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[[Category:Short Stories|*]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Philip K DickGuadalupe Nettel and Rosalind Harvey (Translator)|title= Philip K Dick's Electric DreamsThe Accidentals|rating= 34.5|genre= Science FictionShort Stories|summary= Philip K Dick's stories were originally published This collection was truly enchanting in all senses of the 50sword: spellbinding with its fantastical, but they are more present than pastmagical elements and charming in its gentle portrayal of nature and human relationships. On the big screen ''Blade Runner 2049'' relaunched the Dick-inspired cult classic to reviews of pure praise; Guadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and on slightly smaller screensprecisely, Channel 4 has adapted the author's short her stories for TV. Startlingly, Dick's current relevance reaches beyond fiction and into the factual: his topics from intrusive advertising and loss of privacy structured by a wisdom that appears to want to teach us something about the increasing machination of society are all headline material in today's news. It is as if half a century after their inception, Dick's electric dreams are becoming realityworld.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473223288</amazonuk>1804271470

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Erinna MettlerMariana Enriquez|title= Fifteen MinutesA Sunny Place for Shady People|rating= 45|genre= Short Stories|summary=Our world Mariana Enriquez writes horror that is obsessed with celebrity culture - and in disturbingly real, achieving this advent uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of social media, the updates on celebrity come 24 hours a day, delivered disused refrigerators due to us on our televisions, our magazinesan urban planning mishap, on our phones an overcrowded homeless shelter and our computersa crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all within Argentina. In focusing on these heightened and airbrushed lives though, The circumstances of her characters are we missing the more interesting and human stories so plausible that are out there? That's what Erinna Mettler considers in ''15 Minutes'' - short stories that feature celebrity encounters told through the eyes of ordinary, but no less compelling, characterssupernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>191158636X</amazonuk>1803511230

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sjon Hodgkinson and Ten Hodgkinson (editors)Fyodor Dostoyevsky|title=The Dark-Blue Winter Overcoat and other stories from the NorthWhite Nights|rating=35|genre=Anthologies Short Stories|summary=A compilation like this should be nigh on brilliant. It's not one author's best short works, it's that of a dozen. It's not from one snapshot As always in timeDostoyevsky, as some were written the year of publication and some in the 1960s. It's not from one tiny patch of author's desk or one set of laptop keys, but from the entire Nordic world, whether that be urban Scandinavia, the Faroes and other island groups, or Greenlandcharacter work is sublime. That One is never left wondering what a world that's changing – as the Greenland-born author now living in Brooklyn, character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and the Iraqi blood on these pages, testifytemperaments with remarkable clarity. It's a world where new roads and new building works mean a family living on the edge of the forest at the beginning of the story are being surrounded by other life by the end, and with the influence of centuries of folklore featured, a lot more than that changes – sometimes it seems to be even the characters' species…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782273824</amazonuk>0241619785

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Laura SolomonAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Taking WainuiAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=25|genre=General Science Fiction|summary= This ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.'' I've heard it said that 'technology' is the first time what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have come across Laura Solomonbeen more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it's workall getting away from me. Some of it is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, a New Zealand writer I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who has won writing prizes for both her fiction and poetryknows what they're talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. Although this book appears to be I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a collection of short stories, way I found its format somewhat confusingcould understand.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>8193409353</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B0CDZRGT1M|title=Super Short Stories: Flash Fiction|author=Mark C Wallfisch|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=''Got a minute to be amused, entertained, or challenged?''''These 100 stories are super short. None is more than 300 words. You can read one in a flash.''''Some are funny. Some are poignant. All are short.'' Question: how do you review flash fiction? How do you give a flavour of a fully rounded little story if that story is told in fewer than three hundred words? Or do you try to draw out themes from all the flash fictions in a book of them? I don't know! Perhaps we could start by explaining that there really isn't a fixed definition of flash fiction but that for this collection, author Mark C Wallfisch has gone for a three hundred word limit. That's about a single page in your average paperback.}}{{Frontpage|author=Kenneth StevenRachel Harrison|title=Winter TalesBad Dolls

