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[[Category:Short Stories|*]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sophie HannahAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=The Visitors BookAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=3.5|genre=ParanormalScience Fiction|summary= Sophie Hannah's The Visitors Book 'Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.'' I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a short anthology few decades of modern stories with a supernatural twisttechnology in my lifetime. There is not a hammy gothic turret in sight as her characters experience their mundane, day-to-day, 21st century business -- a childrenI've kept up reasonably well with what's birthday party, a visit advantageous to a boyfriend, neck pain, me but I'm left with the school runfeeling that it's all getting away from me. NowSome of it is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, ghost stories based on ordinary people leading ordinary lives can be very unsettling indeed, making overly imaginative readers look over their shoulder at I could research the possibilities and the bus stop, probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or giving them goosebumps for no apparent reasonthe latest conspiracy theorist. So I was curious to see what Sophie Hannah, needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a writer way I much admire, would make of this particular materialcould understand.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908745525</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Marina WarnerB0CDZRGT1M|title=Fly Away HomeSuper Short Stories: Flash Fiction|author=Mark C Wallfisch|rating=34.5

|summary=How would you subvert ''Got a fairy taleminute to be amused, entertained, or challenged? ''''These 100 stories are super short. None is more than 300 words. You know enough of them and enough about them to can read one in a flash.''''Some are funny. Some are poignant. All are short.'' Question: how do you review flash fiction? How do it, so think on it. Would you give a mermaid flavour of a smartphonefully rounded little story if that story is told in fewer than three hundred words? Would Or do you pepper them with pop stars, and perhaps let them be witness try to draw out themes from all the Schadenfreude caused flash fictions in a book of them? I don't know! Perhaps we could start by a cave explaining thatthere really isn's sacred to native Canadians? Would you, in the light t a fixed definition of their characters usually being routineflash fiction but that for this collection, interchangeable tropes, give them author Mark C Wallfisch has gone for a closely-observed personality – as seen here in a teacherthree hundred word limit. That's interior thoughts when faced with about a piece of East Anglian lore? Would you take the exoticism of the east, and Egypt single page in particular, and see it in the light of a musical teacher on a zero-hours contract who ends up muttering to himself, directing traffic in the middle of the road, or from the remove of an elderly man with ''swollen feet in orthopaedic sandals'' with a message from the past? Certainly these two are not the standard Arabian Nights-styled pieces…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784630381</amazonuk>your average paperback.

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Rose TremainRachel Harrison|title= The American Lover|rating= 5|genre= Short Stories |summary= Having never read a Rose Tremain book before, I was interested to start this collection of short stories. I wasn't disappointed, and it quickly became clear why she has won so many literary awards for her work.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548445</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Ursula K Le Guin|title= The Wind's Twelve Quarters and The Compass Rose|rating= 4|genre= Science Fiction|summary=I'll start by saying that I think the SF Masterworks series are pretty much always and without fail a really interesting read. I've bought quite a few from this publisher now and I find they will always pick interesting titles from the science fiction genre, making them a great place to start if you are either just dipping your toe into science fiction for the first time or if you're looking to build up your collection.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147320576X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Maeve Binchy|title= A Few of the Girls|rating= 5|genre= Short Stories|summary= I was excited about reviewing a brand new collection of Maeve Binchy short stories and I wasn't disappointed. As her widower states in the introduction, Binchy had an extraordinary talent for telling powerful and compassionate stories, and was a true storyteller with an amazing output. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409161412</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Ann Cleeves (editor)|title=The Starlings and Other StoriesBad Dolls

|summary= It's been some time since I chose to review this collection 've read any horror. I had a couple of short stories misspent teen years reading Stephen King, borrowing the books from a boy I fancied at school and scaring myself half silly with no prior knowledge them to the point that I couldn't shut my bedroom curtains at night for fear of the authorvampires outside! Don's work – often the best way t worry - this short story collection isn't like that! It doesn't have those jump scares, and I didn't have to do read itduring daylight hours only! But it is creepy, though and I am aware found most of that feeling came from the fact that McCracken's work comes highly commended. After reading these are storiesabout women, living normal lives, I can see why and I am already looking forward that at least in part, the horrors arises from very normal situations such as a breakup, trying a new dieting app, going to reading more of her worka hen party and a coping with grief.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099592975</amazonuk>1803363932

