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[[Category:New Reviews|Short Stories]]
[[Category:Short Stories|*]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Javier MariasAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=While the Women are SleepingAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=4.5|genre=Short StoriesScience Fiction|summary=The first thing the trivially minded will note is that this is not the complete edition ''Opening up new ways of While the Women are Sleeping, for not all thinking about the stories in the original Spanish volume are here. You might think that's because some have been hived off for a future 'best shape of' compilationthings to come. But if this isn't the best of Javier Marias, then I don't know what is. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099553929</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael MorpurgoB0CDZRGT1M|title=WarSuper Short Stories: Stories of Conflict|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Throughout history, war has blighted society and had long lasting impacts on not only those directly involved but the innocent bystanders too. This collection of stories, edited by the magnificent Michael Morpurgo himself, looks to explore the impacts of war on individual soldiers, families and especially children. Every story approaches conflicts from a different angle and this ensures that even though there are a good number of short stories in the book, you will never feel as if it is becoming repetitive or dull. The stories do a good job of conveying just how multi-faceted and complex the concept of war is.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447205014</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Andrew Kaufman|title=The Tiny Wife|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=It all begins with a bank robbery. Only this isn't your typical sort of bank robbery since the robber demands not money but instead each person in the bank must give him the item of most sentimental value that they have with them. These range from photographs and a key through to a calculator...and on taking these items he says he is also taking fifty percent of their souls, and it is up to the victims to find the way to get their souls back, or to die trying.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007429258</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ludwig Bechstein, Axel Sceffler and Julia Donaldson|title=The Gloomster|rating=4.5|genre=General Flash Fiction|summary=We've all been there. Finding fault with everything around us, and perhaps picking on one particular irritant that gets us so rattled, tetchy and narked all we can do is invoke "Hell and damnation!" down on all creation - including, of course, ourselves. After all, our lot is so bad it won't make anything much worse.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571274242</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Lloyd Jones|title=The Man in the ShedMark C Wallfisch
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
|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>}}'
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jamil AhmadRachel Harrison|title=The Wandering FalconBad Dolls
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|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
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue GeeB0CCCVRSGX|title=Last FlingStories 2|author=Richard F Walker
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|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.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helen Simpson1739593901|title=In-Flight Entertainment22 Ideas About The Future|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|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>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dorothy ParkerB09XZMCDVF|title=The SexesStories: 13 tantalising tales|author=Richard F Walker|rating=54
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=From the young woman who examined her handkerchief in minute detail, to the soldier's leave which didn't live up to expectation, through A news vendor is crying out the thoughts of headlines in the early hours middle of the morning night; a wheelchair user loses touch with reality when he tries walking around in his imagination; a stickler for correct grammar goes back in time to correct an iconic quote; a volunteer teacher proves the actress who proved ideal person to have around in a disappointment to her fan and lawless village; the new boy on to the glorious culmination of the child who should never have been called Lolita we have five wonderful short stories. Theypub football team is very useful with his feet, and awfully familiar…'re in a book that's no bigger than most short stories but buy it and it could well be the best buy that you make this year.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>014119619X</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=William Styron1737030942|title=The Suicide RunBag O'Goodies|author=Jolly Walker Bittick
|rating=4
|genre=Short StoriesAnthologies|summary=A WW2 naval soldierSometimes, guarding you deserve a prison island for those found guilty at courtmartials, is forced to wonder if he is winning his own battles against those arriving treat and leavingmine was Jolly Walker Bittick's ''Bag O'Goodies''. A soldier remembers calming memoriesI first encountered his writing about a year ago, and those causing tensionwhen I read his [[Cape Henry House by Jolly Walker Bittick|Cape Henry House]], as he rests up before actiona rollicking tale of what happens when five young men find a base for their partying. And for Right now, I didn't want a highlyfull-charged young manlength novel, there may be too much risk so I turned to be found in his high-octane downtime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532220</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Saunders|title=The Vernham Chronicles|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=Set amidst the rolling British countryside around Vernbury Vale is the little village this anthology of Vernhamverse and short stories. Anyone who lives in a village will recognise it immediately, with its cobbled streets Bittick's writing has matured - and Tudor buildings. There was some damage during the war (which might, or might not so 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 buildingscharacters. Almost unique and nearly beautiful as the village is, it's not the star of The Vernham ChroniclesWell.. The stars are the people who live in Vernham.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907499598</amazonuk>most of them!