|summary= Upon opening this book you are presented with an eclectic collection of twelve short stories centred around It's been some time since I've read any horror. I had a common theme couple of Winter. You are taken around misspent teen years reading Stephen King, borrowing the world as you read stories set in books from a variety boy I fancied at school and scaring myself half silly with them to the point that I couldn't shut my bedroom curtains at night for fear of places from Helsinki the vampires outside! Don't worry - this short story collection isn't like that! It doesn't have those jump scares, and I didn't have to New Yorkread it during daylight hours only! But it is creepy, Germany to Russia. Kenneth Steven cleverly utilises a key component and I found most of short that feeling came from the fact that these are stories - about women, living normal lives, and that you can read each story at least in one sitting - to his advantage as he gives each story an individual focal subjectpart, the horrors arises from very normal situations such as bullyinga breakup, trying a new dieting app, ensuring that you are reading going to a hen party and a distinct story every time you open the bookcoping with grief.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910674508</amazonuk>1803363932

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Roald DahlB0CCCVRSGX|title= FearStories 2|author=Richard F Walker|rating= 54|genre= Short Stories|summary=Do you enjoy being scared? Featuring fourteen classic spine-chilling This is Richard F Walker's second volume of short stories chosen by Roald Dahl, these terrible tales . There are thirteen in all and I took something from each of ghostly goings-on will have you shivering with fear as you turn them. There isn't a single one that doesn't deserve to be among the others or brings down the pagesoverall quality. It can be tricky to review short stories without giving too much away, so I'll just pick two to talk about and I think they give a general flavour.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405933216</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Roald Dahl1739593901|title= War22 Ideas About The Future|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating= 5|genre= Short StoriesScience Fiction|summary=In war''Our future will be more complex than we expected. Instead of flying cars, are we at our heroic best or our cowardly worst? Featuring got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma.'' I've got a couple of confessions to make. I'm not keen on short stories as I find it easy to read a few stories and then forget to return to the autobiographical stories from Roald Dahlbook. There's time as got to be a fighter pilot in very compelling hook to keep me engaged. Then there's science fiction: far too often it's the Second World War as well as seven other tales of conflict technology which takes centre stage along with the world-building. It's human beings who fascinate me: the technology and strifethe world scape are purely incidental. So, Dahl reveals the human side what did I think of a book of our most inhumane activitytwenty-two science fiction short stories? Well, I loved it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405933194</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Roald DahlB09XZMCDVF|title= TrickeryStories: 13 tantalising tales|author=Richard F Walker|rating= 54|genre= Short Stories|summary=How underhand could you be to get what you want? In these ten tales ''A news vendor is crying out the headlines in the middle of dark and twisted trickery Roald Dahl reveals that we are at our smartest and most cunning the night; a wheelchair user loses touch with reality when we set out 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 deceive others - have around in a lawless village; the new boy on the pub football team is very useful with his feet, and, sometimes, even ourselves. Here, among others, youawfully familiar…''ll read  This collection of thirteen short stories by Richard F Walker has a lot to offer the married couple eclectic reader. Tying them together is the idea that remarkable and the parting gift which rocks their marriagestrange, even miraculous, the light fingered hitch-hiker things can happen to ordinary people. And that ordinary doesn't mean boring or uninteresting. Form and the grateful motorist, tone varies so this little treasury of short fiction is never boring and discover why the serious poacher keeps a few sleeping pills in his arsenalyou're never quite sure what's coming next.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405933232</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Roald Dahl1737030942|title= InnocenceBag O'Goodies|author=Jolly Walker Bittick|rating= 54|genre= Short StoriesAnthologies|summary=What makes us innocent Sometimes, you deserve a treat and how do we come to lose it? Featuring the autobiographical stories telling of Roald Dahlmine was Jolly Walker Bittick's boyhood and youth as well as four further tales of innocence betrayed''Bag O'Goodies''. I first encountered his writing about a year ago, when I read his [[Cape Henry House by Jolly Walker Bittick|Cape Henry House]], Dahl touches on the joys and horrors a rollicking tale of growing upwhat happens when five young men find a base for their partying. Among other stories Right now, youI didn'll read about the wager that destroys t want a girlfull-length novel, so I turned to this anthology of verse and short stories. Bittick's faith in her father, the landlady who writing has plans for her unsuspecting young guest matured - and the commuter who is horrified to discover that a fellow passenger once bullied him at schoolso have his characters. Well...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405933259</amazonuk>most of them!

