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[[Category:New Reviews|Short Stories]]
[[Category:Short Stories|*]]{{adsense2}}__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=This CloseAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Jessica Francis KaneBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Short StoriesScience Fiction|summary='This Close' is a sensitively written collection of short stories exploring the fragile nature Opening up new ways of thinking about the bonds connecting friends, neighbours and family. As the title suggests, most shape of the stories contain pivotal moments where a missed opportunity, fleeting as it may be, can propel a person along a path culminating in regret or loss. Each story is poignantly written and perceptively observed. As a reader, I was drawn in and became so emotionally involved with the characters that it was often impossible things to close the book until I knew how each story endedcome.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1555976360</amazonuk>}}''
{{newreview|title=Behind the Facade|author=Dennis Friedman|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary=We have all, at one time or anotherI've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, wished I must confess that we had 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 ability to read mindsfeeling that it's all getting away from me. Imagine how interesting Some of it would be to peer beyond is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, I could research the external appearance possibilities and to understand the various thought processes lurking beneath probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the surfacelatest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand. Psychiatrist Dennis Friedman gives the reader the opportunity to do just that with his collection of short stories 'Beyond the Facade'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0720615070</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Margo LanaganB0CDZRGT1M|title=YellowcakeSuper Short Stories: Flash Fiction|author=Mark C Wallfisch
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=We should always make time for ''Got a minute to be amused, entertained, or challenged?''''These 100 stories are super short stories. Especially if they are written by Margo LanaganNone is more than 300 words. You can read one in a flash. In ''Yellowcake'', Some are funny. Some are poignant. All are short.'' Question: how do you review flash fiction? How do you give a flavour of a traveller boy uses fully rounded little story if that story is told in fewer than three items hundred words? Or do you try to reunite an old man with his memories. A boy with draw out themes from all the flash fictions in a crippled foot watches his townfolk butcher book of them? I don't know! Perhaps we could start by explaining that there really isn't a beautiful creature washed up in their harbourfixed definition of flash fiction but that for this collection, author Mark C Wallfisch has gone for a three hundred word limit. Rapunzel gets That's about a makeover single page in which things turn out differently. We find out how the Ferryman of the Dead became the Ferrywoman. And moreyour average paperback.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849921113</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Melvin BurgessRachel Harrison|title=Krispy WhispersBad Dolls
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=It's been some time since I'A woman stops you in ve read any horror. I had a couple of misspent teen years reading Stephen King, borrowing the road books from a boy I fancied at school and gazes fearfully into scaring myself half silly with them to the pram. "Your babies are not human," she says. Then she runs off.point that I couldn't shut my bedroom curtains at night for fear of the vampires outside! Don't worry - this short story collection isnOoht like that! Alien changelings It doesn't have those jump scares, and I didn't have to read it during daylight hours only! Cuckoos in But it is creepy, and I found most of that feeling came from the nest? Are they really? Reallyfact that these are stories about women, reallyliving normal lives, really? Can you be sure? So begins the first story and that at least in ''Krispy Whispers''part, the horrors arises from very normal situations such as a series of flash fictions by Bookbag favourite Melvin Burgess. You also get breakup, trying a girl dreaming of richesnew dieting app, going to a lonely woman who finds a pet hen party and gets a boyfriend too closely together for mere coincidence. And a priest who actually meets God. And a very worrisome monster. Concentrate hard. Because you'll need to keep up..coping with grief.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B00DAC68EM</amazonuk>1803363932
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alison MooreB0CCCVRSGX|title=The Pre-War House and other short storiesStories 2|author=Richard F Walker|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=Alison MooreThis is Richard F Walker's ''Pre-War House'' is a collection second volume of 24 short stories, only three of which . There are original to this collection, but most were first published thirteen in the last couple of years all and, unless you are a an avid reader I took something from each of them. There isn't a single one that doesn'The New Writer'' they will probably all t deserve to be new to you. Moore's themes tend to concentrate on fairly dark characters, usually with a hidden secret, and more often than not dealing with among the past and frequently some kind of personal loss others or anguishbrings down the overall quality. If you enjoyed Moore's Booker Prize shortlisted [[The Lighthouse by Alison Moore|The Lighthouse]], you will find plenty It can be tricky to enjoy here as most of the review short stories have a similar hauntingly sad feel to them. With one possible exceptionwithout giving too much away, a very short piece called so I''The Yacht Man'' which did nothing for me, the stories are beautifully judged ll just pick two to talk about and equally satisfying, often saving a final hit or I think they give a surprise until the end of the piecesgeneral flavour.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907773509</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1739593901
|title=22 Ideas About The Future
|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=''Our future will be more complex than we expected. Instead of flying cars, we got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma.''