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529418100|authortitle=John H Watson, Tony Reynolds Bruno's Challenge and Chris CoadyOther Dordogne Tales|titleauthor=The Lost Stories of Sherlock HolmesMartin Walker
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=It is I'm not usually a truth universally acknowledged that a successful detective character will have far fan of short stories - I find it all too many cases in his career for easy to put the book down between stories and forget to pick it to be at all realistic. The worst case up again - but I am a fan of Martin Walker's [[Martin Walker's Commissar Bruno Courreges Mysteries in point are Chronological Order|Bruno Courreges Mysteries]] so the Hardy Boys, who have had two hundred or more adventures temptation to read ''Bruno's Challenge'' was hard to resist and are still not 20I'm rather glad that I didn't even try. Slightly more literaryFor those new to the series, but no less busy it can seem, was Sherlock Holmes, for Watson declaimed many times there's an excellent introduction that he did not write down will tell you all that manyou need to know about who's exploits. Tony Reynolds here gives us eight more cases, making Holmes' workload even more impressivewho and the background to why Bruno is in St Denis.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907685618</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Polly SamsonB08NF79QXT|title=Perfect LivesCherry Blossom Boutique|author=Brooke Adams|rating=4.53|genre=Short StoriesWomen's Fiction|summary=The eleven short stories in Perfect Lives are about a group of people living in an English seaside town. Each story of challenged relationshipsThirty-one-year old Liberty Rossini has had her shop, devastating discoveries and objects and people with a history is carefully and beautifully craftedthe Cherry Blossom Boutique, stands alone for just six months when she's nominated for - and works well in its own right, but wins - the connections between all the stories offer an extra, fascinating dimensionRetail Best Newcomer Award. Each story made me want to look at She's delighted and the others again to understand how they all connect, to piece together the different bits of two peopleshe's lives in each story. This format also offers an opportunity brought with her to see some of the characters from several different perspectives, and perhaps make the short stories event couldn't be more satisfying to those who are dissatisfied by their brevitypleased. Sonja, as some of the same characters reappearher mother, 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 is an unnamed woman who is married with two young sons, ex-model and then one of Brazilian: you can see where Liberty got her sons has a story of his own (Ivan Knows)looks from. There are a variety of narrative viewpoints – womenJessica's thirty-four and Liberty's best friend: they've known each other since university and Liberty adores Jessica's husband, menCharles and their four-year-old daughter, Ava. Life would be perfect for Liberty if it wasn't for one thing: she misses having a little boy, a teenage girl, first and third personman in her life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1860499929</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shena MackayB08KKQ85FN|title=The Atmospheric Railway: New and Selected StoriesBut Never For Lunch|author=Sandra Aragona|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=This volume of short stories, first published ''If a woman approaching the menopause can be likened to a Rottweiler in 2008 but new in paperbacklipstick, has an Ambassador nearing retirement resembles a lot pampered peacock about to offer those familiar with Shena Mackay's previous work and readers coming be released into the company of carrion crows or, more to her stories for the first timepoint, with a generous thirty six stories - thirteen recent stories collected in book form for about to discover the first time are combined with twenty three from Shena Mackayreal world of bus timetables and paying his own gas bills.''s previous collections.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099469677</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John MortimerB08CHJLNBS|title=Rumpole at ChristmasCapturing Emilia|author=Brooke Adams|rating=43|genre=Short StoriesWomen's Fiction|summary=This book is as slim as one of RumpoleHe's beloved packets of cigars Charles Devereaux, thirty-eight and it can also be read in a partner at Wickham Jones, the time it takes an average turkey to cook Mayfair letting agents. She's Emilia, twenty-nine, librarian and archivist in the oven on Christmas Dayheritage library next door. A handful of festiveEmilia 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, short stories is covered in this book with its appealing front coverto something a little deeper. Most Charles is more of the stories have been previously published elsewherea [[Personal by Lee Child|Jack Reacher]] man himself, but, above all, mainly in he's shocked that Emilia reads ''The Strand MagazineGuardian' but also in some '. They're obviously not at all compatible, so why can Charles not get this woman out of the national newspapershis mind? She's not his usual type at all: it's obvious to his friends.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141039779</amazonuk> 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?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Raymond CarverMarie O'Regan and Paul Kane (editors)|title=BeginnersCursed: An Anthology of Dark Fairy Tales