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Pete BellotteB0CCCVRSGX|title= The Unround Circle|rating= Stories 2.5|genre= Short Stories|summary= As short story collections go, this is a fairly ambitious bundle, some 22 stories running to a total of nearly four hundred pages. You'll gather from the fact that I'm starting with the statistics that I didn't instantly fall in love with Bellotte's writing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910533092</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Mary Higgins Clark (editor)|title= Manhattan Mayhem – New Crime Stories from the Mystery Writers of America|rating= 5|genre= Crime|summary= I was unsure how to open this review. I heart Manhattan, big time. I am always attracted to any work set in Manhattan, but I don’t want to pigeonhole this remarkable collection of stories into a slot that says 'only for Manhattan lovers'. Far from it – it is a superb collection featuring the highest standards of both mystery writing and the form of short story.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>159474761X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Ivan Vladislavic|title=101 Detectives|rating=3.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=101 Detectives had me baffled. The book comprises of a collection of stories which explore multiple themes from the perspective of one person. The stories are as varied as the characters presenting the tale to you. This exquisitely written book leaves you asking many questions and pondering many ideas. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908276568</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Laurie R King and Leslie Klinger (editors)|title=In the Company of Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the Holmes CanonRichard F Walker

|summary=Well, thatThis is Richard F Walker's one way to get a heck of a lot of attention to your series second volume of short story collections, for sure – get the estate stories. There are thirteen in all and I took something from each of the author youthem. There isn't a single one that doesn're respecting t deserve to take you to court with the idea that the works cannot be published – among the characters are so firmly established and entrenched, but established and entrenched as their property and therefore cannot be artistically reinterpreted, revived others or otherwise returned to at all until full and final copyright statutes have expired. Never mind that brings down the characters – one S Holmes and Dr JH Watson – hardly have parallels in how often they already have been mimickedoverall quality. Never mind the fact that the estate of Conan Doyle was paid off in order for the first book It can be tricky to released. Stillreview short stories without giving too much away, the case was won so I'll just pick two to talk about and this sequel is in our handsI think they give a general flavour. Is it worth all the legal documents? What is the important verdict, at the end of the reading day?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178329843X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jessie Greengrass 1739593901|title=An Account of the Decline of the Great Auk, According to One Who Saw It 22 Ideas About The Future|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=35|genre=Short StoriesScience Fiction|summary=The title story''Our future will be more complex than we expected. Instead of flying cars, which appears first, is exactly what it says on the tin: one hunterwe got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma.'' I's story ve got a couple of travelling to remote islands confessions to take part in massive culls of great auks, until they were simply gonemake. It I's always hard m not keen on short stories as I find it easy to believe that species that once numbered in their millions, such as the passenger pigeon, could go extinct so quickly, but when you read about the brutal slaughter tactics here – swinging clubs a few stories and boiling birds alive – you can see how a flightless bird was a sitting target. The narrator makes no real attempt then forget to return to defend himself: the birds were there for the taking; that was thatbook. Still, he regrets their extinction, because There'in any loss you can see s got to be a shadow of the way that you will be lost yourselfvery compelling hook to keep me engaged. Then there's science fiction: far too often it' (Those interested in s the technology which takes centre stage along with the great aukworld-building. It's extinction may also want to read human beings who fascinate me: the technology and the 2013 novel ''The Collector world scape are purely incidental. So, what did I think of a book of Lost Things'' by Jeremy Pagetwenty-two science fiction short stories? Well, I loved it.)|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473610850</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Colin BarrettB09XZMCDVF|title=Young SkinsStories: 13 tantalising tales|author=Richard F Walker

