Friday, March 04, 2011

Get Shorty

The Booktrust has provided a well-chosen list of contemporary British short story collections, which shows a healthy appetite for the best books, rather than necessarily the biggest names, with smaller presses Salt, Peepal, Social Disease and Comma all represented. Not much to add to a list that I can heartily recommend - I've several of the books on it, and have earlier excellent collections by Lasdun and Kennedy.

Tomorrow is World Book Day, which is all well and good, and there will be lots of literary events around. Oxfam in Didsbury is handing out a C.J. Sansom medieval mystery and Carol Ann Duffy's "The World's Wife", from about 5pm, but arrive earlier and you'll be able to browse their extensive secondhand collection.

Literary folks should no more be peeved by the mainstream focus of tomorrow's bookfest than racing types should be sniffy about the Grand National. It's not really aimed at us, after all round these parts, every day is World Book Day.

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