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.... Read more... |
 Button, Button: Uncanny Stories
Richard Matheson As a raconteur of ordinary folks thrust into extraordinary situations, no one spins a yarn like Matheson.... Read more... |
 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... |
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... |
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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... |
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... Read more...
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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... Read more... |
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 ... Read more... |
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Aimee Bender "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 "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 "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 "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. |
