Category: Me and My Big Mouth

Tiny Wife, Huge Triumph

I was lucky enough to get my hands on a proof copy of Andrew Kaufman’s ‘The Tiny Wife‘ a little while ago. And folks, let me tell you, it is absolutely brilliant.

A man robs a bank. But instead of making off with bags of cash he takes one thing from each of the customers there: one thing which holds the most sentimental value.

The bugger gets away with it and disappears with his swag.

And then odd things start to happen to the folks he’s stolen from. A woman’s lion tattoo becomes an actual lion and chases her all over town. Another lady wakes up to find that she’s made of candy. And, amongst others, a man’s wife discovers she’s shrinking. Those who’ve read Not So Perfect, or are fans of Aimee Bender or Etgar Keret or Michael Czyzniejewski, will not be surprised that I like it. But I don’t just like it – or to be more accurate, LOVE it – for its imagination. It’s, in my humble opinion, the perfect modern fable. It’s about love, it’s about life, it’s about problems and it’s about seeing the bigger picture. It’s about people. It’s brilliant. It’s told with delightful imagination and it’s exactly the right size.

A lot’s made of word count these days (your book HAS to be this length or that length, blah blah blah) and, again in my humble, word count doesn’t really matter all that much – what matters is that the words count. Stories are as long as they are. And as I say, this story’s wonderful. As are the illustrations that accompany it. AND, it’s going to be released as a gorgeous hardback. Seriously, what’s not to love?

It’s out on September 1st and it’s published by the magnificent The Friday Project.

Pre-order from Amazon here.

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And talking of ‘Not So Perfect’ I was rather happy to read this yesterday.

This is a Good Idea

There was a period last year when, for various reasons, I kind of fell out of love with short stories. I think mostly, that I’d been thinking about them so much over the past few years that I needed to take a break from them.

Anyhoo – the love has returned. Which is lucky cos short stories is what I do, yannow?

And seeing good people like this doing things like this makes me happy. It’s good to champion good things and, from what I can tell from the list, the books on there are very good indeed. So, go have a look at Him and His Short Stories. Please.

Not So Perfect is Published

It’s publication day for Not So Perfect. Hooray and hurrah!

I’m over at Scott Pack’s blog (again) today, where I’ve described, as best as I can, each of the stories in Not So Perfect in no more than six words.

It was a challenge. Again, big thanks to Scott for having me.

A huge thanks to everyone who’s pre-ordered or read the book already, and a really huge thanks to all who’ve taken the time to blog about it, review it or post something on amazon about it. It really does make a difference. So, if you read it and you like it, could you spread the word? Only if you feel you can, of course. (I know I sound a horrible asking that, but it really does help!)

And if you’d like to get yourself a copy, you can do from all good book shops. You can buy direct from my publisher, the wonderful Roast Books, from Amazon, from the Big Green Book Shop, or from The Book Depository (free international shipping)- as well as all the others.

Thanks everyone, so much.

Tomorrow I launch it. Wish me luck!

It’s Good To be Got

Really, really thrilled with what Scott Pack had to say about Not So Perfect today.

I am an admirer of his. I very much like what he’s doing at The Friday Project (Harper Collins); he publishes my good friend and phenomenal talent, Caroline Smailes; his blog’s brilliant, and through said blog he’s introduced me to some utterly corking books, including Dear Everybody by Michael Kimball, The Littlest Hitler by Ryan Boudinot and Thirteen, by Sebastian Beaumont. And, like me, he’s a Sarah Salway fan.

Yes. He knows his onions. And seems to have similar tastes to me. So I was very much hoping he’d like my book.

And he did. Thank god.

