Thank you to goodreads and the publisher for a free copy of England and Other Stories.

Short story collections are a tricky thing for me to talk about because -- and I feel like I'm a bit of a broken record when I say this -- some of them inevitably are incredible, and some of them I inevitably skim. This isn't an exception.

That being said, England and Other Stories is an enjoyable collection of short stories about small moments in everyday life. Each one feels like a snapshot of a character's life -- not elaborate, but there are details there if you look.

Did all of them work for me? No. But the ones that did were beautiful, perfect, melancholy. ( )

I am one of those who believe (and have often said) that writing a good short story is more difficult than writing a good novel because a short story writer has to create believable characters and plots wholly within the limited number of pages he allows himself to get the job done. He has to capture the engagement and imagination of his readers, and he has to do it quickly. That is why it is always such a welcome event when a favorite novelist of mine decides to join the ranks of short story writers, or in the unusual case of Graham Swift, returns to that genre after an absence of almost thirty years.

Swift's England and Other Stories is a remarkable collection of twenty-five stories about people who, regardless of their age, have reached a point in their lives where regret and self-doubt are something they confront every day. These are people living in fear that their lives may never again be as good as they were at some point in the past. Not only do they fear that possibility, they feel sure that it is the truth.

What makes this collection a bit unusual is that none of the stories have been previously published elsewhere. These are all new stories (written, I'm guessing, within the amount of time it would normally have taken Swift to produce his next novel), and taken as a whole they present the diversity of a country that is all too often confined to its stereotypes in the minds of foreigners. There are stories about newlyweds, about elderly couples who have been together for decades, about men and women grieving their lost spouses, about grown children still trying to figure out exactly who their parents were, about cheating spouses, about minorities who self-identify as "English" despite how others perceive them, and even about lesbian lovers who are key workers in a sperm bank. And that is far from all.

Among my favorites is "Yorkshire," in which an elderly couple (71 and 72 years old) sleep across the hall from each other for the first time after the man has been accused by his adult daughter of unspeakable crimes committed against her when she was a child. In just a few pages, Swift engulfs the reader in the pain and anguish that fill those two bedrooms but leaves it up to his readers to judge the truth of the woman's charges. Another favorite is "Fusilli," which tells of the man who receives a phone call from his soldier son while shopping in his local grocery store. He marvels at the technology that makes such a thing possible, all the while feeling uneasy about their conversation.

Do read these stories in the order they are presented because, layer by layer, they add up to a cohesive picture of England as she is today, one in which it is easily imagined that characters from the various stories just might one day cross paths and enjoy each other's company - or not. They seem that real. ( )

A collection of short stories. And normally i am not a fan about short stories ... Short novels i like, but short stories not.
What's the difference you may ask. Well the difference is for me very clear. A short novel has an end, it can leave you wondering why it ended like that or what other ends might have been possible, but it has an end. Sometimes a pretty "open" end, but even then most of the times there is some kind of "closure".
Short stories have practically never an end, it looks very often like you only got a part of the story, an extract if you like.
And i don't like that. Some short stories without an end can be nice if the theme or topic is interesting enough to think about later, then you can start imaging for yourself all the different kind of endings it could bring if you would write further. That is something i like.
But very often the topic is rather dull, because not elaborated, because the short story is .... well, short. And then it's not interesting to rethink about it later and then you just read some pages without.... well, pretty much without anything.

But hear hear, this is not the case if the author is called [[Graham Swift]].
I am now a fan of short stories. Well, of short stories written by Mr. Swift, that is.

Amazing stories like Misses Kaminski. Or "Fusilli" which struck me and made me instantly smile and 2 minutes later i was close to crying. And even more amazing stories like "England". (hence the title of the book)
It is all about the small things in life, sometimes big for one person, but small everyday things, no big deal. The everyday life. But the life we all live. Or could live.
Written by an author who is incredibly great in writing about the small things. It's like Mr. Swift was the main character himself in all these stories, it's like he just lived all these stories.

Read them, get impressed, share and rethink about some of the topics and ask yourself: what would i do? How would i like to end this? And enjoy. Yes, first of all, enjoy. ( )