Short stories - David Constantine and Carys Davies

A lot of people who come in to the shop won't buy short stories. I am not sure why this is. Perhaps they were forced to study them at school. Perhaps the feeling is that they are shorter so not as satisfying as novels.

On Monday 2nd February at 7pm we have two of the finest short story writers in the country coming to read from their work here - so do come to their talk and prepare to be converted!

A good short story distracts and disturbs, and the stories in Carys Davies's The Redemption of Galen Pike are the best short stories I have come across in some time. The book is so slender and many of the stories are so short it is scarcely credible they should have the impact and resonance that they do. 

        

David Constantine's collection Tea at the Midland won the 2013 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. As he says, 'The best short stories feel as though they've been scooped out of the flux of life' - his own collection is a wonderful example of this: 

'... a superb collection of stories: Constantine's writing is rare today, unafraid to be rich and allusive and unashamedly moving' - the Independent.