I think it’s safe to say flash fiction collections are a somewhat rare commodity. And unless you’re immersed in the world of flash – both as a reader and writer – it can be difficult to find collections that truly explore the different ways in which flash can be done. Of course, you can stumble
Akhil Sharma’s ‘Cosmopolitan’ is a story of overlaps, or perhaps, multitudes. Part of the Faber Stories series – celebrating 90 years of their publishing – ‘Cosmopolitan’ is a piece that speaks to numerous intertwined narratives. As the synopsis will tell us, ‘Gopal Maurya’s wife has left him, preferring to seek enlightenment in an ashram in
‘Unveiled’ is an intriguing collection, most nominally [though not totally] because of its origins. Where the majority of collections are usually built from submissions or tied together with past published work, ‘Unveiled’ is a product of the Unthank School – a literary school/writing community that provides a range of writing courses to a whole host
The beauty of The Shadow Booth is that, though we’ve been blessed with Volume 1, and indeed Volume 2, there’s no telling what we’ll find inside a third time round. ‘There’s a strange canvas structure propped against the wall, a hand-made sign scrawled on a scrap of cardboard. Enter the Shadow Booth, it says, and you
Acclaim follows David Means. Nominated for a Man Booker [for his novel ‘Hystopia’] and with four short story collections already under his belt, Means has been compared to Alice Munro and Raymond Carver. Illustrious company indeed. His fifth short story collection is Instructions for a Funeral. To draw comparison to Carver for a moment, what
There are times, when reading a short story collection, that my interest dips. I’m half-way through, around four stories in, and only the opener has really hit the high mark that was promised. It becomes a task then, the finish the rest. Show Them A Good Time by Nicole Flattery is enthralling from start to finish
There’s a young girl a couple of sand dunes away, tottering up and down the mounds, digging her hands in deep and pulling them back out, amazed that they’re still attached. Her parents keep going wide-eyed with her every time, as though they’ve never seen anything like it before, and she does it again and
Our head of books has been rather busy this year and has had a remarkable turnover of reviews. Reading everything that has come his way, from the big publishers to many a independent press and so we feel he’s the guy to talk to you about his best books of 2018 – or the year
Pushing back on the perceived notions of 1950’s America – the good old days, the easy life, prosperity and opportunity in a post-war boom USA – Barry Gifford’s The Cuban Club is a coming-of-age collection void of rose-tinted glasses. Here, life occurs, real life – the losses, the love, pain, violence, death, sex, childhood and
He’d been erasing me from the moment he saw me. Not that I knew it yet. Naked, perched on an uneven wooden stool. Ready and willing for the class. I’d been a life drawing model for less than a year. It made me uncomfortable, squeamish under the lights, self-conscious to be gazed upon by eyes