{{newreview|author=Robert Walser|title=The Walk and other stories|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The publication I've got a couple of this collection of around forty confessions to make. I'm not keen on short stories affords the English speaking public as I find it easy to read a unique opportunity; that of reading Walser, possibly the leading modernist writer of Swiss German in few stories and then forget to return to the last centurybook. He has received high praise in There'A Place in the Countrys got to be a very compelling hook to keep me engaged. Then there', W G Sebalds science fiction: far too often it's recently published posthumous collection and he is wellthe technology which takes centre stage along with the world-known as being a significant influence on Franz Kafkabuilding. His work here dates from 1907 to 1929 and along with his poetry won him recognition with Berlin It's avant gardehuman beings who fascinate me: the technology and the world scape are purely incidental. He combines lyrical delicacy with detailed observation; reflective melancholy with criticism So, what did I think of brash commercialism. The fine writing in this volume strives to achieve a hard won integrity together with an experimental capacity for reflection. It challenges the reader and provokes him to new insightsbook of twenty-two science fiction short stories? Well, I loved it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846689589</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ted OlingerB09XZMCDVF|title=The Woodpecker MenaceStories: 13 tantalising tales|author=Richard F Walker
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=The Key Peninsula ''A news vendor is crying out the headlines in the middle of the 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 ideal person to have around in a small spur of land lawless village; the new boy on the Puget Sound in Washington statepub football team is very useful with his feet, shaped - you guessed it - like and awfully familiar…'' This collection of thirteen short stories by Richard F Walker has a keylot to offer the eclectic reader. Its resident are disparate Tying them together is the idea that remarkable and include both incomers and those whostrange, even miraculous, things can happen to ordinary people. And that ordinary doesn'd see themselves as pioneer settlerst mean boring or uninteresting. But theyForm and tone varies so this little treasury of short fiction is never boring and you're joined in a communal sense of island living. Itnever quite sure what's on a much smaller scale, but I think most British people can feel affinity with identifying as an islandercoming next. It flavours our relationship with continental Europe in so many ways. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0984840036</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nikolai Leskov, Richard Pevear (translator) and Larissa Volokhonsky (translator)1737030942|title=The Enchanted Wanderer and Other StoriesBag O'Goodies|author=Jolly Walker Bittick
|rating=4
|genre=Literary FictionAnthologies|summary=This is Sometimes, you deserve a collection of 17 Nikolai Leskov stories as mixed in subject matter as they are in length. From the very short treat and mine was Jolly Walker Bittick's ''Bag O'Spirit of Madame de GenlisGoodies''. I first encountered his writing about a year ago, when I read his [[Cape Henry House by Jolly Walker Bittick|Cape Henry House]], warning a rollicking tale of the dire consequences of selecting literature what happens when five young men find a base for their partying. Right now, I didn't want a mollycoddled princessfull-length novel, so I turned to the novella-length ''The Enchanted Wanderer'' telling the tale this anthology of the apparently immortal monk who prayed for suicide victims, Leskov (aided greatly by the talented translators Richard Pevear verse and Larissa Volokhonsky) unlocks the mores, traditions, religion short stories. Bittick's writing has matured - and superstitions so have his characters. Well... most of 19th century Russia for a modern readership.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099577356</amazonuk>them!