As well as saying that Not So Perfect is ‘a bit special’, he said ‘I was reminded of Rhodes and Hempel while reading these stories, which are easily their equal, as well as occasional glimpses of Murakami, but I mostly kept thinking back to Sarah Salway. Salway is probably the best short story writer in the UK at the moment and she had better watch out because Perring is (albeit very politely, I am sure) on her tail.‘ 

which is just thrilling. I’m a huge Amy Hempel fan and I love Sarah Salway’s work. And to be mentioned in the same sentence as Murakami (who I really, really need to read, don’t I?) and Dan Rhodes is a real honour. And wholly unexpected.

Thank you, Scott.

(Full review here.)

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I’m also over at fellow short story writer and good friend, Tania Hershman’s blog today, playing word association (which was loads of fun) and answering a question, possibly quite grumpily. I am very happy to hear her cat’s on the mend. Fingers crossed that continues.

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It’s also day 5 of RobAroundBooks’ Flash Clash. I’m against Etgar Keret’s Uterus today, among others.

That’s it for now, I think.

Oh, other than to say that Not So Perfect’s published tomorrow. Yikes.

I Love This Book

If you’re on Twitter, as well as looking me up (@nikperring) you may also want to have a nosy at #ilovethisbook which has had a bit of a revamp today, courtesy of Scott Pack (@meandmybigmouth) – it came about a couple of weeks ago when I was wondering which books I loved enough to recommend to pretty much anyone. There are quite a few, it turns out. And now there are a fair few others posting the books that they love enough to recommend to other people. So, I’d strongly suggest getting yourselves over there and getting involved. It’s all good. I’ve ordered three or four already – some of which I’d never heard of.
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And talking of books I love, Monday coming sees an interview here with A.C. Tillyer, author of An A-Z of Possible Worlds. 
And let me tell you, it is something special. It’s a collection of short stories, each about a possible world (ones where golfers are robots, or your fellow commuters might well be hunting you, or a whole country that’s a great big labyrinth…) each bound separately and presented beautifully in a claret box.
It looks fantastic. It feels fantastic. And the stories are every bit as good as the package promises.
And it would make the perfect Christmas gift for any book lover, and is published by the Roast Books, the same people who published L. Schick’s Lizard, which I also loved.


I’ve stood P Is For Peep Show up because it’s my favourite in there. Actually, it’s one of the best short stories I’ve read.

You know what to do.

Which Books Do You Love?

I’m a writer, so books are important to me. I know, that’s pretty darned obvious. But where I find out about ones I might like to read is something I’ve been thinking about of late.

There’s The Short Review, which is always excellent (the new issue’s out now).
There’s word of mouth and recommendations from friends. I bought Elephants in Our Bedroom on the Twitter recommendation of Dave Clapper (ed of the utterly brilliant Smokelong Quarterly) and recommended, by response, Etgar Keret’s work. (I’ll review Elephants in our Bedroom later – it is an incredibly good book.)
Scott Pack’s recommendations are usually spot on. It’s thanks to him that I’ve read and loved Thirteen by Sebastian Beaumont, Lizard by L Shick (interview with her here) and a few others.
There was the terrific Black Boxes widget which made me aware of Caroline Smailes.
There’s the Goodreads website, which I check if I’m not sure which book by a certain author I should try first.
They’re the ones that come to mind straight away. I’m sure there are others.
So, last night, I was thinking about this and wondering how I could get people to share the boosk they love and would recommend to others.
As an experiment, I Twittered it, with the hash-tag #ilovethisbook
There is quite a list there now. So if you’re on Twitter and you’d like to share your favourite books, or see if you can find something you’d like to read, you know what to do.
And if you want to follow me, my Twitter username thingy is @nikperring.
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I must say that I was rather surprised when I checked the blog’s stats earlier. I’ve had about 500 visitors more than usual, all of whom have found their way here by googling ‘Landseer Newfoundland’. It’s a dog. A big breed of a dog. I helped a lost one out once and mentioned it on here. Anyway, I had a bit of a google myself and the reason for the sudden increased interest was clear. That is a Very Big Dog.
So, to all of you coming here expecting to find out about Landseers and finding a writer waffling, I’m sorry.