|summary=We're taken into 'A news vendor is crying out the headlines in the lives middle of the youthful inhabitants of small town Ireland night; a wheelchair user loses touch with reality when he tries walking around in seven short stories of differing styles but his imagination; a shared setting. Barrett writes of stickler for correct grammar goes back in time to correct an iconic quote; a doorman at volunteer teacher proves the ideal person to have around in a suburban nightclublawless village; the new boy on the pub football team is very useful with his feet, known and respected awfully familiar…'' This collection of thirteen short stories by all Richard F Walker has a lot to offer the locals, although we only read about a brief affair and his vulnerabilityeclectic reader. Another tale portrays a young rocker Tying them together is the idea that remarkable and his emotional statestrange, even miraculous, years after an incident things can happen to ordinary people. And that scarred him both physically ordinary doesn't mean boring or uninteresting. Form and mentally and made him the talk tone varies so this little treasury of the town. Other tales all share the same focus on people short fiction is never boring and small but meaningful personal events in their livesyou're never quite sure what's coming next.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009959742X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=B Reid1737030942|title=Beyond the Trees of Gulavstadt: A Gothic Short StoryBag O'Goodies|author=Jolly Walker Bittick

|genre=Politics and SocietyAnthologies|summary=Amy works for ClaralinguaSometimes, you deserve a London education company that runs English schools all over the world, treat and Amy is travelling to Gulavstadtmine was Jolly Walker Bittick's ''Bag O'Goodies''. I first encountered his writing about a year ago, a remote town in Eastern Europewhen I read his [[Cape Henry House by Jolly Walker Bittick|Cape Henry House]], to inspect one of the schools. Gulavstadt is a town of myths and the setting rollicking tale of what happens when five young men find a recent horror filmbase for their partying. Right now, I didn''The Thing Behind the Trees'', exploiting them t want a full- featuring medievallength novel, flesh-eating ghouls with mouths lined with the sharpest so I turned to this anthology of teethverse and short stories. But myths don Bittick't bother Amys writing has matured - and so have his characters. Well...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00U9I7KNI</amazonuk>most of them!

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dorthe Nors1529418100|title=Karate Chop, Bruno's Challenge and Minna Needs Rehearsal SpaceOther Dordogne Tales|author=Martin Walker|rating=3.54

|summary=The reviewer picks I'm not usually a fan of short stories - I find it all too easy to put the book down between stories and forget to pick it up again - but I am a fan of Martin Walker's [[Martin Walker's Commissar Bruno Courreges Mysteries in Chronological Order|Bruno Courreges Mysteries]] so the book.<br>The book is called temptation to read ''Bruno's Challenge'Minna Needs Rehearsal Space'was hard to resist and I'm rather glad that I didn't even try.<br>The book is entirely made out of one-sentence paragraphs.<br>The one-sentence paragraphs are very seldom poetic, but normally are grammatically correct sentences.<br>The one-sentence paragraphs on For those new to the whole have just one verbseries, unless regarding there's an excellent introduction that from reported or unreported speech.<br>The book concerns a middle-aged musician and composer who does indeed will tell you all you need rehearsal space.<br>The book concerns a woman to know about who suddenly gets more space than she wants when her boyfriend leaves her.<br>The boyfriend's departure causes a lot of people crowding around Minna, which causes a problem.<br>The problem might be resolved by a trip away from her city flat.<br>The title of who and the book might be ironicbackground to why Bruno is in St Denis.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782271198</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Malorie BlackmanB08NF79QXT|title=Love HurtsCherry Blossom Boutique|author=Brooke Adams|rating=43|genre=TeensWomen's Fiction|summary=Thirty-one-year old Liberty Rossini has had her shop, the Cherry Blossom Boutique, for just six months when she's nominated for - and wins - the Retail Best Newcomer Award. She'Love Hurtss delighted and the two people she's brought with her to the event couldn' t be more pleased. Sonja, her mother, is all about heartache but it doesn't leave an ex-model and Brazilian: you bereftcan see where Liberty got her looks from. Mixed in are enough moments of heartsease (Jessica's thirty-four and heartLiberty's joy!) to keep you believing in love. And we all want to believe in love, donbest friend: they't we? If you are one of the few who donve known each other since university and Liberty adores Jessica'ts husband, Charles and their four-year-old daughter, you might as well look away nowAva. The rest of us are in Life would be perfect for a treat. This anthology has been gathered together by ChildrenLiberty if it wasn's Laureate Malorie Blackman, t for one of our favourite YA authors here at Bookbag, and certainly one who understands exactly how to write about the highs and lows of love as it is experienced by young peoplething: she misses having a man in her life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552573973</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Eliza RobertsonB08KKQ85FN|title=WallflowersBut Never For Lunch|author=Sandra Aragona

