Short stories
Private obsessions
A world of private fetishes, obsessions, childhood memories and literary passions is dazzlingly revealed in 13 short stories
A born storyteller
Instead of swashbuckling, we get the Parisian art world, trout-fishing, unhappy couples and surrogate parenting – though the 20 stories for children are full of adventure
The inner world of others
As ever in her short stories, Hadley uses the smallest details – of dress, food and decor – to masterfully convey class, character and the inner world of others
What have we been missing?
Ge’s short stories set in China are her most adventurous, ranging from politics in the time of Confucius to sex in the aftermath of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake
An eye for the absurd
Come for the satire, stay for the one-liners, and take succour from the hope Walter finds in a world where everyone needs an angel from time to time
Ruthless efficiency
George Saunders’s handbook published last year, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, gave masterclasses on seven short stories…
A deadly vacuum
Now is a difficult time to empathise with Russians – which is why we need Maxim Osipov. We need him…
Women behaving badly
Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women established her as a narrator of female desire in all its complexity. Her study of three…
Dreaming of escape
‘The drawer beside Roberta’s bed contained remnants of other people’s fun’: so begins ‘Mathematics’, one of 11 stories in this…
Confused lives
The Swiss writer Peter Stamm’s inscrutable, alienated outsiders make bizarre choices to escape stifling mundanity. Their discontent suggests malaise, something…
Culture clash
Apart from what the title tells us, these stories are about a fundamental difference in cultures. Huma Qureshi writes like…
A beady eye
At one time, Penelope Lively was routinely shortchanged by critics. Her protagonists are often middle-class professionals — historians, archeologists, scriptwriters…
Et in Orcadia ego
Maggie Fergusson on the reclusive poet George Mackay Brown
You, the protagonist
When the estimable Andy Miller, the host of the Backlisted podcast, recommended a new collection of short stories on Twitter,…
Meaningful silences
Shirley Hazzard was in her late twenties when, in 1959, somewhat diffidently, she submitted her first short story to the…
Figures in a landscape
Some of my happiest fiction-reading hours have been spent in the company of Kevin Barry: two short-story collections, both prize-winners,…
Sad and beautiful
Short story writers often find it irksome to be asked when the novel is coming out, as though their work…
Deeply disturbing
Sorry For Your Trouble (Bloomsbury, £16.99), Richard Ford’s 13th book of fiction, shows a writer still very much on song.…
The real deal – or not
One of the stranger things that happened in the period just before lockdown was the sudden disappearance of audiences from…
Surprises in store
In these circumstances there’s a temptation to reach for the longest novel imaginable. If you’re not going to read Proust…
Rules of engagement
With theatres shut, radio must lighten the darkness. The Guilty Feminist is a wildly popular podcast performed by Deborah Frances-White…
The good sex award goes to Sarah Hall: Sudden Traveller reviewed
Sarah Hall should probably stop publishing short stories for a while to give other writers a chance. If she’s not…
Kristen Roupenian’s debut short stories fulfil all expectations
Kristen Roupenian’s debut collection, You Know You Want This (Cape, £12.99), comes hotly anticipated. Her short story, ‘Cat Person’, went…
The man who never cried
It was odd listening to Jim Al-Khalili being interviewed on Radio 4 on Tuesday morning rather than the other way…
The end of the world is nigh: the latest short stories reviewed
Only Helen DeWitt would start a book with an epigraph of her own pop-culture mash-up poetry and end with an…
