George Saunders, lauded for his short stories and winner of the 2017 Man Booker Prize for Lincoln in the Bardo, has been a teacher on the Syracuse University MFA creative writing program since 1997. This book is based on one of his Syracuse courses on Russian literature. A Swim in a Pond includes seven classic
Informative and necessary, Abdulrazak Gurnah uses stripped back prose to tell the stories of Hamza, Ilyas and Afiya in his insightful new novel, Afterlives. It’s a satisfying linear tale, and one that doesn’t need any literary embellishments to bring the narrative to life. Gurnah takes us through the lives of his characters in a simple, effective
What a feast of delights awaits us the reader in this years BBC National Short Story Award 2020 from Comma Press – I’m a huge fan of this series as I’m a huge fan of the short story form and well this year we are treated to some great voices, some old and some new
This Along Could Save Us is a flash fiction collection of 51, yes 51 short pieces of flash. The book is a real quick read and works as a great palate cleanser between larger books, the stories aren’t very deep but are enjoyable with the flow of Prinzi’s prose, but for me, the collection was
Whispers in the Dark by Laurel Hightower is pretty damn good, actually it’s pretty stunning – and to think this was her debut, bloody hell! Fierce storytelling, prose to die for, and a story that is achingly brutal; whilst also populated by characters that are really relatable, even the secondary cast of characters – all
T.C. Parker delivers the creeping unease of past masters with a story that is as beguiling as it is terrifying – Salt Blood is a story that keeps on giving from the very first page! Salt Blood is an interesting concept for a book and one that seems far removed from the brooding cover (although
Animalistic, thrilling, and intense, Tim Binding’s Beneath the Trees of Eden contains a plethora of beautiful and complicated relationships, set against the real and raw portrayal of death. Our characters skirt the fringes of society and live on their own terms – but at what cost? Binding challenges us to reconsider what ‘Eden’ really is,
Little Paranoias is a short story collection form horror author Sonora Taylor, a collection that is gripping, original and bang on the money for those that prefer the dark slice of horror. What I loved about the collection is that it is a mixture of short stories and flash fiction and this device that is
‘Some people were born just so they could be buried.’ The Devil All The Time is a sprawling, gritty, powerhouse of a book that follows the lives of a handful of characters as they fight to survive in the town of Knockemstiff and the surrounding towns of Ohio and West Virginia. The opening of this
Penelope Greensmith, a divorced, cardigan-wearing, lonely bio-librarian, is responsible for a vast seed bank made possible by the mysterious Vice she inherited from her father. One day she receives an unexpected visitor: the charming Horticulturalist, who wants to see her collection. He thinks it could hold the key to stopping a terrible plague, which turns
