Title: Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft Writer: Various edited by Jessica Spotswood & Tess Sharpe Publishing House: HarperCollins Date of Publication: September 1st 2018 Rating: 4 stars ‘’Scorn the witch. Fear the witch. Burn the witch.’’ If we substitute the word ‘’witch’’ with the word ‘’woman’’, we will be able to understand the reasons and…
Tag: short stories
Chinese Ghost Stories
Title: Chinese Ghost Stories: Curious Tales of the Supernatural Writer: Lafcadio Hearn Publishing House: Tuttle Publishing Date of Publication: September 10th 2011 (first published 1887) Rating: 4 stars “You will ask me who she was-beautiful Xue Tao…Gor thousands of years and even longer, the trees have been whispering over her stony bed. And the syllables of her name reach…
Christmas Dinner
Title: Χριστουγεννιάτικο Δέιπνο Writer: Various Publishing House: Νάρκισσος Date of Publication: November 2012 Rating: 5 stars ‘’…Paris with the snow falling. Paris with the big charcoal braziers outside the cafes, glowing red. At the cafe tables, men huddled, their coat collars turned up, while they finger glasses of grog Americain and the newsboys shout the evening papers. The buses rumble…
Christmas Stories
Title: Χριστουγεννιάτικες ιστορίες Writer: Hans Christian Andersen, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Dylan Thomas, Elizabeth Bowen, Vladimir Nabokov, John Updike, Michel Tournier edited by Κατερίνα Σχινά Publishing House: Ερατώ Date of Publication: November 2001 Rating: 5 stars ‘’One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant…
Russian Christmas Stories
Title: Ρωσικά χριστουγεννιάτικα διηγήματα Writer: Edited by Evgenia Krichevskaya, Eleni Bakopoulou Publishing House: Narkissos Date of Publication: November 2004 Ratings: 5 stars *All quotes translated by me, taken from the Greek original.* ”The great days were approaching.”- this is how a narration or a story about Christmas often starts. […] For the adults these days are indeed ”great”. But they…
Almost Famous Women
Title: Almost Famous Women Writer: Megan Mayhew Bergman Publishing House: Scribner Date of Publication: January 6th 2015 Rating: 2 stars There is currently a plethora of books that aim to bring women whose stories deserve to be more widely known to surface. If you ask me, I think it was about time. However, what makes me apprehensive is the fact…
Dusk: Stories and Poems from Solstice Shorts Festival
Title: Dusk: Stories and Poems from Solstice Shorts Festival 2017 Writer: Edited by Cherry Potts Publishing House: Arachne Press Date of Publication: 2018 Rating: 5 stars ‘’On he ambles, down the avenue where the bark of the beech trees traits silvery, lichen beards. Their dark, wind-sculpted branches reach out for the sky, wild as the hair of Macbeth’s crones.’’…
Vom Schicksal Das sich Wendet (Märchen von Freiheit und Glück)
Τitle: Vom Schicksal Das sich Wendet (Märchen von Freiheit und Glück) Writer: Otto Betz Publishing House: Kösel Date of Publication: 1987 Rating: 5 stars *All quotes and titles translated by me. Taken from the Greek edition.* ‘’Is the course of our fate irreversibly defined from the very start? Can we do nothing to fight against blind destiny, or are…
Christmas Days
Title: Christmas Days: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days Writer: Jeanette Winterson Publishing House: Random House UK Date of Publication: November 1st 2018 (first published November 2016) Rating: 5 stars It’s Jeanette Winterson, people. I could read her shopping list and still be a happy reader. In Christmas Days we have her impeccable style and stories about Christmas. What could…
The Sing of the Shore
Title: The Sing of the Shore Writer: Lucy Wood Publishing House: 4th Estate Date of Publication: April 5th 2018 Rating: 5 stars ‘’Winters are when people disappear. One minute you’re elbow on the street, the next you walk along sidestepping nothing but the wind. Cafes put down their blinds. Houses are locked and dark. The car parks slowly empty and…