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tania Hershman1529418100|title=Some of Us Glow More Than OthersBruno's Challenge and Other Dordogne Tales|author=Martin Walker|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories |summary=I won't be alone in stating that reading short story collections can be slightly awkward. Going through from A-Z, witnessing m not usually a bounty fan of ideas and characters in short order can be stories - I find it all too much, but do you have easy to put the right book down between stories and forget to pick and choose according to what appeals, and what time you have to fill? The sequence has carefully been considered, surely. Such would appear to be the case here. The last time it up again - but I read one am a fan of this authorMartin Walker's collections, with [[The White Road by Tania HershmanMartin Walker's Commissar Bruno Courreges Mysteries in Chronological Order|The White RoadBruno Courreges Mysteries]], so the only real difficulty temptation to read ''Bruno's Challenge'' was holding back hard to resist and rationing themI'm rather glad that I didn't even try. For those new to the series, but here there's an excellent introduction that will tell you all you not only get a whopping forty pieces of writing, they are also spread into sectionsneed to know about who's who and the background to why Bruno is in St Denis.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910061484</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James KelmanB08NF79QXT|title=That Was a Shiver, and Other StoriesCherry Blossom Boutique|author=Brooke Adams|rating=3.5|genre=Short Stories Women's Fiction|summary=This is Thirty-one-year old Liberty Rossini has had her shop, the ninth book of short stories by this authorCherry Blossom Boutique, which means hefor just six months when she's presented just as many collections of nominated for - and wins - the short form as he has novelsRetail Best Newcomer Award. You will find it hard to think of another author that has been so noted for longer works (what with [[How Late It Was, How Late by James Kelman|How Late It Was, How Late]] winning the Booker) but who is so generous in presenting shorter pieces for the time-poor, or those like me who see She's delighted and the variety in a writertwo people she's short or less typical works brought with her to the event couldn't be the more interesting places to turnpleased. Opening these pagesSonja, her mother, is an ex-model and Brazilian: you can see where Liberty got her looks from the pen of such an esteemed pro. 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, came with no small sense of anticipationAva. Life would be perfect for Liberty if it wasn't for one thing: she misses having a man in her life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786890909</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Various AuthorsB08KKQ85FN|title= A Change Is Gonna Come|rating= 5|genre= Teens|summary= ''A Change Is Gonna Come'' is an anthology of stories and poems interpreting the theme of change by twelve BAME writers. It's Stripes Publishing's response to the under-representation of BAME authors in the UK. And it's a great response.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847158390</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewBut Never For Lunch|author= Helen Stancey|title= The Madonna of the Pool|rating= 3.5|genre= Short Stories|summary= In most short story collections, an overarching theme is usually present in each of the narratives which help each story gently flow in to the next. In this debut collection Helen Stancey explores the quiet disappointments, achievements, and complications that each of us experience through everyday life. She draws attention to the small events and decisions that can both disrupt and significantly alter the lives of others and ourselves, all while maintaining a delicately poetic tone throughout.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1912054000</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Joanna Walsh|title=Worlds from the Word's EndSandra Aragona|rating=3.54