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short StoriesFantasy|summary= One thing you soon surmise from reading Raymond Carver is that he was an alcoholicCurses. CarverThey's characters tend re there throughout tales of faery and other fantastical folk – people being cursed to do this, or not to be able to drink excessivelydo that. Children can be cursed, and his stories often examine as can princesses on the negative impact verge of drinking on his central charactermarrying, and older people too. It seems in a way there's relationshipsno escaping it. But nowadays, what Which is why the theme of this book of short stories is such a standout – we talk about when may well think we talk know all there is to know about Carver is the role of his editorthis accursed character, that demonised place, Gordon Lishand that other bewitched person. We'd be very wrong.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099540320</amazonuk>1789091500
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Colm ToibinStibbe_Xmas|title=The Empty FamilyAn Almost Perfect Christmas|author=Nina Stibbe
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short StoriesHumour|summary=In his first book since Christmas – the pitch-perfect [[Brooklyn by Colm Toibin|Brooklyn]], Colm Toibin time of traditional trauma. You only have to think about the turkey for that – once more examines upon a time it was leaving it sat on the great Irish theme of exile downstairs loo to defrost overnight, and homecoming in his new collection of short stories, if that failed the hair-dryer shoved inside it treatment was your next best bet. Nowadays it'The Empty Familys 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. As the title suggestsChristmas, though, many 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 stories also revolve around family relationshipsthank-you letters to aunties you saw twice a decade that your parents made you write out in long-hand as a child, and their sweet as for the makers of Meltis Newberry Fruits – well, did they even try and sour Nature.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918172</amazonuk>sell them any other time of the year?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kurt Vonnegut0954899520|title=Look at the Birdie|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary=Kurt Vonnegut died a couple of years ago after 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 best, his theme, individuals out for themselves in an uncaring society. A colleague at The Winter BookBookbag [[Armageddon in Retrospect by Kurt Vonnegut|recently wrote]] that Kurt Vonnegut's early writing is his strongest. If that is so, then this collection, illustrated with cartoons by the author, will be good news for his many fans.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548852</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ryunosuke Akutagawa|title=The Beautiful and the Grotesque|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary=The author, the tongue-twisting Akutagawa is 'hailed as one of the greatest short story writers in world literature' says the back book cover. I was truly impressed and very keen to get reading. The front cover is both eye-catching and colourful, there's no doubt that this book is about Japan. There is a comprehensive Introduction with its lovely title ''A Sprig Of Wild Orange'' written by the translator. And straight away I got a strong sense 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 gets, apparently) and of the conservative nature of the Japanese people.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0871401924</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Lydia Davis|title=The Collected Short Stories of Lydia DavisTove Jansson
|rating=5
|genre=Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary=As you might expect with short storiesTove Jansson's worldwide fame lasts on the Moomin books, written in the themes are as varied as 'The Fears 1940s and later becoming television characters of Mrs Orlandothe simplicity, naivety and sheer ' to goodness'Mothers' and of course, I have my own particular favourites. Most of these short stories cover a couple of pages, but others are merely a sentence that would later produce flowerpot men or twoteletubbies. AndSimple drawings, for me, the less on the pagesimple stories, the more impart the words usually havesimple goodness. In short (no pun intended) there would seem to be something for everyone in these 700+ pages.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>024114504X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kelly Link|title=Pretty Monsters|rating=3|genre=Fantasy|summary=It goes without saying, but the greatest thing about fantasy fiction What is often forgotten outside of her native Finland is that one can go anywhere with it, and do anything. So she was 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 serious writer…that she wrote for adults as well as children…and that she had a result. There can be a psychic link between a young lad, called Onion feeling for the natural world and doomed to die in a terrorist attack, and his cousin while she works as slave in an odd community the simple life that not only informed those child-like trolls but went far beyond any fantasy of wizards. Several worlds can how the world might be accessed through an elderly woman's handbag, for better or worse.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847677843</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=A L Kennedy1911115847|title=What BecomesNights of the Creaking Bed|author=Toni Kan
|rating=4