Nocturnes
Title: Nocturnes Writer: Kazuo Ishiguro Publishing House: Faber and Faber Date of Publication: May 5th 2009 Rating: 5 stars ‘’So a moment like that comes as an unwelcome reminder of how quickly things change. How the bosom pals of today become lost strangers tomorrow, scattered across Europe, playing the Godfather theme or ‘Autumn Leaves’ in squares and cafes you’ll never…
ROAR
Title: ROAR Writer: Cecelia Ahern Publishing House: HarperCollins Date of Publication: November 1st 2018 Rating: 2 stars ‘’I’m here, I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.’’ 30 stories of 30 women. 30 captivating titles that lead us to the sphere of Magical Realism and allegories. 30 stories that aim to give voice to characters who struggle with issues that make our…
All We Have Left Is All That Matters
Title: All That Is Left Is All That Matters Writer: Mark Slouka Publishing House: W. W. Norton Company Date of Publication: June 26th 2018\ Rating: 2 stars ‘’The world doesn’t care for us – we pass through its rooms like ghosts. You can hear it, sometimes, laughing, celebrating, and when we take our leave it’s no more than the shift…
Girl, Balancing and Other Stories
Title: Girl, Balancing & Other Stories Writer: Helen Dunmore Publishing House: Hutchinson Books Date of Publication: June 28th 2018 Rating: 5 stars ”Outside, the fog that had hung over the city for days had blown away, and there was a cold, wild look to the sky.” I found out about Helen Dunmore’s passing not long after I read her final…
Eye
Title: Eye Writer: Marianne Micros Publishing House: Guernica Editions Date of Publication: September 1st 2018 Rating: 1 star Dearest, dearest friends, I present a collection that is horrifyingly bad for someone who claims to have an interest in Greek culture and tradition, someone who is supposedly of Greek heritage. If this is true, she mustn’t love her ‘’heritage’’ very much… The…
A Thousand Beginnings and Endings
Title: A Thousand Beginnings and Endings Writer: Edited by Ellen Oh & Elsie Chapman Publishing House: Greenwillow Books Date of Publication: June 26th 2018 Rating: 2 stars This is a collection I couldn’t wait to start. When I was about eight years old, my grandma bought me a volume of Asian Folk Tales and thus, she opened a window to…
Night Beast
Title: Night Beast Writer: Ruth Joffre Publishing House: Grove Atlantic Date of Publication: 08 May 2018 Rating: 3 stars ‘’Εven if you do reject your timer, it’s going to count down anyway.’’ This collection has long been on my list but life and other books got in the way. After having read Her Body and Other Parties, I thought Night…
Her Body and Other Parties
Title: Her Body and Other Parties Writer: Carmen Maria Machado Publishing House: Graywolf Press Date of Publication: October 3rd 2017 Rating: 5 stars ‘’What magical thing could you want so badly they take you away from the known world for wanting it?’’ This book is one of those cases when you feel someone calling your name. From the enticing cover…
Οι Όχθες του Σάβου
*The English review is hiding below:) * H λογοτεχνία των Βαλκανίων είναι τόσο ιδιότυπη και ξεχωριστή όσο κι η Ρώσικη. Η έμφαση στην ηθογραφία, η γλαφυρότητα των καθημερινών χαρακτήρων, η μεστή γλώσσα χωρίς ιδιαίτερη ποιητικότητα αλλά γεμάτη ρεαλισμό είναι ξεκάθαρα γνωρίσματα της λογοτεχνίας της ΝΑ Ευρώπης. Είναι πάντα ευχάριστο να βλέπεις καινούριους εκδοτικούς οίκους να…
Sentimental Tales
Title: Sentimental Tales Writer: Mikhail Zoshchenko (translated by Boris Dralyuk) Publishing House: Columbia University Press Date of Publication: July 31st 2018 Rating: 5 stars ‘’What do you think, Auntie, does man have a soul?’’ Mikhail Zoshchenko is considered one of the greatest Soviet satirists, a genre that flourished in the country, especially during the Soviet era. The six stories…
