A Personal Anthology: 12 stories for the classroom
On my selection of 12 short stories for Jonathan Gibbs’s ‘A Personal Anthology’
Read MoreWilliam Trevor: 'The Piano Tuner's Wives'
An analysis of William Trevor’s short story, ‘The Piano Tuner’s Wives’, a masterpiece of fiction.
Read MoreClaire Keegan's 'So Late in the Day'
Claire Keegan’s 2022 short story ‘So Late in the Day’ is further evidence of her excellence, and George Saunders talks about it brilliantly.
Read MoreBernard MacLaverty's 'Blank Pages'
In his late 70s, Bernard MacLaverty has given us a marvellous collection of short stories of the highest quality, in the ironically-titled Blank Pages.
Read MoreToni Morrison's 'Recitatif'
Toni Morrison only published one short story, ‘Recitatif’. It is now published for the first time in book form, with a brilliant introductory essay by Zadie Smith.
Read More'Zikora' by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s short story ‘Zikora’, published by Amazon Kindle in October 2020, is a pleasure.
Read MoreDaughters of the Late Colonel
Katherine Mansfield’s brilliant short story ‘Daughters of the Late Colonel’ is distinguished by a lightness of touch, as she lets us into the minds of two sisters whose hectoring father has just died.
Read MoreA Manual For Cleaning Women
Lucia Berlin’s title story for her collection A Manual for Cleaning Women is funny, painful, sharp, observant: just marvellous.
Read MoreA Swim in a Pond in the Rain
George Saunders has written a superb book presenting and then commenting on seven great stories by the Russian masters. It is marvellous.
Read MoreCat in the Rain
An exercise for English class suggested by George Saunders in his marvellous book A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: divide Hemingway’s story ‘Cat in the Rain’ into 6 equal parts, handing them out one at a time, and examining the ‘escalations’ of the story.
Read MoreWhy the Moon Travels
Oein DeBhairduin’s collection Why the Moon Travels is a trove of fresh stories and reflections from a tradition hardly present in Irish literature so far.
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