#TopTenTuesday Ten Short Story Collections I’ve Read #TuesdayBookBlog

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Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.

The rules are simple:

  • Each Tuesday, Jana assigns a new topic. Create your own Top Ten list that fits that topic – putting your unique spin on it if you want.
  • Everyone is welcome to join but please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own Top Ten Tuesday post.
  • Add your name to the Linky widget on that day’s post so that everyone can check out other bloggers’ lists.
  • Or if you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic is Ways My Blogging/Review Style Has Changed Over Time. This topic needed a lot more thought than I had time for so I’ve come up with one of my own. I’ve seen a few mentions of May being International/National Short Story Month, although I haven’t been able to find a reliable source to substantiate this. Regardless of whether it’s ‘official’ or not, here are ten short story collections I’ve read and enjoyed. Links from the title will take you to my review.

  1. normal rules don’t apply by Kate Atkinson
  2. In This Ravishing World by Nina Schuyler
  3. Byron and Shelley by Glenn Haybittle
  4. Music of the Night edited by Martin Edwards
  5. Liberty Terrace by Madeleine D’Arcy
  6. Anything Is Possible by Elizabeth Strout
  7. The Penguin Book of Spanish Short Stories edited Margaret Jull Costa
  8. A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth by Daniel Mason
  9. Runaway by Alice Munro
  10. In A German Pension by Katherine Mansfield

My Week in Books – 11th May 2025

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On the blog last week

Monday – I published my review of Sister Rosa’s Rebellion by Carolyn Hughes.

Tuesday – My take on this week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Authors Who’ve Appeared At My Local Literary Festival.

Wednesday – As always WWW Wednesday is a weekly opportunity to share what I’ve just read, what I’m currently reading and what I plan to read next… and to take a peek at what others are reading. 

Thursday – My guest was Susan Ekins, author of Hoodwink!: A ‘true’ medieval whodunnit.

Friday – I shared my book club’s thoughts on The Kellerby Code by Jonny Sweet.

Saturday – I published my sign-up post for the 20 Books of Summer 2025 Reading Challenge.

New on my shelves

Our London Lives by Christine Dwyer Hickey (Atlantic Books via NetGalley)

1979. In the vast and often unforgiving city of London, two Irish outsiders seeking refuge find one another: Milly, a teenage runaway, and Pip, a young boxer full of anger and potential who is beginning to drink it all away.

Over the decades their lives follow different paths, interweaving from time to time, often in one another’s sight, always on one another’s mind, yet rarely together.

Forty years on, Milly is clinging onto the only home she’s ever really known while Pip, haunted by T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, traipses the streets of London and wrestles with the life of the recovering alcoholic. And between them, perhaps uncrossable, lies the unspoken span of their lives.

Dark and brave, this epic novel offers a rich and moving portrait of an ever-changing city, and a profound inquiry into character, loneliness and the nature of love.

Queen Macbeth by Val McDermid (Polygon)

A thousand years ago in an ancient Scottish landscape, a woman is on the run with her three companions – a healer, a weaver and a seer. The men hunting her will kill her – because she is the only one who stands between them and their violent ambition. She is no lady: she is the first queen of Scotland, married to a king called Macbeth.

As the net closes in, we discover a tale of passion, forced marriage, bloody massacre and the harsh realities of medieval Scotland. At the heart of it is one strong, charismatic woman, who survived loss and jeopardy to outwit the endless plotting of a string of ruthless and power-hungry men. Her struggle won her a country. But now it could cost her life.

What I’m currently reading

I’m reading Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon, listening to The Book of Days by Francesca Kay – both books on the shortlist for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction – and reading My Name is Emilia Del Valle by Isabel Allende from my NetGalley shelf.

Look out for…

  • Book Review: Days of Light by Megan Hunter
  • Book Review: My Name is Emilia del Valle by Isabel Allende