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.
We run out of superlatives when discussing this book, don’t we? I blame Tania …
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.
I have GOT to read this book!
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
This sounds great, Nik!
Sounds like a fab book, Nik.Oh, and thanks for the plug:)x
It is both great and fab!Nik