|summary=We here at The Bookbag liked this author's fairly recent collection '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 short storiescarrion crows or, [[Vertigo by Joanna Walsh|Vertigo]]. I myself missed outmore to the point, but that seemed about to be vignettes from one characterdiscover the real world of bus timetables and paying his own gas bills.'' You don's narration – here we t get homosexual male narrators and a host moremany better opening sentences than that, as well as much less of the sadness prevalent before. do you? Having had a brief encounter with this author courtesy of her entry into the We first met His Excellency and The Ambassador's Wife in [[Bookshelf (Object Lessons) Sorting the Priorities: Ambassadress and Beagle Survive Diplomacy by Lydia PyneSandra Aragona|Object LessonsSorting the Priorities]] series, I and we learned what it was intrigued like to be moved around countries like accompanying baggage by her name being stamped on a selection the Italian Government but the time has come for HE to retires and for Sandra Aragona to become The Wife of shortsFormer Ambassador... Was it the ideal calling card? They have left The Career and settled in Rome. LetWell 's face it, settled' rather overstates the very short story itself can be a postcard – let's say, from a specific hotel or twosituation and their dog, as we see here. Perhaps I should have geared myself upBeagle, howeverhas no intention of slowing down any time soon, for such intricate writing on said postcards – despite being sixteen and for the exotic locations from which they came…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911508105</amazonuk>deaf.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helen PhillipsB08CHJLNBS|title=Some Possible SolutionsCapturing Emilia|author=Brooke Adams|rating=43|genre=Short StoriesWomen's Fiction|summary=Picture He's Charles Devereaux, thirty-eight and a world where youpartner at Wickham Jones, the Mayfair letting agents. She's Emilia, a new mothertwenty-nine, move to a town where you slowly start to realise that every other woman seems a replica of you – dressing librarian and doing as you doarchivist in the heritage library next door. Consider a place where you have a perfect other half – most literally – Emilia has read [[The Secret by Rhonda Byrne|The Secret]] but itshe's only to be found moved on from new age books like that, which leave you dependent on an alien planet. Or how about the woman who suddenly finds she can see everything and everyone someone else alive as having no skin's philosophies, just organs, tissue and bone as if everyone was having to something a Gunther von Hagens plastination job? little deeper. A lot Charles is more of these stories are hard to summarise without dropping into the voice of the a [[Personal by Lee Child|Jack Reacher]] man himself, but, above all, he's shocked that Emilia reads ''Twilight ZoneThe Guardian'' narration, but they. They're obviously not at all compatible, so why can Charles not specifically genre works – they're just further examples get this woman out of this authorhis mind? She's unsettling look not his usual type at the bizarre elements of lifeall: it's obvious to his friends.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782273425</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?

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Cixin LiuMarie O'Regan and Paul Kane (editors)|title= The Wandering EarthCursed: An Anthology of Dark Fairy Tales|rating= 4.5|genre= Science FictionFantasy|summary= If anyone thought Curses. They're there throughout tales of faery and other fantastical folk – people being cursed to do this, or not to be able to do that the short story . Children can be cursed, as a form had been relegated to can princesses on the pages verge of womenmarrying, and older people too. It seems in a way there's magazines (no disrespect) – think againescaping it. One genre that has always been a stalwart supporter and encourager Which is why the theme of this book of the short form stories is Sci-fi. So when you pick up such a collection of Sci-fi shortsstandout – we may well think we know all there is to know about this accursed character, you know that it will have just as much depth demonised place, and thought-provoking philosophy as any similar novelthat other bewitched person. Add to that the intrigue of seeing how the concepts are approached by someone from China which – to We'd be polite – has a somewhat different world-view in many ways to much of the rest of the planet…and add to that an author who is not only a best-seller in his home country but has the distinction of having produced the first translated work of SF ever to win the Hugo Award…this has got to be good!very wrong.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784978493</amazonuk>1789091500

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Fleur Jaeggy and Gini Alhadeff (translator)Stibbe_Xmas|title= I Am The Brother Of XXAn Almost Perfect Christmas|author=Nina Stibbe|rating= 4.5|genre= Short StoriesHumour|summary=''I Am The Brother Christmas – the time of XX'' is traditional trauma. You only have to think about the turkey for that – once upon a collection of twenty one short stories from Fleur Jaeggytime it was leaving it sat on the downstairs loo to defrost overnight, who expertly wields malevolence and spite throughout, from if that failed the evil done between husband and wife in hair-dryer shoved inside it treatment was your next best bet. Nowadays it's all having to make sure it'The Aviary'', a nasty tale of Oedipal menace s suitably free-range and organic – but not too organic that you can go and vicious, although admittedlyvisit it, artful cruelty, to senseless annihilation and immolation in ''The Heir''. Jaeggy also appears to have a particular fascination get too friendly with religion, from the nun receiving a rather special sort of communion in ''The Visitor'' it to general references want to the Church and religious devotion throughout many of her storieseat it. Family Christmas, though, is of course also a recurrent theme; whether focused on the distance between siblings time of great boons. It's cash in the titular storyhand for a lot of plump people who can hire red suits and beards, told from the point of view of it was always a brother filled godsend for postmen with longing and loneliness trying all the thank-you letters to create aunties you saw twice a decade that your parents made you write out in long-hand as a bond with his distant older sisterchild, or and as for the primal need to protect the bond between mother makers of Meltis Newberry Fruits – well, did they even try and son, regardless sell them any other time of the cost in ''Adelaide''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911508024</amazonuk>year?