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Roberto Saviano, Carlo Lucarelli, Valeria Parrella, Piero Colaprico, Wu Ming, Simona Vinci1529418100|title=OutsidersBruno'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'Outsiderss [[Martin Walker's Commissar Bruno Courreges Mysteries in Chronological Order|Bruno Courreges Mysteries]] so the temptation to read ' is a collection of six pieces of writing by Italian authors'Bruno's Challenge'' was hard to resist and I'm rather glad that I didn't even try. The pieces have been collated from a supplement For those new to the series, there's an Italian daily newspaper excellent introduction that will tell you all you need to know about who's who and six have been chosen around the theme of outsiders for translation into Englishbackground to why Bruno is in St Denis. Thus}}{{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 pieces themselves were not written around this specific theme but have rather had this theme imposed on them in this collectionCherry Blossom Boutique, for just six months when she's nominated for - and wins - the Retail Best Newcomer Award. Since She's delighted and the outsider is often used in various forms by writers two people she's brought with her to observe the status quoevent couldn't be more pleased. Sonja, her mother, this is not 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 big leap of imaginationman in her life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857052446</amazonuk>
}}
{{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.''
{{newreview|author=Aimee Bender|title=Willful Creatures|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories|summary= In this collection weYou don're shown the reaction of ten men with terminal illness prognosest get many better opening sentences than that, a large man purchasing a very unusual pet do you? We first met His Excellency and The Ambassador's Wife in [[Sorting the case of a hard-done-Priorities: Ambassadress and Beagle Survive Diplomacy by boyfriend. There are also delights like Sandra Aragona|Sorting the shop that sells words crafted into Priorities]] and we learned what they read, a boy with keys instead of fingers and it was like to be moved around countries like accompanying baggage by the beautifully touching tale of Italian Government but the pumpkin-headed mother who gives birth time has come for HE to retires and for Sandra Aragona to an iron-headed babybecome The Wife of Former Ambassador... NoThey have left The Career and settled in Rome. Well 'settled' rather overstates the situation and their dog, Beagle, this isn't your average collection has no intention of predictable short stories; these are [[:Category:Aimee Bender|Aimee Bender]] short storiesslowing down any time soon, despite being sixteen and deaf.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099558858</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Karen RussellB08CHJLNBS|title=Vampires in the Lemon GroveCapturing Emilia|author=Brooke Adams|rating=53|genre=Short StoriesWomen's Fiction|summary=I know you shouldnHe't judge s Charles Devereaux, thirty-eight and a book by the coverpartner at Wickham Jones, but when the cover has a title like Mayfair letting agents. She''Vampires s Emilia, twenty-nine, librarian and archivist in the Lemon Groveheritage 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, I can't help but be to something a little intrigueddeeper. Charles is more of a [[Personal by Lee Child|Jack Reacher]] man himself, but, especially when the author has a recent history like Karen Russellabove all, he'sshocked that Emilia reads ''The Guardian''. This history includes a Guardian award nomination for a previous collection with another great title; They're obviously not at all compatible, so why can Charles not get this woman out of his mind? She'St. Lucys not his usual type at all: it's Home for Girls Raised obvious to his friends. And given that Emilia regularly feels repulsed by WolvesCharles's superficiality, why does she feel drawn to him? The relationship' and s obviously a Pulitzer Prize shortlisting for her novelnon-starter, [[Swamplandia! by Karen Russell|Swamplandia!]]|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701187883</amazonuk>isn't it?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=George Mann Marie O'Regan and Paul Kane (Editoreditors)|title=Encounters Cursed: An Anthology of Sherlock HolmesDark Fairy Tales