|summary=Eliza Robertson won ''If a woman approaching the Man Booker Scholarship and Curtis Brown Prize while completing her MA menopause can be likened to a Rottweiler in Creative Writing at lipstick, an Ambassador nearing retirement resembles a pampered peacock about to be released into the University company of East Angliacarrion crows or, more to the point, about to discover the real world of bus timetables and paying his own gas bills. ''Wallflowers You don't get many better opening sentences than that, do you? We first met His Excellency and The Ambassador' is already a bestseller s Wife in Robertson's native Canada. There is quite some variety across [[Sorting the seventeen stories. Broadly speaking, though, there are a few themesPriorities: moving on from loss, finding love in Ambassadress and Beagle Survive Diplomacy by Sandra Aragona|Sorting the Priorities]] and we learned what it was like to be moved around countries like accompanying baggage by the Italian Government but the midst time has come for HE to retires and for Sandra Aragona to become The Wife of gentle madness, Former Ambassador... They have left The Career and interactions with settled in Rome. Well 'settled' rather overstates the natural worldsituation and their dog, Beagle, often on the edge has no intention of Canada's British Columbia wildernessslowing down any time soon, despite being sixteen and deaf.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408856794</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Edith PearlmanB08CHJLNBS|title=HoneydewCapturing Emilia|author=Brooke Adams|rating=43|genre=Short StoriesWomen's Fiction|summary=American short story writer He's Charles Devereaux, thirty-eight and a partner at Wickham Jones, the Mayfair letting agents. She's Emilia, twenty-nine, librarian and archivist in the heritage library next door. Emilia has read [[:Category:Edith PearlmanThe Secret by Rhonda Byrne|Edith PearlmanThe Secret]] brings us but she's moved on from new age books like that, which leave you dependent on someone else's philosophies, to something a compilation little deeper. Charles is more of stories a [[Personal by Lee Child|Jack Reacher]] man himself, but, above all, he's shocked that have only been seen separately in magazines over the yearsEmilia reads ''The Guardian''. This follows on from the huge success They're obviously not at all compatible, so why can Charles not get this woman out of his mind? She's not his usual type at all: it'Binocular Visions obvious to his friends. And given that Emilia regularly feels repulsed by Charles's superficiality, why does she feel drawn to him? The relationship' (in 2013)s obviously a non-starter, the short story collection that led to Ms Pearlman being presented with the National Criticsisn' Circle Award. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444797018</amazonuk>t it?

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Leslie Charteris Marie O'Regan and John Telfer Paul Kane (narratoreditors)|title=Enter the SaintCursed: An Anthology of Dark Fairy Tales

|genre=ThrillersFantasy|summary=When you think Curses. They're there throughout tales of thrillers written by a man in his early twenties there's a temptation faery and other fantastical folk – people being cursed to do this, or not to be able to believe do that the books might not . Children can becursed, wellas can princesses on the verge of marrying, top drawer, but that would be and older people too. It seems in a mistakeway there's no escaping it. The first Which is why the theme of ''The Saint'' novels was published in 1928 when Leslie Charteris was just twenty one and this collection book of short stories is dated 1930. You might expect the rambunctious adventurer such a standout – we may well think we meet, but not the subtleties of the slightly world-weary man of the world, know all-knowing there is to know about the evils to which men (and women) can sinkthis accursed character, that demonised place, but they're all there. Admittedly the Saint is more boisterous and less subtle than he will become - but that speaks more about the later works than this bookother bewitched person. We'd be very wrong.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B00OS74GQU</amazonuk>1789091500