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Malcolm Devlin0954899520|title= You Will Grow Into ThemA Winter Book|author=Tove Jansson|rating= 5|genre= Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary=Tove Jansson''You Will Grow Into Them'' is a thrilling collection of ten short stories all centred s worldwide fame lasts on the nature Moomin books, written in the 1940s and later becoming television characters of transition the simplicity, naivety and changesheer 'goodness' that would later produce flowerpot men or teletubbies. The Simple drawings, simple stories, simple goodness. What is often grisly, macabre and ghoulish nature forgotten outside of her native Finland is that she was a serious writer…that she wrote for adults as well as children…and that she had a feeling for the stories included in Devlin's debut collection are intoxicatingly illicit natural world and the darkness within each tale is deviously addictivesimple life that not only informed those child-like trolls but went far beyond any fantasy of how the world might be.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907389431</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Tove Jansson1911115847|title= Letters From KlaraNights of the Creaking Bed|author=Toni Kan|rating= 54|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Famed in the UK for her creation ''Nights of the Moomin family, Jansson Creaking Bed'' is rather belatedly beginning to gather a collection of short stories by Toni Kan. The series of stories tell of the richly deserved esteem for her adult writings. For that I offer my heart-felt thanks to publishers ''Sort lives and lusts of an assortment of books'' characters living in and Thomas Tealaround Lagos, who has been responsible for most of the translationsNigeria. Receiving Nigeria, in this onecollection, two things strike: firstly I somehow seem to have missed one is imbued with its very own heart of darkness. Danger stalks the series, shadows and secondly there'll come people are killed for nothing more than a wrong look. Kan writes with a time sooner rather than later when there'll be no more vitality and passion that allows these cynical stories to be had. The former will be rectified, the latter is achieve a sad thoughtglimmer of hope.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908745614</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Lee Child1529014484|title= No Middle NameExhalation |author=Ted Chiang|rating= 45|genre= Crime Science Fiction|summary= There is a theoryOver the past twenty-eight years, to which those who regularly read my reviews will know I sometimes subscribeTed Chiang has published fifteen science fiction short stories, which says that the short story's heyday has passed and these magnificent stories have won twenty-seven major science fiction awards so if you are a science fiction fan it has now put itself out to grass. This is particularly true, likely that you have already come across some say, and I have been known to concur, of the crime and thriller genreswork by Ted Chiang. Tosh! I can only apologise to all authors involved and own up: I simply If you haven't been paying attention. Not even then take this opportunity to shorter offerings my by favourite authorsdo so now. So: big thanks to Lee Child and publishers Bantam Press for putting Trust me straight with ''No Middle Name'' : a collection of short stories about my favourite latter-day, American-style, Robin Hood by the name of ''Jack Reacher''; your imagination will be grateful.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0593079019</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1794467440|title=A Fanfare of TalesWatchwords |author=Patrick C ReidyPhilip Neal