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime (Historical)Fantasy|summary=Sherlock Holmes remains an enduring icon Curses. They're there throughout tales of English literature; perhaps as popular today faery and other fantastical folk – people being cursed to do this, or not to be able to do that. Children can be cursed, as he was back in can princesses on the late 1800sverge of marrying, maybe even more so with and older people too. It seems in a way there's no escaping it. Which is why the advent theme of TV and film adaptations this book of his adventures. Indeed, short stories is such a standout – we may well think we know all there is the lasting appeal of the to know about this accursed character , that since the death of Conan Doyle there have been literally hundreds of works publisheddemonised place, picking up where the original stories left offand that other bewitched person. We'd be very wrong. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781160031</amazonuk>1789091500
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Prajwal ParajulyStibbe_Xmas|title=The Gurkha's DaughterAn Almost Perfect Christmas|author=Nina Stibbe|rating=4.5|genre=Short StoriesHumour|summary=Parajuly is Christmas – the son time of an Indian father 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 Nepalese mother hailing from Gangtok in if that failed the Indian Himalayashair-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, but spending most of his time somewhere between New York and Oxfordget too friendly with it to want to eat it. His insight Christmas, though, is therefore something we should probably trustof course also a time of great boons.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780872933</amazonuk>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?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon Rich0954899520|title=The Last Girlfriend on EarthA Winter Book|author=Tove Jansson
|rating=5
|genre=Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary=There is more opportunity than ever these days to downsize your library. You can take all those lumpen classics to Tove Jansson's worldwide fame lasts on the Moomin books, written in the 1940s and later becoming television characters of the charity shop now simplicity, naivety and sheer 'goodness' that they can be downloaded for free onto an e-readerwould later produce flowerpot men or teletubbies. Simple drawings, simple stories, simple goodness. And with these couple of hundred pages you can also divest yourself What is often forgotten outside of her native Finland is that she was a heck of serious writer…that she wrote for adults as well as children…and that she had a lot of fiction about love, feeling for this can easily replace so much you've read at greater length, with less imagination the natural world and with much less humour elsewhere. That hyperbole is the simple life that not only partly inspired by the style informed those child-like trolls but went far beyond any fantasy of how the contents, for it really is that goodworld might be.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668921X</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lee Child (Editor)1911115847|title=VengeanceNights of the Creaking Bed|author=Toni Kan
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=I like short story collections. They're useful reading material when you're a mum Nights of young children as you can usually manage to squeeze in a six page story at nap time, but youthe Creaking Bed're guaranteed if you try to start that 500 page novel you've been meaning to read that just as it starts to get interesting your baby will wake up! This is a collection of crime short stories is brought together under by Toni Kan. The series of stories tell of the title lives and lusts of an assortment of ''Vengeance'' socharacters living in and around Lagos, Nigeria. Nigeria, as you'd imaginein this collection, they is imbued with its very own heart of darkness. Danger stalks the shadows and people are all to do killed for nothing more than a wrong look. Kan writes with revenge a vitality and people getting or trying passion that allows these cynical stories to get their own backachieve a glimmer of hope.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857899015</amazonuk>
}}
{{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.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Deborah Levy1794467440|title=Black VodkaWatchwords |author=Philip Neal
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=''Black Vodka'' is a This satisfying collection of ten previously published short pieces of writing by Deborah Levy, many first published in the early 2000s. The most recent is the piece from which this collection gains its title which stories has been shortlisted for the 2012 BBC International Short Story Award. As a compilation of her writing, obviously these were not written to appear together, but some clear themes emerge from the collection, namely a deeply disturbing look provenance at least as beguiling as the search for love, particularly amongst those on provenance of the edge of society|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908276169</amazonuk>}}antique watches that inspired it.
