Balancing On The Edge Of The World

by Elizabeth Baines

Balancing on the edge of the world by Elizabeth Baines is an intense collection of short stories, each on the theme of power – finding it, keeping it and losing it.

Baines’ characterisations are particularly vivid, ranging from comic to tragic but always retaining their believability. I laughed out loud in places but was incredibly moved and sometimes frustrated in others. The collection plays with different voices and points of view, keeping your attention from story to story, and I could clearly see the influence of Baines’ dramatic work for radio and stage.

The collection of 14 stories covers a lot of ground, from magic to metaphysics, while looking at “cool hard edges” and “the pain that had caused them”. My favourite pieces are Daniel Smith Disappears Off the Face of the Earth which contrasts one life-altering moment in the life of a teenage boy with “all the times and places in the history of the world” and Power, the haunting story of a young girl listening to her parent’s relationship fall apart.

This is Baines’ first collection and it is not an easy read. Each story demands concentration from the reader but, in return, delivers an appropriately powerful experience.

Reviewed by Claire Marriott

Women Aloud

By various authors – for short story week


A charity anthology audiobook for National Short Story Week 2011 NOW AVAILABLE ON CD!


'Women Aloud' is an audio anthology of short stories written by eleven of the UK's best loved women's fiction writers.

There's something for everyone in this unique audiobook - love, laughter, thrills and chills. It will make a great gift for a friend, mum, sister, grandmother, aunt, girlfriend, wife, partner or...yourself!

Listen to stories by Trisha Ashley, Judy Astley, Elizabeth Chadwick, Rowan Coleman, Katie Fforde, Milly Johnson, Catherine King, Sophie King, Carole Matthews, Sue Moorcroft and Allie Spencer.

I’m really excited to be able to review a short story collection for Bookersatz. This one is particularly unusual since it is an audiobook, and I think it’s the first time I’ve listened to a selection of short stories rather than reading them.

There is a great balance of stories in this anthology, plenty of emotion, but plenty of humour as well. ‘A Woman Of Good Taste’ by Milly Johnson and ‘At Your Convenience’ by Sophie King were both highly amusing – the humour delivered perfectly by the chosen narrators.

The collection is also full of compassion, and I found many of the stories very moving. Sue Moorcroft’s ‘Crossing To The Other Line’ is thoughtful and touching, and Rowan Coleman’s ‘In Real Life’ is full of yearning and indecision.

From the life-affirming ‘Fox Sleeping’ by Judy Astley to the romance of ‘The One’ by Katie Fforde there is something for everyone in this collection. And if you like your stories a bit spooky and sinister, then ‘The Garden’ by Catherine King fits that bill very nicely.

Everything about this double CD, from the selection of the stories to the performances of the narrators, is fantastic. I’m now sold on the idea of audiobooks – listen while you drive, while you potter in the kitchen or just sit with your feet up! The short story form works really well in this format and I recommend this collection as a delightful listening experience.


Reviewed by Helen M Hunt

You can find out more about National Short Story Week here, and you can read an interview with Rowan Coleman about the project on my main blog Fiction Is Stranger Than Fact.

Proceeds from the CD go to the Helena Kennedy Foundation

Some New Ambush

by Carys Davies

'Some New Ambush' is an extraordinary collection of short stories from award-winning writer Carys Davies.

Ranging in length from two to twelve pages, her stories take us on a tour of the emotions: humour, disappointment, joy, love, resentment, revenge and utter, heart-wrenching sadness.

Featured on the shortlist for several prestigious prizes, this is Davies’ debut collection and it reveals her as an imaginative and playful talent. Sometimes the stories build slowly to their climax and sometimes they turn on a dime, but each is a beautiful depiction of a world – be it real or really fantastic – and the lives, dreams and frailties of the people living within it.

My favourites include a story of marriage and friendship in modern day Chicago, a portrait of a woman’s love for her dog and a beautiful vignette about whalers in the early twentieth century. Each is written in delicious yet sparing prose that encourages the reader to savour the story slowly, like a sweet treat or a savoury canapé. I found myself sitting on station platforms to finish a piece before catching my next train and some of the stories lived with me for days, demanding that I pause before reading on.

It’s been a while since I read any short stories but this collection has really reignited my love for the form and I recommend it highly.

Reviewed by Claire Marriott who blogs as Bucks Writer

'Some New Ambush' is published by Salt. You can find their website here.

Being Normal

By Stephen Shieber


Firstly, I’d like to say what a pleasure it is to be able to review another collection of short stories for bookersatz.

Being Normal is a great affirmation that short story writing is alive and well! In this volume, Stephen Shieber has given us a diverse selection of stories that evoke every emotion going.

I love the way he can change key so effortlessly, both from story to story and within stories. ‘Happy Birthday, Son’ starts out in light-hearted tone (and incidentally had me feeling a little like Stephen had been eavesdropping on my life!), but by the end it had moved me to tears.

