always believed that less-two snap shots of life are mainly able writers produce longer books: it takes a great deal of women skill and young girls, struggling with emotions, sometimes realized talent to write a short story which holds the reader and sometimes notkeeps them coming back for more. In There are far too many collections of short stories which are all, there seems too easy to be an underlying link of isolation put down and truth. The settings are varied, from forget after you've read a visit to the dentist to the place known as home, to a walk in the eveningcouple of pieces. We have I've recently read a peek into the deepest darkest corners couple of everyday relationshipsnovellas by Laura Solomon - [[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon|Marsha's Deal]] and [[Hell's Unveiling by Laura Solomon|Hell's Unveiling]] and enjoyed them, so I was intrigued to see what she could do with lovers, partners and most of all ourselvesan even shorter form.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099540398</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shirley Jackson1986586898|title=Going To The Lottery and Other Last: Short StoriesAbout Horse Racing|author=K D Knight

|summary=Even though it was written over sixty years agoIn the opening story, The Lottery, coming in at fewer than 3,500 words still a man whose wife has the power to shock. When it first appeared in the The New Yorker in 1948 it caused many outraged readers to cancel their subscriptions such was the devastating nature of the story. Time may have lessened sensibilities over the latter half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty first deserted him visits Sandown with little money but The Lottery, like many of the other stories comes away with cash in this timely reissue, still packs a mighty punch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141191430</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Edgar Allan Poe and Gris Grimly|title=Tales of Death and Dementia|rating=5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Wow! What a wonderful combination: Edgar Allan Poe, master of the gothic horror short story, his pocket - and Gris Grimly, outstanding illustrator, known for his [[The Dangerous Alphabet by Neil Gaiman and Gris Grimly|work with Neil Gaiman]]wife. Poe In 's 'A Grey Day'Tales of Death and Dementia'' are shown off at their very best in this edition.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847386474</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=William Bedford|title=None of an owner struggles with the Cadillacs was Pink|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary=I chose this book because problem of its superb title – the last and best memoir in a collection of sixteen stories. These Humberside and Lincolnshire stories have a background beat of Fifties' music that sets them firmly whether or not to run his horse in an exciting, disturbing time for young people everywhere, not least for the author and his friends, as old ways of living made way for new along Gold Cup when the East Coast of England.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529445</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Clive Cussler (editor) |title=Thriller 2: Stories You Just Can't Put Down|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary=If you enjoy thrillers or short stories then you might find this book a treatground is against him. If you enjoy them both then itMy favourite was 's a treasure trove. 'The Story of H'Thriller 2: Stories You Just Can't Put Down'' is edited by best-selling author [[:Category:Clive Cussler|Clive Cussler]] (although none of his work is included) and includes work by some authors who are , the top story of their gameFoinavon. There are twenty three stories in all, each about twenty pages long and they're perfect for those moments when you just want H is depicted as a kind horse who only wanted to dip into something short and satisfyingplease people.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778303209</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Will Eisner |title=Minor Miracles|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=This short story collection starts with two appetisers before getting After changing hands on with two main courses, but as with various occasions he came to the best meals even the smallest dishes can have the most depthyard of John Kempton. We start with H (or Foinavon) was entered in the entire life cycle - rise, fall, rise, fall Grand National and considered a no- hoper. In one of a hobo feeding pigeons in the park. Obviously he hasn't been doing that all his years - he's been keeping his dignity intact, with a huge amount most dramatic runnings of chutzpah and more. Nextthe race, a smart Alec defeats the older kids on pile-up occurred at the stoop with a bit of canny street wisdom23rd fence.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393328147</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Agnes Owens |title=The Complete Novellas|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Who is Agnes Owens? A Scottish author Foinavon, who portrays working class life from had been many lengths adrift, cleared the nineteen forties fence and fifties. Now an octogenariangalloped to the line, apparently Agnes Owens started writing winning the race at the age odds of 58100/1. Here are five previously published stories collected into one new edition, a companion volume to her short stories, published in 2008. I don't think you'll be disappointed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971373</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kazuo Ishiguro 9386897296|title=Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall Hell's Unveiling|author=Laura Solomon

|summary=A jobbing guitarist from an Eastern European country, playing in Venice, is given a most singular gig little while ago I really enjoyed [[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon|Marsha's Deal]] and I was delighted by an ageingthe opportunity to read the sequel, passing crooner''Hell's Unveiling''. An old friend It's probably not much of a couple at loggerheads stays spoiler to say that Marsha bested the devil in their flat''Marsha's Deal'', but enters a nightmare world of comedy, doing greater and greater wrongs the devil is not one to cover his first transgressiontake defeat lying down. A younger couple running He's out to wage war on Planet Earth and particularly on Marsha (who's thought of as a cafe employ 'goody two shoes' in Hell). Although a friend to help outstrong person, despite his wish she's vulnerable where her foster children are concerned. Daniel is framed for a crime he didn't commit and sent to hide in the hills juvenile detention and compose new songs for his not-very illustrious careerrefused permission to return to live with Marsha.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>057124498X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Aleksandar Hemon |title=Love and Obstacles|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary=We start with the young narrator away from homeThen, and in Africaof course, due there are all the other children who are not only targeted but - worst of all - subverted to his diplomat fatherthe devil's evil ends. He's left behind home, a potential girlfriend, out to prey on their fears and weaknesses and more, but finds company as with an oldermany foster children, chancer character and his junkie girlfriend, and their pot, drinks and 70s rockself-esteem is very fragile. Closer to his rootsThis is no small-scale operation, but still either - the devil has set up a young man abroadtraining complex on earth, the second story sees him travelling across his homeland on complete with an errand - elevator to deliver payment for the biggest chest freezer his father could find. But poems, losing his virginity, keeping his money, and various other fantasies might just put a cooler on that unusual task..Hell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330464434</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Charles Stross |title=Wireless|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary=In his introduction, Stross explains that one of the reasons he likes writing shorts stories is because they are the ideal format in which Move to focus on a particular concept of the future [[Newest Spirituality and play around with it. It doesn't matter so much if the idea doesn't ultimately work because neither the reader nor the author has invested in it the way they would in a novel. ''Wireless'' then, is something of an experiment. Stross employs many different styles, tackles many different subjects and is very skilful at creating mood. His stories are a strange blend of the technical and the archaic.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497711</amazonuk>}}Religion Reviews]]