Recommended short story collections
The last three months has seen an exciting array of short stories and anthologies ranging from some beloved long-time authors to those making their debut. Here is a selection of recent favourites that we hope you'll enjoy.
Normal Rules Don't Apply by Kate Atkinson
One of the world's great storytellers, and bestselling author of Shrines of Gaiety and Life After Life, conjures a captivating new book. In this first full collection since Not the End of the World, we meet a queen who makes a bargain she cannot keep; a secretary who watches over the life she has just left; and a man whose luck changes when a horse speaks to him.
Witty and wise, with subtle connections between the stories, Normal Rules Don't Apply is a startling, and funny feast for the imagination. In Kate Atkinson's world nothing is over until ' the talking dog speaks.'
Firelight: Stories by John Morrissey
An imprisoned man with strange visions writes letters to his sister. A controversial business tycoon leaves his daughter a mysterious inheritance. A child is haunted by a green man with a message about the origins of their planet.
In this striking collection of stories, the award-winning John Morrissey investigates colonialism and identity without ever losing sight of his characters' humanity. Brilliantly imagined and masterfully observed, Firelight marks the debut of a writer we will be reading for decades to come.
Wednesday's Child by Yiyun Li
A dazzling new collection of short stories written over a decade, spanning loss, alienation, aging and the strangeness of contemporary life - from Yiyun Li, the prize-winning author of The Book of Goose.
A grieving mother makes a spreadsheet of everyone she's lost. A professor develops a troubled intimacy with her hairdresser. And every year, a restless woman receives an email from a strange man twice her age and several states away. In Yiyun Li's stories, people strive for an ordinary existence until doing so becomes unsustainable, until the surface cracks and grand mysterious forces - death, violence, estrangement - come to light. And even everyday life is laden with meaning, studded with indelible details: a filched jar of honey, a mound of wounded ants, a photograph kept hidden for many years, until it must be seen.
Marple: Twelve New Stories by Agatha Christie
This collection of twelve original short stories, all featuring Jane Marple, will introduce the character to a whole new generation. Each author reimagines Agatha Christie’s Marple through their own unique perspective while staying true to the hallmarks of a traditional mystery.
Contributing authors are: Naomi Alderman, Leigh Bardugo, Alyssa Cole, Lucy Foley, Elly Griffiths, Natalie Haynes, Jean Kwok, Val McDermid, Karen M. McManus, Dreda Say Mitchell, Kate Mosse, Ruth Ware.
The Angel of Rome by Jess Walter
In this dazzling collection of stories, a son must repeatedly come out to his senile father while looking for a place that will care for the old man. An elderly couple confronts the note-taking fiction writer eavesdropping on their conversation. A famous actor in recovery has a one-night stand with the world’s most surprising film critic. And in the beautifully romantic title story, a shy twenty-one-year-old studying Latin in Rome during the year of my reinvention finds himself face-to-face with the gorgeous Italian actress of his adolescent dreams.
Funny, poignant, and redemptive, this collection takes the reader to Italy and Idaho, Washington and Mississippi. With his signature wit and bighearted approach to the darkest parts of humanity, Walter tackles the modern condition with a timeless touch.
New Australian Fiction 2023 edited by Suzy Garcia
A new collection of short fiction from Kill Your Darlings.
An opera singer loses her voice. Sex releases memories. A lake monster captures a town's attention. Two young men take their vapes and big ambitions and go On the Road.
New Australian Fiction showcases the strength and diversity of Australian short fiction at its best. Now in its fifth year, these stories will move, entertain and enlighten you.
After the Funeral by Tessa Hadley
In each of the twelve stories in After the Funeral, small events have huge consequences. Heloise's father died in a car crash when she was a little girl; at a dinner party in her forties, she meets someone connected to that long-ago tragedy. Two estranged sisters cross paths at a posh hotel and pretend not to recognise each other. Janey's bohemian mother plans to marry a man close to Janey's own age - everything changes when an accident interrupts the wedding party. Teenager Cecilia wakes one morning on vacation with her parents in Florence and sees them for the first time through disenchanted eyes.
As psychologically astute as they are emotionally rich, these stories illuminate the enduring conflicts between responsibility and freedom, power and desire, convention and subversion, reality and dreams.
White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link
Finding seeds of inspiration in the Brothers Grimm, seventeenth-century French lore, and Scottish ballads, Kelly Link spins classic fairy tales into utterly original stories of seekers - characters on the hunt for love, connection, revenge, or their own sense of purpose.
In 'The White Cat's Divorce', an aging billionaire sends his three sons on a series of absurd goose chases to decide which will become his heir. In 'The Girl Who Did Not Know Fear', a professor with a delicate health condition becomes stranded for days in an airport hotel after a conference, desperate to get home to her wife and young daughter, and in acute danger of being late for an appointment that cannot be missed. In 'Skinder's Veil', a young man agrees to take over a remote house-sitting gig for a friend which becomes a wildly unexpected journey.
What You Are Looking for is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama & Alison Watts (trans.)
What are you looking for? So asks Tokyo's most enigmatic librarian, Sayuri Komachi. She is no ordinary librarian. Naturally, she has read every book on her shelf, but she also has the unique ability to read the souls of anyone who walks through her door. Sensing exactly what they're looking for in life, she provides just the book recommendation they never knew they needed to help them find it.
Every borrower in her library is at a different crossroads, from the restless retail assistant – can she ever get out of a dead-end job? – to the juggling new mother who dreams of becoming a magazine editor, and the meticulous accountant who yearns to own an antique store. The surprise book Komachi lends to each will change their lives for ever.
Also worth mentioning is The Penguin Book of Korean Short Stories edited by Bruce Fulton: capturing one hundred years of Korea’s vibrant short-story tradition it is an eclectic, moving and wonderfully enjoyable collection. An essential introduction to Korean literature. As well as Dear Chrysanthemums by Fiona Sze-Lorrain: a novel of several interconnected stories each taking place in a year ending with the number six. An evocative and disturbing portrait of diasporic life, the shared story of uprooting, resilience, artistic expression, and enduring love.
