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Issue 9 July 2008

In this month's issue we review four of the collections longlisted for the world's richest short story prize, stories to take on your travels by land or sea, stories that take pictures, stories designated "the best", some fragile things, a few willful creatures, and a dastardly button. Also: four author interviews for a peak behind the scenes.

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*longlisted for Frank O'Connor Award 2008*

Words from a Glass Bubble
Vanessa Gebbie

Original, lyrical writing, poetic at times, engaging and disquieting. Characters are believable, their lives gritty and hopeless, yet there is dignity in their predicaments....
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Button, Button: Uncanny Stories
Richard Matheson

As a raconteur of ordinary folks thrust into extraordinary situations, no one spins a yarn like Matheson....
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Willful Creatures
Aimee Bender

Surreal and fantastical, you may not understand everything in these stories on a rational level, but they touch you somewhere far deeper... Read more...

*longlisted for Frank O'Connor Award 2008*

Taking Pictures
Anne Enright

A dark vision of gender relationships is realized in a series of stories connected by an intimately confiding although not always reliable narrator.... Read more...


Bonne Route
Ian Daley (ed)

This book is a lucky dip, with something for everyone. Maybe you won’t like ‘em all, but they keep you reading to the end.... Read more...

*longlisted for Frank O'Connor Award 2008*

29 Ways to Drown
Niki Aguirre

The best stories here were warm, surreal and surprising. I loved the variety of situations, the underlying humour, and ended up caring about the characters.
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Fragile Things
Neil Gaiman
27 stories by The Gaiman is bound to include one or two gems. However, fans will feel cheated as all but one have been published before, and newcomers will wonder what all the fuss is about.... Read more...



Best American Short Stories 2007
Stephen King, Heidi Pitlor (eds)

Despite polished writing and some great individual stories, the collection felt patchy and never really took off for this reader...

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Sea Stories
Various

This is a weak and random collection, all using the sea as an extremely loose theme. Only a quarter are worthwhile reading – the rest are jetsam, floating unmoored...

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*longlisted for Frank O'Connor Award 2008*

Body Parts: an Anatomy of Love
Richard Bardsley

An eclectic bunch, historical, futuristic, or recognisably contemporary, while some are set in a mysterious other-where ...
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Author Interviews


Aimee Bender
Willful Creatures

"There is always a reader, someone I'm telling the story to. It has to be an act of communication. But who that person is, I don't often know. I think each story may have a different particular reader.." Click here for the rest of the interview.


Niki Aguirre
29 Ways to Drown

"I ... carry around a negative critic in my head. He keeps me on my toes and says all the biting things no one else dares. I let him too, but sometimes he gets carried away and won’t stop yapping. Then I have to threaten his chocolate intake. Oh, I can be cruel..." Click here for the rest of the interview.

Vanessa Gebbie
Words from a Glass Bubble

"I'd like to talk to a synaesthete, to find out if the imagined synaesthesia in Tasting Pebbles is anything like the reality. And lots more. I've got a crazily active imagination, and it would be fun to know how 'real its conjurings are." Click here for the rest of the interview.

Richard Bardsley
Bodies in Motion

"Having something in the public sphere kind of feels like you've left your curtains and windows open at night. But generally it's a pretty exhilarating thing to have happen to a person, especially one who has always wanted to write." Click here for the rest of the interview.