|genre=Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary=You're three 'Nights of the Creaking Bed'' is a collection of short stories into this collection by Toni Kan. The series of stories tell of the lives and lusts of an assortment of characters living in and two people have cut their hands open preparing food - a man with love drooping away from his marriagearound Lagos, making soupNigeria. Nigeria, and anotherin this collection, a greengrocer, preparing stock and thinking about his is imbued with its very own relationship. But there is no pattern to that. Four stories in and there have been two bursts heart of non-sequitur comedydarkness. Why your fruit might be ruined by stray fingers, Danger stalks the shadows and the thoughts of people are killed for nothing more than a woman in wrong look. Kan writes with a flotation tank, remembering Doctor Who, locked parental doors - and the urban myths of gerbils. But there's still no pattern - vitality and passion that's the point of allows these combined cynical stories. Life and all to achieve a glimmer of its emotions does not live to rulehope.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009949406X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tove Jansson1529014484|title=Travelling LightExhalation |author=Ted Chiang
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Science Fiction|summary=In her home country of Finland – and no doubt throughout much of Over 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 talentpast twenty-eight years, skillTed Chiang has published fifteen science fiction short stories, verve and wit that extended far beyond the Moomin Troll these magnificent stories 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 (as well as being adapted for just about every other medium going), and won twenty-seven major science fiction awards so if you are a joy they are too, but science fiction fan it is only recently likely that we you have been granted already come across some of the pleasures of reading her fiction for adultswork by Ted Chiang. If you haven't then take this opportunity to do so now. Trust me; your imagination will be grateful.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095489958X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Grisham1794467440|title=Ford CountyWatchwords |author=Philip Neal
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=When I think of John Grisham I tend to think firstly of lawyers. Well, actually, I think of Tom Cruise first to be honest, and then the whole lawyer thing. I expect surprising twists and long, detailed plots. This satisfying collection, however, is a book of short stories so has to work differently. 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 provenance at least as beguiling as the stories revolve around a rather mixed bag provenance of characters from Ford County, with the ever-present lawyers but also gamblers, murderers, con artists, drunks and scoundrelsantique watches that inspired it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099545780</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jane Feaver1529006031|title=Love Me TenderReturn to Wonderland|author=Various Authors
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=A woman remembers her dead husband playing Love Me Tender (In following a young girl called Alice down the song made famous by Elvis Presley) on his tenor horn. She is in rabbit hole a dazefew years ago, feeling when the grief first book she was in [[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (150th Anniversary Edition) by Lewis Carroll and Anthony Browne|hit 150 years of age]], I found that I didn't really find too much favour with it. The wacky-for-the bereaved widow she is-sake-of-it did not gel, and I don't remember loving it more as a child. But I would suggest I am the betrayal of perfect audience for this book. I had every chance to enjoy these short stories that come at the deceived wifecore from a tangent, and that show the guilt benefits of having murdered himthe oblique glance. The title story of this collection is all 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 moving and startling because likely go for Bree Tanner's short novella than the whole Twilight saga (although that remains just a hunch, for obvious reasons). For another thing, there was every reason to expect some kind of its understated stylegreatness here – with Carroll much loved by millions, and what is not said as well as what is.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099521288</amazonuk>surely pieces written with that love in mind could only provide for success after success?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Aravind Adiga1846974658|title=Between the AssassinationsThe Long Path To Wisdom|author=Jan-Philipp Sendker
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=''Between On my travels around the Assassinations'' is world, I have a collection of short stories set in the fictional South Indian town of Kittur, which is almost certainly Mangalore (where the Adiga grew tendency to end up). But the plight of the residents can be found in any Indian city bookshop that is selling English- which language books, and while I buy as many second-hand escapist tales as the next person, what I imagine is Adiga's point of setting it in a fictional location. The twelve stories are vaguely interlinked (there are some recurring characters) but m really looking for the most part the stories stand alone. The time period is set between the assassinations of Indira Gandhi in 1984 and 'local' – the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991cookbook maybe, although like the locationmaps definitely, 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=Sumbut above all: Tales from the Afterlives|rating=4folk tales.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=For some reason If I find myself unable ever get to start this review. So Burma, Iwon'll mention this book starts with the endt need to hunt, and see where we I can read before I go from there. Of course, that's the key – this book does just that – starts with the end of our human life here on Earth (or wherever you happen to be reading this) and posits forty possibilities 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'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847674283</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James LasdunB077969HN8|title=It's Beginning To HurtAlternative Medicine|author=Laura Solomon
