Which Shelf for The White Road?

In my house there are many bookshelves. Two of these will feature in this post. 

The first is a rather exciting and lovely one, where all the books written by people I know live. The second is in my office, and on that sit my favourite books. Inspirational ones. Good ones. Ones I love. Glancing at it now I can see Hemingway, Keret, Sebold, Bender, Gaiman, Creech, McGregor, Salway, a book about The Clash, a book on local hauntings (forgot about that one!) my book, The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook. You get the picture.
Recently though I’ve faced a bit of a dilemma, because I’ve not been sure where to place some books – they’re from people I know AND I love them, find them inspirational, think they’re literature worth learning from.
The latest book to offer such a dilemma is Tania Hershman’s The White Road and Other Stories. Now, I’m a writer so to say I love books is, well, obvious. I do. But some I don’t just love, it’s something more than that. It’s marriage as opposed to a good relationship; it’s the sea as opposed to a lake. If that makes sense.
So, back to the book. I love it. But why? Well, I could go on. And on. Each and every story included in this collection is beautiful, affecting, clever, poetic, deep, funny, sad, desperate – sometimes many of these together – and always expertly written. Each story is exactly as long as it needs to be. I know a lot has been made of half the stories being inspired by science articles (which is cool) but let’s forget about that for a moment, because really, that doesn’t matter. What matters is the stories are wonderful, alive, sincere – what inspired them doesn’t matter when they’re that good because, as with any great story, they are good enough to stand on their own. And boy, do they.
It’s a thrilling, rewarding and entertaining debut and I can’t wait for more.
My copy’s on my desk at the moment – but soon it’ll be returned to its home. Can you guess which shelf that will be?
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And while I’m on…
Here’s a link to Strictly Writing,  a brand new blog about writing some writer friends have started – knowing them as I do I’m pretty certain it’ll be well worth a read.
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ADDED: See the last leg of Tania’s virtual tour at Debi Alper’s blog.

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Nik Perring is a short story writer, author, teacher of writing, and editor from the UK. His books include the widely celebrated Not So Perfect (Roastbooks, 2010), and A Book of Beautiful Words (2014). He co-wrote Freaks! (TFP/HarperCollins 2012), and A Book of Beautiful Trees is out in 2015.

0 thoughts on “Which Shelf for The White Road?”

  1. All of you, you are terrible, you make me feel warm and fuzzy, all the time, how could you? Stop. All this niceness, all these things you say, how can I possibly be expected to take all this in??! Thank you, Nik, from the bottom of my heart. And Debi. Thank you both.

  2. Debi, this is very true. I blame Tania too but, you know, she is ace.And you deserve to feel warm and fuzzy, Tania.Lane, I doubt you’ll regret it! Seriously!Nik

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