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=J Robert LennonStibbe_Xmas|title=See You In ParadiseAn Almost Perfect Christmas|author=Nina Stibbe|rating=34.5|genre=Short StoriesHumour|summary=Lennon writes with a relaxed, easy style and his characters are instantly recognisable as people from everyday walks Christmas – the time of life, without being in any way stereotypicaltraditional trauma. Many of You only have to think about the turkey for that – once upon a time it was leaving it sat on the people in these stories are dealing with normal frustrationsdownstairs loo to defrost overnight, and Lennon is cleverly detached enough not if that failed the hair-dryer shoved inside it treatment was your next best bet. Nowadays it's all having to make them individuals sure it's suitably free-range and organic – but not too organic that you're obviously supposed can go and visit it, and get too friendly with it to want to root for (the only exception is the industrialist in the eponymous taleeat it. Christmas, though, who is an archetypal capitalist fat cat)of course also a time of great boons. There are some very clever characterisations – It's cash in ''Weber’s Head'', hand for example, the narrator is a flawed individual whose opinions lot of his housemate are gradually revealed to be unreliable plump people who can hire red suits and unfair. For mebeards, it was always a godsend for postmen with all the most unsettling story is ''No Life''thank-you letters to aunties you saw twice a decade that your parents made you write out in long-hand as a child, because it portrays a decent couple at and as for the mercy makers of people more powerful Meltis Newberry Fruits – well, did they even try and influential than sell them. There is no supernatural or bizarre element at work here, just ordinary characters at any other time of the mercy of social power.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781253358</amazonuk>year?

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rebecca Lee0954899520|title=Bobcat and Other StoriesA Winter Book|author=Tove Jansson|rating=3.5|genre=Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary=The first story in Tove Jansson''Bobcat'' is s worldwide fame lasts on the title storyMoomin books, written in the 1940s and this alone is worth later becoming television characters of the price of admission. Plaster it with prizessimplicity, put it in anthologies; it deserves every accolade it can getnaivety and sheer 'goodness' that would later produce flowerpot men or teletubbies. HoweverSimple drawings, the last story echoes the firstsimple stories, and simple goodness. What is often forgotten outside of her native Finland is that she was a serious writer…that she wrote for adults as well as children…and that she had a feeling for the five tales in between are strangely repetitive, most with Midwestern North American narrators natural world and 1980s university settings. Moreover, all seven are in the firstsimple life that not only informed those child-person; I would have appreciated more variety like trolls but went far beyond any fantasy of perspectivehow the world might be.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1922182311</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kelley Armstrong1911115847|title=Otherworld Nightsof the Creaking Bed|author=Toni Kan

|genre=ParanormalLiterary Fiction|summary=Kelley Armstrong revisits her hugely popular 'Otherworld' series in this Nights of the Creaking Bed'' is a collection of short stories, featuring many by Toni Kan. The series of stories tell of the prominent lives and lusts of an assortment of characters from living in and around Lagos, Nigeria. Nigeria, in this collection, is imbued with its very own heart of darkness. Danger stalks the seriesshadows and people are killed for nothing more than a wrong look. Kan writes with a vitality and passion that allows these cynical stories to achieve a glimmer of hope.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0356500667</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robin Ince and Johnny Mains (editors)1529014484|title=Dead FunnyExhalation |author=Ted Chiang|rating=4.5|genre=HorrorScience Fiction|summary=In a world of nightmares, disasters, death and ignominy there is a book called ''Dead Funny''. Invented purely to satisfy Over the remit built into its titlepast twenty-eight years, it collects some horror Ted Chiang has published fifteen science fiction short stories written by comedians, both household names and those more upthese magnificent stories have won twenty-and-coming. Like all horror books it comes out at the time of year best suited for horror – Halloween, when we read with the darkest corners in our rooms, with the longest evenings outside – but is only suited for Halloween because it is seven major science fiction awards so if you are a worthless, hellish piece of dross. It never excites, it is the most self-serving vanity project, and the only funny thing about science fiction fan it is likely that you have already come across some idiot ever decided it was worth publishingof the work by Ted Chiang. Now I know If you know, courtesy of those bright shiny stars alongside this review, that this volume, Dead Funny, is not ''thathaven'' Dead Funny. But just bear in mind the horror story t then take this could have been, if these pages were not so surprisingly adept at taking those said nightmares, disasters, deaths and ignominy and presenting them opportunity to us do so competentlynow. Trust me; your imagination will be grateful.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907773762</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Konstantina Sozou-Kyrkou1794467440|title=Black Greek CoffeeWatchwords |author=Philip Neal