|summary=I love This satisfying collection of short stories, so I'm always happy when has a provenance at least as beguiling as the provenance of the antique watches that inspired it. Philip Neal lost a new collection arrives for reviewwatch. ''A Fanfare It was a watch he was fond of Tales'' by Patrick C Reidy promises me ''and had been told was like a compilation 1930s Cartier. Instead of short stories mourning its loss, he began to collect vintage watches that resembled it. And that highlight the adventures of diverse characters as each encounters unforeseen challenges''s how he became a watch collector. I like this premiseAn eBay purchase led him to the Antique Watch Company watch repairers in Clerkenwell. So how does The eBay purchase was a fake, but the friendship that grew between the buyer and the repairer of watches was not and the seed of an idea for a book shape up? |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524665983</amazonuk>was born.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter O'Donnell and Enric Badia Romero1529006031|title=Children of Lucifer: Modesty BlaiseReturn to Wonderland|author=Various Authors|rating=34.5|genre=Graphic Novels Short Stories|summary=Out of ninety-five diverse comic strip storiesIn following a young girl called Alice down the rabbit hole a few years ago, when the publication of this first book leaves just the last three yet to be presented she was in [[Alice's Adventures in these fabulous large format paperbacksWonderland (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. So if you haven’t yet met with The wacky-for-the sassy brunette with her curves and her great crime-solving mind, and sake-of course with her Willie, this is the last-but-one chance for you to do so. And if you have any interest in quick little action tales, or even dated kitsch, for both apply hereit did not gel, then you should eagerly be on board…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178329860X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Martin Edwards (editor)|title= Miraculous Mysteries (British Library Crime Classics)|rating= 5|genre= Crime|summary=Consider the following scenario: a policeman hears someone screaming and runs to I don't remember loving it more as a house on a particular street, number 13, from where the noise is emanatingchild. When he peeps through But I would suggest I am the letterbox he discovers a dead man in the hallway with a knife in his throatperfect audience for this book. He goes I had every chance to fetch help, but upon returning, finds enjoy these short stories that come at the street does not have core from a number 13 and tangent, that show the body and benefits of the room he saw have both mysteriously vanishedoblique glance...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0712356738</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Michael R Lane|title= UFOs and GOD: A Collection of Short Stories|rating= 4|genre= Short Stories|summary=From stories of young people caught up in a Robin Hood style operation gone wrong, I've always preferred coming to a believer in God having her faith shaken by the arrival of aliens, an author Michael R Lane has compiled a collection of fascinating and clever short stories here. From farm to urban's output through their least obvious, from World War II to the Digital Ageallegedly throw-away pieces, the places and times, people and events in it's the same with franchises – I'UFOs and Godd more likely go for Bree Tanner'' spotlight s short novella than the tender underbelly of the human condition in all its glory and despair on these varied stages of fictionwhole Twilight saga (although that remains just a hunch, for obvious reasons).|amazonuk=<amazonuk>163491712X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Rick Bass|title= For a Little While|rating= 4|genre= Short Stories|summary=''For a Little While'' is a collection another thing, there was every reason to expect some kind of twenty-five short stories from Rick Bass. As someone previously unacquainted greatness here – with Bass' work this new collection was a wonderful introduction to his quirkyCarroll much loved by millions, unusual style which focuses on stripped back, simple fables featuring often mundane situations, mysterious characters and magical experiences. The characters surely pieces written with that love in each tale are beautifully crafted and the stories are dreamy, loose narratives covering everything from love to death to choices made and chances taken.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782273042</amazonuk>mind could only provide for success after success?

{{newreview <!-- remove 25/1 -->Frontpage|isbn=1846974658|title=A Collection of Short StoriesThe Long Path To Wisdom|author=Gillian FletcherJan-EdwardsPhilipp Sendker

|summary=Marged Evans allowed On my travels around the world, I have a break-tendency to end up with a lover to affect everything in her life. Osian wanted to invest in the present but Marged loved any bookshop that is selling English-language books, and while I buy as many second-hand escapist tales as the past. Since they drifted apartnext person, Margedwhat I's life has been careful, ordered, unadventurous. But then Osian sends her a Christmas card and everything changes. ''Marged Evansm really looking for is the 'local' is – the first and longest in this collection of short stories from Gillian Fletcher-Edwards. It's almost a novella and its initially slow pace sets off quite cookbook maybe, the masterclass in how one event can throw everything into unexpected - maps definitely, but lovely - chaosabove all: the folk tales.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524662445</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Sybil Marshall and John Lawrence|title= The Book of English Folk Tales|rating= 4|genre= Anthologies|summary= From ghosts If I ever get to witchesBurma, I won't need to giants and fairieshunt, ''The Book of English Folk Tales'' is a fascinating collection of stories retold by social historian and folklorist Sybil Marshall. Out of print for over three decades, this beautiful new clothbound edition is complete with wood engraved illustrations by John Lawrence and is sure to capture the attention of a new generation of lovers of folkloreI can read before I go.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1468313177</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shirley McKayB077969HN8|title=1588: A Calendar of Crime (A Hew Cullan Mystery)Alternative Medicine|author=Laura Solomon

