The nation's favourite annual guide to the short story, now in its ninth year.Best British Short Stories invites you to judge a book by its cover – or more accurately, by its title. This new series aims to reprint the best short stories published in the previous calendar year by British writers, whether based in the UK or elsewhere. The editor's brief is wide ranging, covering anthologies, collections, magazines, newspapers and web sites, looking for the b...

Comedian Jack Dee's hilarious account of how he became quite such a miserable git and a stand up comedian.'A brilliant book. So funny. It's my bible' Paul O'GradyIn this hilariously frank account of his life, Jack Dee finally reveals what turned a once optimistic young man into this grumpy middle-aged git. It's a journey that takes him from a first gig as a ventriloquist's dummy, to working in an artificial leg factory and...

**Household gizmos with a mind of their own.Constant cold calls from unknown numbers.And the creeping suspicion that none of this is real.**Reality, and Other Stories is a gathering of deliciously chilling entertainments - stories to be read as the evenings draw in and the days are haunted by all the ghastly schlock, uncanny technologies and absurd horrors of modern life.

Polite, pensive, mature, reserved ...Charlie Brooker is none of these things and less. Picking up where his hilarious Screen Burn left off, Dawn of the Dumb collects the best of Charlie Brooker's recent TV writing, together with uproarious spleen-venting diatribes on a range of non-televisual subjects - tackling everything from David Cameron to human hair.Rude, unhinged, outrageous, and above all funny, Dawn of the Dumb is essential reading for anyone wit...

*Includes the winner of the 2021 BBC National Short Story Award*'Outstanding.' Guardian'Eleven perfect stories.' Irish Independent'Glorious.' The Times'My FAVE collection ever.' Pandora SykesIn eleven stories, Intimacies exquisitely charts the steps and missteps of young women trying to find their place in the world. From a Belfast student ordering illegal drugs online to end an unwan...

"Hilary Mantel and Helen Simpson feature in the nation's favourite annual guide to the short story, now in its fifth year …"Best British Short Stories invites you to judge a book by its cover – or more accurately, by its title. This new series aims to reprint the best short stories published in the previous calendar year by British writers, whether based in the UK or elsewhere. The editor's brief is wide ranging, covering anthologies, collections, magazine...

⭐ Out now: The Land in Winter, shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2025 ⭐ The Slowworm's Song: a tender tale of guilt, a search for atonement and the hard, uncertain work of loving'Sublime'Independent'Masterful'Sunday Times'Beautiful'SpectatorAn ex-soldier and recovering alcoholic living quietly in Somerset, Stephen Rose has just begun to ...

The nation's favourite annual guide to the short story, now in its seventh year.Best British Short Stories invites you to judge a book by its cover – or more accurately, by its title. This critically acclaimed series aims to reprint the best short stories published in the previous calendar year by British writers, whether based in the UK or elsewhere. The editor's brief is wide ranging, covering anthologies, collections, magazines, newspapers and web sites, looking...

The nation's favourite annual guide to the short story, now in its sixth year.Best British Short Stories invites you to judge a book by its cover – or more accurately, by its title. This new series aims to reprint the best short stories published in the previous calendar year by British writers, whether based in the UK or elsewhere. The editor's brief is wide ranging, covering anthologies, collections, magazines, newspapers and web sites, looking for the b...

The History of Us is a beautiful exploration of love and obsession, based on the stories of a group of friends growing up in Norfolk and told in reflection focused on the incredibly close but conversely fractious relationship of the two central characters. Told in three parts, The History of Us, explores the relationships between the two and a close friend, bonded by love, but also by a single tragic moment in their shared lives. As the book unfolds, we hear many whispers, which shift our ...

Dropout Neville Lister accompanies acclaimed photographer Saul Auerbach for a day, to learn a lesson for life. They play a game: from a hill above Johannesburg they pick three houses and decide to knock on their doors in search of a story. Auerbach's images of the first two will become classic portraits, but soon the light fades. Lister only reaches the third house decades later, returning to post-apartheid South Africa and a Johannesburg altered almost beyond recognition. How to live when...

Featuring:Sarah Hall, Lucy Wood, Lisa Blower, Lavinia Greenlaw and Lionel Shriver.Edgar Allan Poe once claimed the greatest literary works were those that could be read ’in one sitting’. ‘Brevity must be in direct ratio of the intensity of the intended effect,’ he argued, once the effect has been established, of course.The stories shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award 2013 all use brevity with striking results, whether presenting a comp...