Authors: Bridget Collins, Laura Purcell, Elizabeth Macneal, Imogen Hermes Gowar, Jess Kidd, Natasha Pulley, Kiran Millwood Hargrave, and Andrew Michael HurleyPublished by Sphere, 2021, 293 pages There is something about December that seems to call for ghost stories. So I have picked a collection of eight ghostly tales written by contemporary writers. The stories are …
Continue reading The Haunting Season—Ghostly Tales for Long Winter Nights
Published by One, 2020, 217 pages A girl watches her mother make the perfect peach cobbler every week for her date with the married pastor; a woman writes to her half-sister about whose existence she learns only after their father dies; and two women live together in the cold north, far from their southern roots. …
Continue reading The Secret Lives of Church Ladies: Deesha Philyaw
Translated from Kannada by Deepa BhasthiPublished by Penguin India / And Other Stories, 2025, 216 pages. Original versions of stories first published in 2013 and 2023. A woman whose husband leaves her for another woman is saved by her children; a man who becomes obsessed with a pair of high-heeled shoes forces his wife to …
Published by Quercus, 2013, 296 pages. A maid with a cleft lip dreams about going to India, a daughter tries to understand her father’s problems, a young woman chooses the wrong husband, and a young man gets so worked up about relatives visiting his tiny house that he ends up upsetting everyone around him. These …
Translated from Lithuanian by Marija MarcinkutePublished by Noir Press, 2018, 175 pages. Original version published in 2018. The Last Day is a book of absurdist short stories by a Lithuanian writer. The protagonists, mainly men (with one exception), are victims of circumstance, caught up in strange situations that they cannot control. In the title story, …
Published by Virago, 2006, 496 pages. “...nobody knows better than a ghost how hard it is to put him or her into words shadowy, yet transparent enough...If a ghost story sends a cold shiver down one’s spine, it has done its job and done it well.”—Edith Wharton, quoted in Richard Dalby’s Preface If you’ve been …
Continue reading The Virago Book of Ghost Stories: Edited by Richard Dalby
Published by Penguin, 1963, 239 pages. Stories originally published in 1953 and 1957. “Some kids are cissies by nature but I was a cissy by conviction. Mother had told me about geniuses; I wanted to be one, and I could see for myself that fighting, as well as being sinful, was dangerous.” A child competes …
Continue reading My Oedipus Complex and Other Stories: Frank O’Connor
Translated from Spanish by Isabel AdeyPublished by Charco Press, 2023, 157 pages. Original version published in 2020. A mad aunt threatens to reveal a family secret; a Japanese woman forms a bond with her quiet lodger; and two orphans are taken in by their alcoholic aunt. These short stories by a Bolivian writer are a …
Authors: Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Andrew Michael Hurley, Imogen Hermes Gowar, Natasha Pulley, Elizabeth Macneal, Bridget Collins, Stuart Turton, Jess Kidd, Catriona Ward, Susan Stokes-Chapman, Laura PurcellPublished by Sphere, 2023, 464 pages. Twelve gifts for the twelve days of Christmas as the song goes, but there are no pipers piping, ladies dancing or a …
Continue reading The Winter Spirits—Ghostly Tales for Frosty Nights
Translated from Czech by Rosemary Kavan, Kaca Polackova and George TheinerPublished by Faber & Faber / W. W. Norton & Company, 1973, 288 pages. Original version published in 1966. Meet Lieutenant Boruvka of the Czechoslovak police: a rotund man with baby blue eyes, a tuft of hair on top of his head, and a mournful …
Continue reading The Mournful Demeanour of Lieutenant Boruvka: Josef Skvorecky
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