Short stories
An ill wind: Poppyland, by D.J. Taylor, reviewed
Norfolk life looks quietly bleak in these carefully worked short stories of broken homes, precarious employment, dwindling expectations and torpor
Private battles: Twelve Post-War Tales, by Graham Swift, reviewed
The latest short stories focus on everyday traumas: ageing, PTSD in a former soldier, and the loss of a parent, spouse or grandchild
Marriage, motherhood and money: Show Don’t Tell, by Curtis Sittenfeld, reviewed
Funny, smart stories explore the ‘stale’ married state, the anxieties of parenthood and the sweet-sour nature of female friendship. But do they go far enough?
Escape into fantasy: Stories of Ireland, by Brian Friel, reviewed
Friel’s tightly knit rural communities like to cling to illusions, whether it’s belief in sunken gold in the bay or in the continual prosperity of impoverished gentry
Visionary tales: Mrs Calder and the Hyena, by Marjorie Ann Watts, reviewed
Sharply drawn characters, young and old, gleefully challenge conventional judgments and form liberating new friendships in this exhilarating collection of short stories
Menacing masterpieces: Voices of the Fallen Heroes and Other Stories, by Yukio Mishima
Of the collection’s 14 mesmerising tales, two in particular stand out: a hallucination of nuclear apocalypse and a requiem for Japan’s war dead
Modern-day ghosts: Haunted Tales, by Adam Macqueen, reviewed
Dark, unsettling stories set mostly in the world of social media and panic rooms are, strikingly, as much about love as death – and how love is stronger
Not for the faint-hearted: She’s Always Hungry, by Eliza Clark, reviewed
An unsettling collection of stories loosely connected by the theme of hunger contains graphic descriptions of violence and cannibalism – as the publishers see fit to warn us
More curious canine incidents: Dogs and Monsters, by Mark Haddon, reviewed
Mesmerising accounts of dogs feature in these latest stories, including Actaeon’s tragic hounds, St Antony’s comforting mutt and Laika, the husky hurled into space
Tales with a twist: Safe Enough and Other Stories, by Lee Child, reviewed
Child has fun with the short story form, shooting from the hip. Sometimes the bad get their comeuppance, sometimes they don’t – but the good are rarely rewarded or even recognised
Small mercies: Dead-End Memories, by Banana Yoshimoto, reviewed
Rape, poisoning, child abuse and betrayal feature in Yoshimoto’s dramatic stories – but gratitude and forgiveness run alongside sadness, stitched in the same cloth
An insight into the American Dream: Table for Two, by Amor Towles, reviewed
Recent short stories and a novella all feature protagonists in pursuit of an ambition that puts them in varying degrees of peril
The wry humour of Franz Kafka
A masterly new translation of his Diaries reminds us that Kafka wasn’t solely the prophet of a century of dehumanisation
Exploring the glorious literary heritage of Bengal
Bengalis are renowned for their love of discussion and argument, and a new collection of short stories reflects this passion for cultured conversation
Grotesque vignettes: The Body in the Mobile Library and Other Stories, by Peter Bradshaw, reviewed
Relishing the outrageous and improbable, Bradshaw treats us to stories that often rely more on twist than plot
Caught in a Venus flytrap: Red Pyramid, by Vladimir Sorokin, reviewed
Sorokin’s satirical stories are not for the fainthearted, but there are few more dedicated critics of Russia's infinite bureaucracy writing fiction today
The skull beneath the skin: Ghost Pains, by Jessi Jezewska Stevens, reviewed
Pain lurks below the surface of these sardonic short stories. Happiness is fleeting, and ‘we carry death within us like a stone within a fruit’, one narrator observes
Everyday life in the Eternal City: Roman Stories, by Jhumpa Lahiri, reviewed
Each story circles around events both big and small, such as lunch at a simple trattoria, a birthday party, a summer holiday or the funeral of a friend
Magic tricks
Five short stories with male narrators – including a seahorse and a vampire – revolve around masculinity’s contradictory demands and the wish to belong
Tales of the Midwest: The Collected Works of Jo Ann Beard, reviewed
Violence and death are balanced by hard-won, transcendent joy in Beard’s remarkable stories that merge fiction and memoir
Adventures in Greeneland
In skilfully told stories involving luck and changes of fortune, Osborne suggests that it’s not the hand you’re dealt that matters, but how you play it
Bizarre miniatures
With flying narrators and women whose hair drags on the floor, there’s something of Leonora Carrington’s weird visions about Williams’s short stories
Private obsessions
A world of private fetishes, obsessions, childhood memories and literary passions is dazzlingly revealed in 13 short stories
A born storyteller
Instead of swashbuckling, we get the Parisian art world, trout-fishing, unhappy couples and surrogate parenting – though the 20 stories for children are full of adventure
The inner world of others
As ever in her short stories, Hadley uses the smallest details – of dress, food and decor – to masterfully convey class, character and the inner world of others