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=ItLaura Solomon's Beginning to Hurt is publisher describes the short stories in ''Alternative Medicine'' as ''black comedy with a twist of surrealism''. I'm rather glad that I didn't see this until ''after'' I'd finished reading as I'm not normally a collection fan of sixteen short storieseither, all bound together by but I've come to two conclusions about the book: what the theme of hurt in various formspublisher says is correct - and I really enjoyed it. It The comedy is James Lasdunnot ''s third collection too'' black and the surrealism is gentle and perhaps best described as a twist or flick of short stories and, chances are, if reality when you were least expecting it. Your comfort zones are a fan of going to be invaded in the short story then you will have read something by him beforenicest possible way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099512327</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew Porter9386897504|title=The Theory Tales of Light Love and MatterDisability|author=Laura Solomon
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=Both the book cover and its title are enticing, quirky, eye-catching. Personally, I'm ve always believed that less-able writers produce longer books: it takes a fan great deal of most things American including American fiction, so I couldn't wait skill and talent to start readingwrite a short story which holds the reader and keeps them coming back for more. I was not disappointed. Porter introduces us There are far too many collections of short stories which are all too easy to characters, many put down and forget after you've read a couple of whom would probably be described as deeply flawedpieces. He shares the darker side I've recently read a couple of modernnovellas by Laura Solomon -day American life with the reader - which 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[[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon|Marsha's Deal]] and [[Hell's Unveiling by Laura Solomon|Hell's characters are mostly local folks (Unveiling]] and enjoyed them, so I was intrigued to use a favourite American word) shuffling through life as best they cansee what she could do with an even shorter form.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>022408982X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James Kelman1986586898|title=If it is Your LifeGoing To The Last: Short Stories About Horse Racing|author=K D Knight|rating=34.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=In the opening story, a man whose wife has deserted him visits Sandown with little money but comes away with cash in his pocket - and his wife. In ''If This Is Your LifeA Grey Day'' an owner struggles with the problem of whether or not to run his horse in the Gold Cup when the ground is not so much a collection of short stories as a collection of pieces of creative writingagainst him. Kelman doesn My favourite was ''t really do The Story of H'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 of Foinavon. H is depicted as a kind horse who only wanted to this collection, Kelman writes (mostly) about please people . After changing hands on various occasions he came to the edge yard of societyJohn Kempton. H (or Foinavon) was entered in the Grand National and considered a no-hoper. He addresses issues such as class In one of the most dramatic runnings of the race, politicsa pile-up occurred at the 23rd fence. Foinavon, genderwho had been many lengths adrift, age cleared the fence and ill healthgalloped to the line, winning the race at odds of 100/1.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241142423</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christopher Golden (Editor)9386897296|title=Zombie: 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 authors. I have to admit that I have only heard of one of the authors before - [[:Category:Mike Carey|Mike Carey]], 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 donHell't doubt that the authors will be known to readers more familiar with it. Despite this unfamiliarity, I thoroughly enjoyed most of the stories, with just one or two seemingly not up to scratch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749952539</amazonuk>}} {{newreviews Unveiling|author=Katie Fforde (Editor) and Sue Moorcroft (Editor)|title=Loves Me, Loves Me NotLaura Solomon|rating=43.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=What A little while ago I really enjoyed [[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon|Marsha's Deal]] and I was delighted by the opportunity to read the sequel, ''Hell's Unveiling''. It's probably not much of a feast is presented spoiler to say that Marsha bested the devil in these forty stories from well-loved and prolific romantic authors''Marsha's Deal'', celebrating but the fiftieth anniversary 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 the Romantic Novelistsas a 'goody two shoes' Associationin Hell). In Although a Whostrong person, she's Who vulnerable where her foster children are concerned. Daniel is framed for a crime he didn't commit and sent to juvenile detention and refused permission to return to live with Marsha. Then, of the genrecourse, there are writers from every age group, including one or two all the other children who might even have been founder members are not only targeted but - worst of all - subverted to the RNAdevil's evil ends. He's out to prey on their fears and weaknesses and as with many foster children, back in 1960their self-esteem is very fragile. My advice This is to sip through no small-scale operation, either - the stories slowlydevil has set up a training complex on earth, rather than gobbling them up quickly and suffering from indigestioncomplete with an elevator to Hell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778303373</amazonuk>
}}
