Tag: short stories
The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding by Agatha Christie – Book Review
A fun collection of crimes solved by the one and only Hercule Poirot, with a bonus Miss Marple short story. I was slightly disappointed that only one of the stories is actually set at Christmas.
Quote of the Day
“At the door of every contented, happy man somebody should stand with a little hammer, constantly tapping, to remind him that unhappy people exist, that however happy he may be, sooner or later life will show him its claws, some calamity will befall — illness, poverty, loss — and nobody will hear or see, just as he doesn’t hear or see others now.”
— Anton Chekhov, Gooseberries
Poirot Investigates by Agatha Christie – Book Review
This collection of short stories, first published in 1924 and featuring Christie’s own Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, may not be as satisfying as Christie’s Poirot novels, but it showcases the future Queen of Crime honing her craft.
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado – Book Review
A unique and inventive collection of strange, unsettling, genre-defying short stories, where horror, science fiction and fairytales blend with the themes of sex and death.
Miss Marple’s Final Cases by Agatha Christie – Book Review
An enjoyable posthumous short story collection featuring the deductive powers of Christie’s lovable sleuth, plus two additional supernatural stories.
Collected Short Stories Volume 1 by W. Somerset Maugham – Book Review
I’ve read and loved a few Maugham novels without realising that he also excelled at short stories.
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri – Book Review
In between book club reading, I’ve revisited one of my favourite short story collections, destined to be one of those books I take off the shelf again and again.
Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman – Book Review
Neil Gaiman has become one of my favourite writers over the years and I was happy to get my hands on this latest third collection of short trips into the weird, shadowy country of Gaiman’s mind. It never really occurred to me to compare him to Ray Bradbury, but in fact Gaiman’s short stories have the same effect on me that I had while engrossed in Bradbury’s fiction when a teenager – a pleasantly uneasy sensation of looking at the world in a distorted mirror, or lifting the fabric of reality to find some dark, strange, disturbing things lurking underneath. Gaiman’s imagination is just as boundless, and his voice as a writer is just as distinctive (his books on the whole have a lot more graphic sex, though not in this particular collection).
Only the Animals by Ceridwen Dovey – Book Review
I’ve always loved short stories and this collection certainly has a unique premise. Each of the ten short stories is narrated by a soul of a different animal caught up in the human conflicts of the last century, and ends with the tale of their deaths. Among them is a female cat surviving in the trenches of World War I, who reminisces about her life with her bohemian actress owner; a bear slowly starving to death in the zoo of the war-torn Sarajevo; a tortoise who crosses paths with several literary geniuses and dreams of travelling to space; a young mussel who goes on a road trip Kerouac-style.
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