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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->
{{newreview
|title=Something Like Happy
|author=John Burnside
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=How do you pick a name for a short story collection? It seems to me the ''...and other stories'' add-on is like picking a favourite child, a promotion of one portion of the content above the rest. [[:Category:John Burnside:John Burnside]] has got a title story here, but such is the mood of the book that he seems to have nailed the matter, and picked the most apposite name. ''Something Like Happy'' could in a way be the title for practically every piece here.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575590</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|title=Brief Loves That Live Forever
|summary=Seido Oda has lived all of his life in the shadow of the Head Temple of the Clearwater Sect of Mahayana Buddhism. His family home was an inn which catered to the pilgrims who flocked to the temple, and his mother a devout member of the sect. He seemed marked for the priesthood from an early age, and at age 11 was handed over to the guardianship of the priests to begin his apprenticeship. Seido's young life is blighted by tragedy, and a promise he could not keep, and although a devout follower of the Buddha, he seemed unable to achieve true peace, even in the beautiful tranquil surroundings of Mount Nagata. He was unable to relate to other humans and sought solace in poetry, art, 'the prayers' of the river and the beauty of his rural home. At age 42, he has spent almost all of his life in or near the temple, and expects to spend the remainder of it there when a very unwelcome appointment to America is offered to him. Seido accepts with a heavy heart, but only on the agreement that it must be temporary.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846883105</amazonuk>
}}
