Title: Karate Chop (original title: Kantslag) Writer: Dorthe Nors (translated by Martin Aitken) Publishing House: Graywolf Press Date of Publication: February 4th 2014 (first published September 25th 2008) Rating: 5 stars ‘’Once in a while everyone wishes someone dead, though no one should ever kill.’’ Do You Know Jussi? : A girl on the brink…
Tag: short stories
The Inner Room
Τitle: The Inner Room Writer: Robert Aickman Publishing House: Faber & Faber Date of Publication: January 3rd 2019 (first published 1968) Rating: 5 stars ‘’I do not like this shop,’’ said my mother. ‘’It is a shop that has died.’’ Confession time: In my family, there has always been a strange conviction regarding dollhouses. I…
Miss Brill
Title: Miss Brill Writer: Katherine Mansfield Publishing House: Penguin Classics Date of Publication: February 26th 2015 (first published 1920) Rating: 5 stars ‘’God forbid, my darling, that I should be a drag on your happiness.’’ Marriage a la Mode: The loving relationship of a young married couple changes when Isabel falls under the influence of…
Travelling Light
Title: Travelling Light (original title: Resa med lätt bagage) Writer: Tove Jansson (translated by Silvester Mazzarella) Publishing House: Sort of Books Date of Publication: 2010 (first published 1987) Rating: 5 stars ‘’Light is Jansson’s insistence that no man or woman is an island. No matter how much we may long to escape others, we can’t;…
There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister’s Husband and He Hanged Himself: Love Stories
Title: There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister’s Husband and He Hanged Himself: Love Stories Writer: Ludmilla Petrushevskaya (tr. by Anna Summers) Publishing House: Penguin Modern Classics Date of Publication: January 31st 2013 (first published January 1st 2011) Rating: 5 stars ‘’She’ll wait for his long-distance call in a phone booth at the post office. For…
Shoko’s Smile
Title: Shoko’s Smile (original title: 쇼코의 미소) Writer: Choi Eunyoung (translated by Sung Ryu) Publishing House: John Murray Press Date of Publication: August 19th 2021 (first published July 7th 2016) Rating: 5 stars “I dig my hands into the cold sand and gaze at the black, shimmering sea. It feels like the edge of the…
Midsummer Mysteries: Secrets and Suspense from the Queen of Crime
Title: Midsummer Mysteries: Secrets and Suspense from the Queen of Crime Writer: Agatha Christie Publishing House: HarperCollins Publishers Date of Publication: July 22nd 2021 Rating: 5 stars ‘’Most details are insignificant; one or two are vital. It is the brain, the little grey cells’ – he tapped his forehead – ‘on which one must rely….
Human Terrain
Title:Human Terrain Writer: Emily Bullock Publishing House: Reflex Press Date of Publication: August 31st 2021 Rating: 5 stars “On the 18th of December 1989, when waves smashed Blackpool pier and leaves whipped against windows, she began to fight. In the upstairs bathroom, on a blue fish and smiling dolphin beach towel, the ambulance delayed under…
Lillian on Sunday
Title: Lillian On Sunday Writer: Lionel Walfish Publishing House: FriesenPress Date of Publication: July 30th 2021 Rating: 5 stars “October in Blenheim, Massachusetts brought with it, along with swirls of golden wind-blown leaves, a sense of eerie anticipation. A new academic year; teachers, new and old, freshman faces, and of course, the hazing. The town…
Things We Lost In the Fire
Title: Things We Lost In the Fire (original title: Las cosas que perdimos en el fuego) Writer: Mariana Enríquez (translated by Megan McDowell) Publishing House: Hogarth Press Date of Publication: February 21st 2017 (first published February 10th 2016) Rating: 5 stars ‘’The gaucho is good,’’ he said. ‘’But the other one isn’t.’’ He said it…
Jerusalem Beach
Title: Jerusalem Beach (original title: חוף הים של ירושלים) Writer: Iddo Gefen (translated by Daniella Zamir) Publishing House: Astra House Date of Publication: August 17th 2021 (first published August 2017) Rating: 5 stars ‘’A month and a half later, he packed a bag, stuffing it with four undershirts, five pairs of underwear, a flashlight, two…
The End of the World is a Cul de Sac
Title: The End of the World is a Cul de Sac Writer: Louise Kennedy Publishing House: Bloomsbury Publishing Date of Publication: April 8th 2021 Rating: 4 stars ‘’The statue stood in the clearing. It was a wood nymph, lifelike yet diminutive, the height of an adolescent girl. A dappling of sunlight was flickering over her,…
The Master of Chaos
Title: The Master of Chaos Writer: Pauline Melville Publishing House: Sandstone Press Date of Publication: July 1st 2021 Rating: 5 stars ‘’All I wanted to do was hurt him. Death was my way of reviving his love for me, punishing him and finally gaining victory in the contest.’’ In Pauline Melville’s stories, chaos comes in…
There Once Lived a Mother Who Loved Her Children Until They Moved Back In
Title: There Once Lived A Mother Who Loved Her Children Until They Moved Back In Writer: Ludmilla Petrushevskaya (tr. by Anna Summers) Publishing House: Penguin Modern Classics Date of Publication: 2014 (first published 2002) Rating: 5 stars ‘’Oh, great mother nature! Why do you have to trick us? Why do you need all this mucus,…
Wild Swims
Title: Wild Swims (original title: Kort Over Canada) Writer: Dorthe Nors (translated by Misha Hoekstra) Publishing House: Graywolf Press Date of Publication: February 2nd 2021 (first published April 23rd 2018) Rating: 5 stars ‘’Both fairground and field have been baking all day in the late-summer sun. It’s September now, and when she walks around the…
The Custard Heart and Other Stories
Title: The Custard Heart and Other Stories Writer: Dorothy Parker Publishing House: Penguin Modern Classics Date of Publication: February 22nd 2018 Rating: 5 stars ‘’She felt a crazy solidarity with the big company of the voluntary dead.’’ New York. The exciting, glamorous Jazz Age. The time when everything had to be one big party, when…
The Collected Stories by Grace Paley
Title: The Collected Stories by Grace Paley Writer: Grace Paley Publishing House: Virago Date of Publication: May 3rd 2018 (first published 1994) Rating: 5 stars ‘’Well, by now you must know yourself, honey, whatever you do, life don’t stop. It only sits a minute and dreams a dream.’’ Grace Paley’s stories are unique in their…
The Haunted Boy and Other Stories
Title: The Haunted Boy and Other Stories Writer: Carson McCullers Publishing House: Penguin Modern Classics Date of Publication: February 22nd 2018 Rating: 5 stars ‘’Sometimes she would be out fooling with the border of spring flowers – the candytuft, the sweet William, the lobelias (she had taught him the names) – but today the green…
Dreaming in Quantum and Other Stories
Title: Dreaming in Quantum and Other Stories Writer: Lynda Clark Publishing House: Fairlight Books Date of Publication: November 1st 2021 Rating: 5 stars ‘’In winter, there’s nothing. Maybe a lone dog walker skirting the edges, but usually just the crows in the yew trees above, cawing threats at the wood pigeons. Silence, punctuated by those…
The Enchanted Night: Selected Tales
Title: The Enchanted Night: Selected Tales Writer: Miklós Bánffy (translated by Len Rix) Publishing House: Pushkin Press Date of Publication: May 25th 2021 Rating: 5 stars ‘’There was a horror in the wintry silence, a silence more profound than in any previous winter. It was as if life itself had been somehow diminished; as if…
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