The Complete Short Stories — William Peskett

This is a bumper collection of all 33 short stories from the books Mango and Sticky Rice, Mist on the Jungle and Sweet Song of the Siren. Stretching to a massive 536 pages, this book is the ideal gift for short story fans, particularly those who look for something a little different from their reading matter. In this bumper omnibus you will find, among many other characters: a photographer hired to witness a murder, a colour-blind sperm donor, a ghost who misses his friends, a Canadian who pretends he's from Latvia, a woman sure her children's will be the last human generation, a lascivious businessman who prefers lady-boys to ladies, a depressed captain who threatens to sink his own ferry, a woman who eats more than food, a Thai widow finding her late husband's roots in Crete, a murderer who sees himself carved in stone, a writer whose dead wife returns to him through time, a robot community waiting for their saviour, a man who falls in love with his own penis, a woman dying slowly of dementia and a troupe of wise-cracking monkeys. Humour and melancholy, comfort and suspense, this collection possesses all of these qualities, sometimes within the same story. Most are set in Thailand and provide insights into the lives of the varied populations of that exotic land; others could have happened anywhere. But what marks them out is the diversity of the storylines, the quality of the writing, and engagement with interesting characters who have something to say.