Title: Mars: Stories Writer: Asja Bakić (translated by Jennifer Zoble) Publishing House: The Feminist Press at CUNY Date of Publication: March 19th 2019 (first published 2015) Rating: 5 stars ‘’Death is typically a European film. The scenes are evocative, the atmosphere and characters charged. But in my case, death took a different form.’’ When you start reading a book and…
Tag: short stories
The Dollmaker
Title: The Dollmaker Writer: Nina Allan Publishing House: Quercus Books Date of Publication: April 4th 2019 Rating: 5 stars ‘’In 21 cases there was death but no burial; in 10, funerals but no burials; in 8, funerals but no death.’’ Dolls never found a top spot in my favourite toys list. My mum didn’t like them at all but my…
Dylan Thomas – The Collected Stories
Title: The Collected Stories by Dylan Thomas Writer: Dylan Thomas Publishing House: New Directions Date of Publication: October 17th 1986 (first published June 1st 1983) Rating: 5 stars ‘’He would think that love fails on such nights, and that many of its children are cut down.’’ Dylan Thomas is the writer who made me love poetry with his dark imagery…
Desire
Title: Desire: Vintage Minis Writer: Haruki Murakami (translated by Jay Rubin, Ted Goossen and Philip Gabriel Publishing House: Vintage Classics Date of Publication: June 8th 2017 Rating: 5 stars ”Which is to say that wrong choices can produce right results, and vice versa. I myself have adopted the position that, in fact, we never choose anything at all. Things happen….
Lakeland Folk Tales for Children
Title: Lakeland Folk Tales For Children Writer: Taffy Thomas Publishing House: The History Press Date of Publication: January 1st 2017 Rating: 5 stars ‘’I’m a teller of tales, a spinner of yarns, A weaver of dreams and a liar. I’ll teach you some stories to tell to Your friends, While sitting at home by the fire.’’ ‘’The Storyteller’’ by Mike…
When We Were Birds
Title: When We Were Birds Writer: Maria Mutch Publishing House: Simon & Schuster Canada Date of Publication: April 24th 2018 Rating: 5 stars ‘’Snow falls on the shoulders of people passing, it lands on the pavement and vanishes, more lands and sticks. She watches the crystals clump, tumble, and it is twilight and the lights of the restaurants and…
A Cat, A Hat and a Piece of String
Title: A Cat, A Hat and A Piece Of String Writer: Joanne Harris Publishing House: Black Swan Date of Publication: January 16th 2014 (first published November 8th 2012) Rating: 4 stars ‘’I see now that there can be no leaving. I am a broken clock, frozen forever at an impossible hour. Let others move on, if they must, if they…
Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft
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…
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…
