Video Verite is a selection of short stories that explores our connection to the media. Our lives are filled with images, but not all of them are real. In a culture overrun with advertising, reality shows and celebrities famous for getting their faces on tv, how do we know what is truth and what is fiction? William Petrick’s stories touch… Read more
The premise behind The Dark End of the Street is simple: When we proposed this book to writers from both banks of the stream dividing crime writing and literary writing, we thought we had a particularly alluring idea. Write your heart out on the twin subjects of sex and crime. Define each however you want, take any approach you like.… Read more
I love after-the-apocalypse stories. I always have. As a kid, I was always planning for what I would do after the zombies attacked, after the nuclear warheads fell and it was just me and a rag-tag band of survivors. There is something appealing about the start of a whole new world order, a chance to find a different place for… Read more
According to his bio, “Mathias B. Freese brings the weight of his twenty-five years of experience as a clinical social worker and psychotherapist into play as he demonstrates a vivid understand of – and compassion toward – the deviant and the damaged.” I’ve read since that he wrote about half of these stories before he began his career, but the… Read more
When Georgia Post says short stories, she means it. None of the 25 stories in this volume are more than about 2 pages long. They are all on the same theme: marriage or the lack thereof. There are wives who want to hang on to their husbands, husbands cheating on their wives, widows who want desperately to be remarried and… Read more
I’ve been reading a lot of short story collections lately, not my usual fare, but short stories are a good way to get a sense of a writer, seeing how he or she handles a number of different plotlines, looking at the way stories develop, the way characters are presented and the patterns that emerge over the course of the… Read more
This is the second book of short stories I have reviewed recently, and certainly the one I enjoyed the most. This is Sana Krasikov’s first effort, and while it has its problems, it is a very promising beginning. Krasikov is a Russian writer and this collection of short stories is all about immigrants and their families and struggles. Some are… Read more
I often get book recommendations from friends – we all do, I suppose. You generally know whose taste in books is in line with your own and you sort the recs out that way. In the case of Haruki Murakami, my reading friends are at different ends of the spectrum. On the one hand, a friend with excellent taste (but… Read more
In the introduction to this book, Christopher Golden says of the author: Joe Hill is one stealthy bastard. Indeed he is. This is a nice assortment of stories – some obviously horror, some strange and disturbing, some rather sweet. The title piece read more like a love story than a ghost story. “Best New Horror” makes me think a bit… Read more