|summary=If your experience This satisfying collection of Greece is as short stories has a tourist then you'll almost certainly think of it in terms of history, mythology and startlingly white buildings against sapphire blue sky and sea. It looks idyllic, but there's a darker side to Greek life, explored by Konstantina Souzou-Kyrkou, in ''Black Greek Coffee'' - a neat metaphor for the lives she looks provenance at: sharp, bitter but ultimately addictive. In twenty three short stories she illuminates least as beguiling as the chauvinism and superstition, the concepts provenance of ''honour'' and the status of women, the dominance of religion and the lives led by ''ordinary'' people. They sound like grand themes, but the stories are grounded in domesticity and there will be few people - in any country - who have not been touched by one of the problemsantique watches that inspired it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784620351</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|title=Doctor Who: 12 Doctors 12 Stories|author=Malorie Blackman, Holly Black and others|rating=4Philip Neal lost a watch.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=How long do you keep your birthday presents for? A week, It was a month, a year – or life? Is that time-scale different, perhaps, when you're nearly a thousand years old? I only ask because Doctor Who is, watch he was fond of course, both 51 (in our earthly, televisual representation) and 900 and more in human years as had been told was like a character1930s Cartier. In 2013 we were given a great book Instead of mourning its loss, he began to collect vintage watches that gave us a story for every Doctor Who we've seen on TV, in honour of the 50th birthday proceedingsresembled it. But now is a year on, and weAnd that're s how he became a further Doctor down watch collector. An eBay purchase led him to the lineAntique Watch Company watch repairers in Clerkenwell. And so what The eBay purchase was '11 Doctors, 11 Stories' is now '12 Doctors, 12 Stories'. So while many of us would have cherished and kept said birthday presenta fake, but the only addition is friendship that grew between the last, which like buyer and the rest repairer of watches was available as not and the seed of an e-idea for a bookwas born. So it's worth revisiting what I said about the book last time, then chucking in the (what might only be temporarily) concluding story at the end.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141359889</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529006031|title=Problems with PeopleReturn to Wonderland|author=David GutersonVarious Authors

|summary=''Problems with People'' is In following a meandering exploration of young girl called Alice down the relationshipsrabbit hole a few years ago, big when the first book she was in [[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (150th Anniversary Edition) by Lewis Carroll and smallAnthony Browne|hit 150 years of age]], I found that we form across a lifetimeI didn't really find too much favour with it. Ranging from that The wacky-for-the-sake-of parent -it did not gel, and I don't remember loving it more as a child . But I would suggest I am the perfect audience for this book. I had every chance to enjoy these short stories that between landlord and tenantcome at the core from a tangent, Guterson’s observation that show the benefits of the complexities oblique glance. I've always preferred coming to an author's output through their least obvious, allegedly throw-away pieces, and nuances involved it's the same with franchises – I'd more 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 greatness here – with Carroll much loved by millions, surely pieces written with that love in how we navigate these personal links is extremely sharp and true to life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408859963</amazonuk>mind could only provide for success after success?

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1846974658|title=Burnt Tongues: An Anthology of Transgressive Short StoriesThe Long Path To Wisdom|author=Chuck Palahniuk, Dennis Widmyer and Richard ThomasJan-Philipp Sendker

|summary=Saying certain things out loud just don’t sound right. Some things are so disturbing or politically incorrect On my travels around the world, I have a tendency to end up in any bookshop that you are best off leaving them inside your headis selling English-language books, and while I buy as many second-hand escapist tales as the next person, what I'm really looking for is the 'local' – the cookbook maybe, the maps definitely, or better yet not thinking of them at but above all. When these words are spoken they could lead to : the sensation of Burnt Tongue; an aftereffect of knowing what you said was wrongfolk tales. Are you prepared If I ever get to enter the world of Transgressive Fiction that aims Burma, I won't need to disturbhunt, alienate, disgust and question?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178329552X</amazonuk>I can read before I go.

