Chris Somerville
Chris Somerville is a former member of the Readings online team. He is the author of a short-story collection, We Are Not The Same Anymore.
Review — 27 Jan 2015
The First Bad Man by Miranda July
Miranda July’s first book, No One Belongs Here More Than You, was a collection of short stories that, while not linked in the traditional ways through character or plot…
Review — 27 Jul 2015
An Astronaut’s Life by Sonja Dechian
The settings in An Astronaut’s Life, Sonja Dechian’s debut collection of short stories, are planted both within the familiar and outlandish. The opener ‘After Francis Crick’ works not only…
Review — 23 Jun 2015
Six Bedrooms by Tegan Bennett Daylight
The stories in Tegan Bennett Daylight’s Six Bedrooms, her fourth book, are mostly focused on the highs and lows of teendom, and the awkwardness from this that never really…
Review — 26 Oct 2014
Let Me be Frank with You by Richard Ford
One of Richard Ford’s greatest gifts to modern literature is Frank Bascombe. Frank’s dryly humorous voice first appeared in The Sportswriter, which is widely regarded as Ford’s breakthrough novel…
Review — 23 Feb 2015
The Ash Burner by Kári Gíslason
The Ash Burner is Kári Gíslason’s first novel. Midway through the book, a character, on the eve of his departure from his hometown, insists that his best friend Ted write…
Blog post — 17 Dec 2014
Six Australian short-story collections that made an impression on me this year
For a long time, even before I’d written a book but told people, misguidedly, that I was working on a collection of short stories, the response I received would usually…
Review — 24 Aug 2014
Trilobites and Other Stories by Breece D’J Pancake
It’s inevitable that when reading Trilobites, the collected short stories of Breece D’J Pancake, that we come to consider the backstory of the author. This slim volume was pulled…
Review — 25 Jun 2014
Bobcat and Other Stories by Rebecca Lee
Midway through ‘World Party’, one of the seven stories that make up Rebecca Lee’s debut collection, Bobcat and Other Stories, the narrator describes a fellow lecturer from her university…
Blog post — 7 May 2014
What I Loved: Americana by Don DeLillo
Here is how I ended up with a copy of Americana: I was 17 and it was lent to me by a neighbour, a professor at the university my…
Review — 22 Apr 2014
Life Drawing by Robin Black
When Robin Black’s collection of stories, If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This, was published in 2010, she had been a teacher of fiction and was in…