Short stories Recent Picks

June 2008

The underlined titles will take you directly to our catalogue.
Some featured items are linked via a book cover to enable you to read more reviews.

Taking pictures, by Anne Enright. (2008)
"This collection of stories maps the messy connections between people and their failures to connect, the characters are captured in the grainy texture of real life, freshly palpable, sensuous and deeply flawed. From Dublin to Venice, from an American college dorm to a holiday caravan in France, these are stories about women stirred, bothered, or fascinated by men they cannot understand, or understand too well. These are sharp, vivid stories of loss and yearning, of surrender to responsibilities or to unexpected delight." (Amazon)

Tyrants : stories, by Marshall N. Klimasewiski. (2008)
"This is a collection of eight stories about tyrannies, political and intimate, historical and domestic, and about the unpredictable delinquencies of lust." (book cover)

Unaccustomed earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri. (2008)
"From the internationally best-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Unaccustomed earth is her latest work and collects eight short stories. They take the reader from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand as they explore the secrets and complexities lying at the heart of family life and relationships." (Book cover)

Dangerous laughter : thirteen stories, by Steven Millhauser. (2008)
"This collection of darkly comic stories from the Pulitzer Prize winning author are united by their obsession with obsession, stories that explore these ideas with the mixture of dark suspense and good humour. There are spooky attics, fantastic inventions, artists driven mad, and ambitious enterprises that become over attenuated and impossible to sustain." (Amazon)

The museum of Dr. Moses : tales of mystery and suspense, by Joyce Carol Oates. (2008)
"Ten suspenseful stories explore the ways in which evil enters our lives in "The Man Who Fought Roland LaStarza" a young woman's romantic view of her girlhood is devastated by her father's confession; and in "Valentine, July Heat Wave" a man prepares a gruesome surprise for the wife who has betrayed him. In the memorable title story, a young woman tries to rescue her mother from the museum of Dr. Moses - with unexpected results." (Book cover)

Breathless in Bombay : stories, by Murzban F. Shroff. (2008)
"This collection of fourteen stories feature a range of beautifully drawn characters in fascinating situations: from the Laundrywallas' water shortage problems to the doomed love affair of a schizophrenic painter and his Bollywood girlfriend to the heart warming relationship of a carriage driver and his beloved horse. Each of these stories is richly crafted and arranged against the grand, chaotic backdrop of life that is Bombay." (Book cover)

Olive Kitteridge , by Elizabeth Strout. (2008)
"These thirteen linked tales present a heart-wrenching, penetrating portrait of ordinary coastal Mainers living lives of quiet grief intermingled with flashes of human connection. All the stories are linked through dry junior high-school teacher Olive Kitteridge and her gregarious pharmacist husband, Henry, both of whom have survived the loss of a psychologically damaged parent, and both of whom suffer painful attractions to co-workers. Themes of suicide, depression, bad communication, aging and love, run through these stories, which are easy to read, but impossible to forget." (Book cover)

Knockemstiff, by Donald Ray Pollock. (2008)
"Spanning a period from the mid-sixties to the late nineties, the linked stories in this collection feature a cast of recurring characters who are woebegone, baffled, and depraved, but irresistibly, undeniably real. All the stories are rendered in the American vernacular with vivid imagery and a wry, dark sense of humour." (Book cover)

Life training : short stories to be read on trains, by John Power. (2008)
"This is a collection of imaginative stories that are inspired by train travel. They journey through many landscapes as diverse as Switzerland, Australia, Cuba, India, Russia, South America, Rome and Paris. Each story gives a different view of the world." (Book cover)

The girl who proposed : new short stories, by Elizabeth Smither. (2008)
"This is the fifth collection of stories by Elizabeth Smither and has been long listed for the Frank O’Conner International Short Story Award. The fifteen stories collected here range widely in theme, happiness, suspense, humour and as ever the working of human relationships. Some stories have previously been published in journals and anthologies or broadcast over the radio; all are well crafted and enjoyable." (Amazon)

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