There are some unforgettable characters in these pages. I particularly liked Midge in ‘Suburbia’. ‘Harry’s always telling her not to believe that she’s the centre of attention. But it’s hard. She can only see herself, feel herself.’

It’s difficult with a collection like this to pick out favourites; they work so well as a whole. I did particularly like ‘A Little of What You Need’ though. The premise was so intriguing and the way the story unfolded was hugely satisfying.

Throughout all the stories, the writing is inspired. Excellent imagery and great use of language give the tales a sense of immediacy and reality that stays with the reader long after the story is finished.

Stephen has tackled some uncomfortable and challenging topics in this collection. And he’s done it with wit, elegance and insight. If you’re a fan of the short story form – and even if you’re not – I can highly recommend this book.

I look forward to reading further work by Stephen in the future.

Reviewed by Helen M Hunt

Not the End of the World

by Kate Atkinson


Kate Atkinson has entitled this collection of short stories ‘Not the End of the World’. It is ironic then, that in the first story in this collection it evidently is the end of the world.

‘Charlene and Trudi Go Shopping’ is a story which makes full use of Atkinson’s deeply sensual and evocative language. It is full of visions, tastes, and sounds which explode onto the page and echo the bombs and sirens that are hidden behind the vivid tapestry that she has woven.

Like every good collection of short stories, this book has contrasting light and shade: from the deep sadness of ‘Tunnel of Fish’ to the rage of ‘Dissonance’ via the intrigue of ‘Transparent Fiction’.

One of my favourites in this collection is ‘Sheer Big Waste Of Love’. In this story we get to hear about the experiences of Addison, whose family give a whole new meaning to the word dysfunctional. In Addison, the author has created a subtly sympathetic character that we see through his own eyes as both child and adult.

Atkinson is arguably at her best in ‘The Cat Lover’, a truly astonishing tale with a startling premise and an ending that is both shocking and inevitable. This story also shows her at the height of her descriptive powers as she creates a world with elements of the real and the normal counterpointed with fantasy. She has also created some of her most beautiful imagery. ‘The queen of the north country visited the city … ice-crystals trembled like diamonds on her furs and when she shook out her cloak she left a storm of snowflakes in her wake.’

My only reservation about this volume is that the worlds that Kate Atkinson creates in her fiction can be so complex that they really need a whole novel in which to be explored. Some of them seem to burst the seams of the format of the short story. Anything that promotes the cause of the short story has to be a good thing though, and here we have a master of the art of fiction showing how it should be done.

reviewed by Helen M Hunt

Extra(ordinary) People

by Joanna Russ

For someone who is not a huge fan of science fiction, I have been reading a fair bit recently. Rather, I have been revisiting old favourites. And Joanna Russ’s work certainly comes into the category of favourites – of any genre. In fact, as far as I’m concerned she is one of the best writers I’ve ever read.

Her work is intelligent without relying on obscurity or cleverness; she writes with passion and clarity; tackles difficult subjects with ease, wit, and humour (which isn’t always the same thing); and has done more to stretch the boundaries of her chosen genre than most other writers.

Extra(ordinary) People is more than a collection of short works without quite being a novel. This, in itself, makes for an interesting and vibrant format where themes can be explored from different angles without creating the false or awkward situations that might be necessary in a single piece. These themes and ideas are carried forward in a way that unifies the pieces, even though they are outwardly disparate.

As well as the themes that are explored (of which more in a moment); there is a common underlying viewpoint that binds the stories.

A lesser writer would, perhaps, have made something of this structure, creating and peopling an elaborate back story, yet Russ has allowed the stories to do that through the voice of the central character(s). A sense of alien presence, of otherness, is conveyed through what is highlighted as absurd in humanity.

The stories in the book are about communication and about understanding what it is to be human, especially for one half of the human race. And this is why I have left the themes of this book until now. Russ is a feminist. And already I can hear the sound of hordes of sci-fi fans (and others) walking away. Which is strange and saddening. Yet it is no rare thing for sci-fi apologists to expound its ground breaking qualities whilst accepting books that are misogynistic, militaristic, or at best paternalistic without batting an eyelid or bruising their delicate consciences. Make one mention of the position of women in a future or alternative world and we are told this cannot be real sci-fi (unless of course the women in question are young, blonde, pneumatic and wearing skin tight space suits). The same holds for fantasy.

Yet some of the very best sci-fi and some of the very best fantasy has been and will continue to be written by, for, and about women. And long may it continue. I don’t want a literature that excludes half the planet’s population, or treats its members like a housewife in a fifties sitcom. That is degrading and downright unrealistic.

Russ examines the place and experience of women in the world. This world. Other worlds. She stands assumptions on their heads. She explores possibilities. She even discusses the nature of fiction. And she does it as part of a long and grand tradition of women writers in the genre. Yet it is not polemic. That makes for bad fiction. And if there is one thing that is certain, it is that Joanna Russ writes good fiction – extraordinary fiction.

reviewed by Graeme K. Talboys