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B077969HN8|title=The Best British Short Stories 2014Alternative Medicine|author=Nicholas Royle (editor)Laura Solomon|rating=4.5

|summary=I’m Laura Solomon's publisher describes the short stories in ''Alternative Medicine'' as ''black comedy with a keen reader and twist of surrealism''. I'm rather glad that I didn't see this until ''after'' I'd finished reading as I like 'm not normally a massive tome. But every so oftenfan of either, but I drift into a mode of finding it hard 've come to settle to anything two conclusions about the book: what the publisher says is correct - and at such times, I like to read short storiesreally enjoyed it. I also enjoy them when I’m horribly busy The comedy is not ''too'' black and don’t have the time surrealism is gentle and perhaps best described as a twist or flick of reality when you were least expecting it. Your comfort zones are going to read much morebe invaded in the nicest possible way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907773673</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=9386897504|title=Any Other MouthTales of Love and Disability|author=Anneliese MackintoshLaura Solomon

|summary=With I've always believed that less-able writers produce longer books: it takes a great deal of skill and talent to write a short story which holds the reader and keeps them coming back for more. There are far too many collections of short stories which are all too easy to put down and forget after you've read a couple of pieces. I've recently read a title like couple of novellas by Laura Solomon - [[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon|Marsha'Any Other Mouths Deal]] and [[Hell's Unveiling by Laura Solomon|Hell's Unveiling]] and enjoyed them, you know from so I was intrigued to see what she could do with an even shorter form. }}{{Frontpage|isbn=1986586898|title=Going To The Last: Short Stories About Horse Racing|author=K D Knight|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=In the outset that this is, shall we sayopening story, a rather niche bookman whose wife has deserted him visits Sandown with little money but comes away with cash in his pocket - and his wife. It’s In ''A Grey Day'' an owner struggles with the problem of whether or not all about orifices, thoughto run his horse in the Gold Cup when the ground is against him. Partially autobiographical My favourite was ''The Story of H'', this is the messy, ludicrous, wildly entertaining story of Foinavon. H is depicted as a girl who’s just 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 little bit differentno-hoper. Ok In one of the most dramatic runnings of the race, make that a lot differentpile-up occurred at the 23rd fence.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908754575< Foinavon, who had been many lengths adrift, cleared the fence and galloped to the line, winning the race at odds of 100/amazonuk>1.

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=9386897296|title=RevengeHell's Unveiling|author=Yoko Ogawa and Stephen Snyder (translator)Laura Solomon|rating=3.5

|summary=A woman waits for a long time at a village bakery, her mind only on little while ago I really enjoyed [[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon|Marsha's Deal]] and I was delighted by the strawberry shortcakes she wants opportunity to buyread the sequel, and ''Hell's Unveiling''. It's probably not much of a spoiler to say that Marsha bested the strange reasons that make devil in ''Marsha's Deal'', but the purchase so important devil is not one to hertake defeat lying down. A boy is invited by a girl at school He's out to wage war on Planet Earth and particularly on Marsha (who's thought of as a posh French restaurant – with strawberry shortcakes on the menu – 'goody two shoes' in order for him to provide moral support as Hell). Although a strong person, she meets 's vulnerable where her estranged father foster children are concerned. Daniel is framed for the first timea crime he didn't commit and sent to juvenile detention and refused permission to return to live with Marsha. NearbyThen, a woman enjoys an unusual relationship with her elderly landladyof course, there are all the other children who keeps finding unusuallyare not only targeted but -shaped carrots in her vegetable gardenworst of all - subverted to the devil's evil ends. A man reflects He's out to prey on an unusual relationship their fears and weaknesses and as with a writer who for a couple of years at least was a stepmany foster children, their self-mum to him, even as she went dotty in talking to herselfesteem is very fragile. Unusual relationshipsThis is no small-scale operation, vegetables, motives – and strawberry shortcakes – are prevalent in this fascinating look at either - the devil has set up a sunlit yet dark worldtraining complex on earth, which makes for a superlatively clever readcomplete with an elevator to Hell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099553937</amazonuk>