{{newreview|author=Joyce Carol Oates|title=The Corn Maiden Philip Neal lost a watch. It was a watch he was fond of and Other Nightmares|rating=5|genre=Short Stories|summary=Many years agohad been told was like a 1930s Cartier. Instead of mourning its loss, I stumbled across he began to collect vintage watches that resembled it. And that's how he became a Joyce Carol Oates story watch collector. An eBay purchase led him to the Antique Watch Company watch repairers in a horror anthologyClerkenwell. What I most remember about the story The eBay purchase was how vividly a fake, but the feelings friendship that grew between the characters experienced were portrayed. Whilst buyer and the story itself repairer of watches was not exactly a horror story in and the mould seed of Stephen King and James Herbert, it an idea for a book was very well presented. With this experience, I had high hopes of 'The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares' a brand new collection of short stories from Oatesborn.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908800224</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robin Jones and Ashley Stokes (Editors)1529006031|title=Unthology: No. 3Return to Wonderland|author=Various Authors
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=Unthank Books have brought out their third annual short story In following a young girl called Alice down the rabbit hole a few years ago, when the first book she was in [[Alice'unthologys 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. (See what they did there?) The series is described as showcasing wacky-for-the ''unconventional-sake-of-it did not gel, unpredictable and experimentalI don'' which is correct t remember loving it more as far as it goesa child. They omit words that But I personally would have included; words like 'refreshing' and 'excitingly different' because, if suggest I am the perfect audience for this book. I needed had every chance to be convinced about enjoy these short stories (and, being that come at the core from a fantangent, I don't) they would be the clincher.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0957289707</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tania Hershman|title=My Mother Was An Upright Piano: Fictions|rating=5|genre=Short Stories|summary=It's said that show the art benefits of short-story writing is totally different from that of novels as the writer only has ten or so pages to accomplish what others do in two to three hundredoblique glance. ImagineI've always preferred coming to an author's output through their least obvious, thereforeallegedly throw-away pieces, telling an entire story in prose conveying depth and meaning in fewer words it's the same with franchises – I'd more likely go for Bree Tanner's short novella than this reviewthe whole Twilight saga (although that remains just a hunch, for obvious reasons). It may be difficult butFor another thing, apparentlythere was every reason to expect some kind of greatness here – with Carroll much loved by millions, not downright impossible as [[:Category:Tania Hershman|Tania Hershman]] has nailed it surely pieces written with honours. In fact her first collection [[The White Road by Tania Hershman|The White Road]] was commended by the Orange Prize judges of 2009.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906477604</amazonuk>that love in mind could only provide for success after success?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mike Henley1846974658|title=One Dog and His ManThe Long Path To Wisdom|author=Jan-Philipp Sendker
|rating=4
|genre=Pets
|summary=Oberon is a Labrador with a pedigree as long as your arm and ''One Dog and His Man'' is his story about what it's like living with the man he generously refers to as ''The Boss'', about life in general and the ways of the world. Think of him as the canine equivalent of the parliamentary sketch writer, there to highlight the idiosyncrasies of human life and bring a gentle humour to situations which might otherwise be taken far too seriously. Before you wonder how this is possible - how a dog can write a book - let me remind you that dogs are very intelligent animals. After all, dogs and their humans might go to what are laughingly called 'dog training classes', but it's the humans who are trained, not the dogs.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471660354</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Joseph O'Connor
|title=Where Have You Been?