|genre=Crime (Historical)Short Stories|summary=A lot of crime happens Laura Solomon's publisher describes the short stories in St Andrews during 1588 and therefore in the life ''Alternative Medicine'' as ''black comedy with a twist of law lecturer and local investigator Hew Cullen toosurrealism''. As we travel through I'm rather glad that I didn't see this until ''after'' I'd finished reading as I'm not normally a fan of either, but I've come to two conclusions about the book: what the year with him, his recently wedded English wife Frances, doctor brother in law Giles publisher says is correct - and I really enjoyed it. The comedy is not ''too'' black and his sister Meg, the wise woman, we also encounter some surrealism is gentle and perhaps best described as a twist or flick of his most interesting casesreality when you were least expecting it. In fact there's one Your comfort zones are going to match each of be invaded in the year's big festivals: Candlemas, Whitsun, Lammas, Martinmas and Yulenicest possible way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846973635</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=9386897504|title=Mary Telford Tales of Love and Louise VerityDisability|titleauthor=SinsLaura Solomon

|summary=Is there enough new to say about the seven deadly sins? WeI've seen them all shown to us, from school age always believed that less-able writers produce longer books: it takes a great deal of skill and up talent to write a short story which holds the movie ''Se7en'', which we sincerely hope was NOT shown to anyone at school agereader and keeps them coming back for more. We can each recount them There are far too many collections of short stories which are all, having been long familiar with them, even if we probably cantoo easy to put down and forget after you't pin down when they were actually set in stone without helpve read a couple of pieces. Similarly, is there anything new in the world I've recently read a couple of fairy tale? We know the tropes novellas by Laura Solomon - characters identified [[Marsha's Deal by their status or gender (the woman, the husband), a clear set of rules to obey, Laura Solomon|Marsha's Deal]] and a moral as strong as, if not stronger than, the formulae involved. Well, this volume demands we decide the answer to those questions as being positive ones, and if it[[Hell's Unveiling by Laura Solomon|Hell's not always definitive in the writing here that there is something newUnveiling]] and enjoyed them, rest assured there will be something in the imagery that will definitely strike one as freshso I was intrigued to see what she could do with an even shorter form...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843516624</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Carys Bray and others1986586898|title=How Much the Heart Can HoldGoing To The Last: Seven Short Stories on LoveAbout Horse Racing|author=K D Knight|rating=34.5

|summary=This Sceptre collection does 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 ''A Grey Day'' an owner struggles with the problem of whether or not have to run his horse in the Gold Cup when the ground is against him. My favourite was ''The Story of H'', the story of Foinavon. H is depicted as simple a remit as it might appear; these are kind horse who only wanted to please people. After changing hands on various occasions he came to the yard of John Kempton. H (or Foinavon) was entered in the Grand National and considered a no straightforward love stories-hoper. Instead, they each take In one aspect of love – often one the most dramatic runnings of the ancient Greek classifications – and provide race, a whole new way of thinking about itpile-up occurred at the 23rd fence. After all Foinavon, who had been many lengths adrift, cleared the fence and galloped to the line, winning the heart holds a lot race at odds of metaphorical weight100/1.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473649420</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helen Simpson9386897296|title=CockfostersHell's Unveiling|author=Laura Solomon

|summary=This 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 belated reunion for me, having been introduced spoiler to say that Marsha bested the authordevil in ''Marsha's snappy short story collections courtesy Deal'', but the very first devil is not one while at unito take defeat lying down. He's out to wage war on Planet Earth and particularly on Marsha (who's thought of as a 'goody two shoes' in Hell). MindAlthough a strong person, it was she's vulnerable where her foster children are concerned. Daniel is framed for a much more gentle crime he didn't commit and placid reunion than the one that starts this book – Julie sent to juvenile detention and Philippa have had a shop-bought curry together, but have had refused permission to return to forsake a cultural chat for a trip haring along the London Underground chasing after a pair of glasses one of them left behindlive with Marsha. The piece is definitely about Then, of course, there are all the subject of ageing – about time passed and what might be remaining ahead – but you soon discover that other children who are not only do targeted but - worst of all - subverted to the pieces here have titles that are unadorned place namesdevil's evil ends. He's out to prey on their fears and weaknesses and as with many foster children, but they all concern that their self-esteem is very themefragile. Can anyoneThis is no small-scale operation, let alone Helen Simpsoneither - the devil has set up a training complex on earth, sustain such a vaguely morbid topic over a full collection?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178470198X</amazonuk>complete with an elevator to Hell.