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Irish novelist Joseph O'Connor has had quite a 2012. Earlier in the year he joined the ranks of such authors as Edna O'Brien, [[:Category:Roddy Doyle|Roddy Doyle]] and Seamus Heaney when he became a recipient of the PEN award for his outstanding contribution to Irish literature. What could possibly top that for a sense of achievement? Well this, his first book of short stories in 20 years, must come pretty close to at least equalling it, amply illustrating the reasons for the panel's decision.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846556899</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Anita Desai
|title=The Artist of Disappearance
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Anita Desai's ''The Artist of Disappearance'' is a collection of three novellas with several satisfying unifying features. All are set in modern day India, all involve some looking back in time and all three involve some consideration of the creative art - who it is for, what happens to it once it leaves the artist's control and who 'owns' it. Most of all, each one is beautifully written, with strong characters and evocative descriptions of personal loss. In terms of length each is relatively short - around 50 pages long - but after each one you feel that you've been engrossed in the story just as much as if you had read a novel of more conventional length.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099553953</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Roddy Doyle
|title=Bullfighting
|rating=5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=I've often wondered what goes through an author's mind On my travels around the next time they sit down to write after winning a major literary prize. Does it put undue pressure on an authorworld, thinking that they will I have a tendency to write something equally end up in any bookshop that is selling English-language books, and while I buy as many second-hand escapist tales as good or better the next time around? Some writers can wilt under person, what I'm really looking for is the pressure and future offerings are derided by critics as 'not as good as (insert title here)local'– the cookbook maybe, the maps definitely, but above all: the folk tales. But some thrive under the weight of expectation and continue If I ever get to Burma, I won't need to write wonderful stories. 1993 Booker Prize winner [[Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle|Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha]] falls firmly into this latter categoryhunt, I can read before I go.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009955562X</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gerry WellsB077969HN8|title=Kicking the Hornets' NestAlternative Medicine|author=Laura Solomon
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=WWII books about Laura Solomon's publisher describes the RAF and the Navy are quite commonshort stories in ''Alternative Medicine'' as ''black comedy with a twist of surrealism''. Books about Special Operations Executive and similar organisations proliferate. Stories about the army are fewer and try as I might 'm rather glad that I really couldndidn't think of one which was other than incidentally about tank crew, so when the opportunity came I see this until ''hadafter'' to read 'Kicking the HornetsI' Nest' particularly d finished reading as itI's written by an author who crewed m not normally a Sherman tank in Operation Overlordfan of either, back in June 1944. but I had just a couple of nagging doubts. It's a ve come to two conclusions about the book of short stories. Would : what the publisher says is correct - and I find really enjoyed it easy to pick up - and out down again? . The big worry was whether or comedy is not this was going to be a macho action story, which wouldn't really be my cup of tea at all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780881568</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Helen Simpson|title=A Bunch of Fives|rating=5|genre=Short Stories|summary=I will come straight out with it at 'too'' black and the top of this review surrealism is gentle and state that I am perhaps best described as a big fan twist or flick of Helen Simpsonreality when you were least expecting it. So this book, which is a selection of five stories from each of her five collections, is right up my streetYour comfort zones are going to be invaded in the nicest possible way. All I’ve got to do now is convince you that you need to read it too!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099561573</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Keith Gray9386897504|title=Next|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=That Keith Gray hangs out with all the cool people, you know. Hot on the heels Tales of one fabulous anthology of short stories all about virginity, [[Losing It by Keith Gray|Losing It]], comes ''Next''. The topic this time is life after death and it's another preoccupation for young people. What's next? What will it be like? How will those left behind manage Love and cope? Each of the cool people contributes an idea of what death may bring.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849393001</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDisability|author=Francis Bennett|title=The Crabber StoriesLaura Solomon
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=John White was known to everyone as Crabber I've always believed that less- able writers produce longer books: it takes a nickname which he once earned great deal of skill and talent to write a short story which then stuck - holds the reader and he grew up on the shores of Long Island in the nineteen-fiftieskeeps them coming back for more. It was a close-knit community There are far too many collections of short stories which are all too easy to put down and forget after you've read a time when children had more freedom than they are likely to be allowed nowcouple of pieces. We watch as Crabber grows from being I've recently read a boy still suffering from the death couple of his elder brother when we first met him through to a time when henovellas by Laura Solomon - [[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon|Marsha's Deal]] and [[Hell's Unveiling by Laura Solomon|Hell's old enough Unveiling]] and enjoyed them, so I was intrigued to go on a hunting trip on the mainland with a local family. He tells his own stories, as truthfully as he can and see what she could do with the sort of insight which children have before life injects its cynicisman even shorter form.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00737IKIW</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephanie Tillotson and Penny Thomas1986586898|title=All Shall be WellGoing To The Last: Short Stories About Horse Racing|author=K D Knight
|rating=4.5
|genre=Anthologies
|summary=Twenty five years - a quarter of a century - is a long time. It's an incredible length of time as an independent publisher, particularly one which specialises in publishing the best in Welsh women's writing, but that's exactly what Honno have achieved. To celebrate the occasion they've published this anthology of twenty five short stories and non-fiction pieces. They've previously been seen in the numerous anthologies published by Honno but when combined they give an interesting and enlightening insight into the work of these great writers.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906784337</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Marshall Moore
|title=The Infernal Republic
|rating=2
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=''The Infernal Republic'' is a collection of short stories containing a mixture of general fiction, horror and fantasy published by Signal8Press, an imprint of author Marshall Moore's own publishing company Typhoon Media Ltd. Now normally I wouldn't pay much attention to who publishes the books I read, but in this case I'm making an exception because I can't honestly believe that any traditional publisher would have put out this book in this form. The whole collection is so badly crying out for a good editor that it actually ended up making me angry in places.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>9881516404</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Marc Nash
|title=52FF
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=52FF is In the opening story, a collection man whose wife has deserted him visits Sandown with little money but comes away with cash in his pocket - and his wife. In ''A Grey Day'' an owner struggles with the problem of short stories whether or not to run his horse in the flash fiction formatGold Cup when the ground is against him. If you My favourite was ''The Story of H''re new , the story of Foinavon. H is depicted as a kind horse who only wanted to flash fiction, you should know there are please people. After changing hands on various definitions but here, Marc Nash chooses a format occasions he came to the yard of under 1,000 wordsJohn Kempton. This gives him some leeway H (or Foinavon) was entered in the Grand National and so the pieces are in considered a wide variety no-hoper. In one of styles - some experimental - but all the most dramatic runnings of them exploring the race, a single central metaphor and all with a darkness about them which is sometimes explicit pile-up occurred at the 23rd fence. Foinavon, who had been many lengths adrift, cleared the fence and sometimes only emerges after you've had time galloped to think and digestthe line, winning the race at odds of 100/1. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>B005IHMZR6</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John E Flannery9386897296|title=Our Little Secret and Other StoriesHell's Unveiling|author=Laura Solomon
|rating=3.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=It's over eighteen months since we first encountered John Flannery and his debut collection of shorts stories, A little while ago I really enjoyed [[TobyMarsha's Little Eden Deal by John E FlanneryLaura Solomon|TobyMarsha's Little EdenDeal]]. A golf course near Manchester and I was delighted by the characters who populated it came sharply opportunity to life and we laughed and we smiled along with themread the sequel, ''Hell's Unveiling''. Things are different It's probably not much of a spoiler to say that Marsha bested the devil in ''Our little Secret and Other StoriesMarsha's Deal'' as we encounter violent death, suicide, delusion but the devil is not one to take defeat lying down. He's out to wage war on Planet Earth and mental illnessparticularly on Marsha (who's thought of as a 'goody two shoes' in Hell). ItAlthough a strong person, she's vulnerable where her foster children are concerned. Daniel is framed for a good read crime he didn't commit and sent to juvenile detention and refused permission to return to live with Marsha. Then, of course, there are all the other children who are not only targeted but it- worst of all - subverted to the devil's evil ends. He's certainly not out to prey on their fears and weaknesses and as with many foster children, their self-esteem is very fragile. This is no small-scale operation, either - the devil has set up a comfortable onetraining complex on earth, complete with an elevator to Hell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B007CKT6PG</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview|author=Etgar Keret|title=Suddenly, a Knock on the Door |rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary=In the opening, titular story, Keret is forced by several people Move to create, [[Newest Spirituality and alter, a short short story. It's a plain metaphor for the history of Israel, but it proves that this modern Scheherazade is not too far removed geographically from the original. And what follows are probably the sort of short, tantalising, open-ended, rough-round-the-edges and surreal results of being compelled to carry on telling tall tales on a nightly basis.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701186674</amazonuk>}}Religion Reviews]]

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