Hello everybody, welcome back to the
Waterstones vlog, it's me Will, I recorded
my first video amongst the classics on
the first floor of Waterstones in
Piccadilly and it was frankly a little
bit embarrassing, slightly conscious of the
fact that people were trying to get the
shop ready to open and it's way too busy
out there now for me to get in here so I
have taken refuge in one of the
subterranean meeting rooms here at
Piccadilly
I might spruce the place up a bit but
there's a very lovely poster of Catcher
in the Rye there, there's a picture of
Bret Easton Ellis up there so I
apologise if it's slightly echoey but it
doesn't matter, we're here to talk about
good stuff and this week I want to talk
to you about short stories. These are
often a slightly maligned form of
fiction, they don't get the attention
that the big novels get, but I want to
talk about three short story collections
which I think are really, really worth
your time and that's because they all
demonstrate some of the things that
short stories can do that novels can't
They can often I think, short stories, do
that thing where they show sort of
concentrated bursts of real creativity
or they can do something to your brain
that makes you think about them long
after you've finished them and also they
can sometimes provide you with that sort
of concentrated burst of entertainment
that you might need on a short commute
somewhere or in your lunch break so that
you can read something from start to
finish which is just a joy and all three
of these books demonstrate those various
qualities. So to start off with this is
Attib. and other stories by Eley Williams
which is published by Influx Press which
is a small independent press and this is,
I read this a while ago and I keep
thinking about it because if you like to
read writers whose writing is the thing
that makes you go oh my god how do you
do that, I would really recommend reading
Eley Williams. These stories are in many
ways about language and about writing
and about often focusing on very
specific moments in somebody's life,
kind of very mundane or ordinary moments, but
very specific and important for various
reasons. There's a great story right
at the beginning
which is all about somebody who's
suffering from aphasia and so language
is absolutely the key thing in this
story and it's the sort of the breakdown
of the brain's communication about
language and as you're reading the story
that sort of the text starts to break
down, the story's called The Alphabet and
it's one of those things which in the
wrong hands would feel like a sort of
technical writing exercise but in Eley
Williams' hands is absolutely fantastic.
And there's loads of stories like that
in here
She's so skillful at playing with with
the language that she uses. You can tell she's
taken an awful lot of care over the
construction of these stories and so
they're kind of, it's got this sort of
linguistics fun that feels a little
bit like a sort of workout for you as
a reader, and I mean that in a really
good way, I mean that as you're reading it you're
thinking oh god that so clever how
you've done that. And so I don't want to
sort of go into too much detail about any
of these collections really but as I've
said, if you are looking for the kind of
short stories which make a virtue of
their writing and show you how the sort
of language or the way of communicating
or indeed the way that you have of
reading a book that you take for granted
it sort of pulls the rug from underneath
your feet and does something really
interesting and so I found each of these
stories really invigorating to read. So
there you go, that is Attrib. and other stories
by Eley Williams. Now we move on to Darker
With The Lights On by David Hayden which
is published by Little Island Press, another independent press. I'm going to
start off by saying you can see it's got
this fantastic sort of austere design,
beautiful, beautifully made book, hardback
boards, beautiful coloured end papers, the
actual paper that the the stories are
printed on is incredible quality
the setting is incredible too so it's
one of those books that is a pleasure to
hold and a pleasure to read because of
it as an object which I think is is
worth a star all on its own, that's
before we get to the the stories themselves.
David Hayden has been writing for many
years and this is collecting together
some of his stories I suppose as a
declaration of interest I know David and
I'm not recommending this book because
I know him, I'm recommending it because it's absolutely
fantastic. He has recommended to me
incredible books to read over the years,
he's one of the best recommenders that
you could ever hope to meet,
but of course through all of that
reading that he's done himself, he has of
course learned how to write and in here
we have an amazing collection of stories,
there's 20 stories in here and they are
full of images and ideas that will haunt
you after you have finished reading them.
They are very modernist in style and in
reviews you will see people like Samuel
Beckett being mentioned and things like
that. It is the kind of atmosphere which
is a bit like being stuck in limbo or in
purgatory or something, these stories
often feel as if they're happening in a
nonspecific place with nonspecific
people but they are filled with
extraordinary ideas. There is one story
where somebody is effectively leaping
off a building to their death but they
never hit the ground and the story sort
of is filled with what he is thinking as
he travels through the air. There is a
hilarious story in here in whic,h and
you'll have to bear with me, in which a
squirrel does a sort of literature class
and describes the, it's called How to
Read A Picture Book and it sort of
describes the various ways it's sort of
filled with ideas for writing basically
but it's incredibly funny and surreal
because it is a cigar-chomping squirrel
who is delivering this lecture. So there's
some very weird things like that, there's
another story where somebody is sort of
effectively auctioning the items of his
life. Sort of filled with symbolism, rich
with meaning, and the kind of book that I
have been wanting to sort of read one
story at a time and then go away and let
that sort of settle and and let me think
about it before I'm ready to go back and
read another one so it's been sitting
very comfortably on my bedside and it's
been a pleasure to dip into it. So, as I
said, a pleasure to hold a pleasure to
read and filled with very, very profound
meaning; that is Darker With The Lights On
by David Hayden.
And finally we have a book
called Uncommon Type, some stories by
some chap called Tom Hanks who yeah you
may have heard of. It's that Tom Hanks. 
Now, of course, Tom Hanks doesn't need me to
sit here and help him with publicising
his book I'm sure, because you will all
have heard of it by the time this video
goes out, and if you haven't, you will do.
But here I am talking about short
stories as a maligned form and of course
a lot of people will be like oh I bet
Tom Hanks doesn't struggle with his
short stories but of course there'll be
a lot of scrutiny on these stories.
He is Tom Hanks but can he write? Now
what I do know before opening this book
is that he definitely reads. He was one
of the people who got behind the book
Stoner by John Williams for example, he
was a big fan of that book and I've seen
a few interviews with him where he
mentions things that he's reading. He is
clearly a very passionate reader. Another
thing that he is is a passionate
collector of typewriters and that's why
you'll see a typewriter here, there are
some amazing pictures of typewriters
throughout the book and all of the
stories feature a typewriter in some way,
sometimes it's integral to the story
sometimes it's sort of on the side
somewhere, and what we have here is a
collection of stories which I have
realised after finishing, are very much
like watching Tom Hanks' films, and what I
mean by that is that they are really
well done they are very, very
entertaining some of them are sort of
very serious and profound and others are
much more sort of lightweight and
entertaining but they're all great. And
so there are a lot of people I'm sure
who'll be sort of like oh great, he can
write stories as well, but this is
somebody as I said who clearly enjoys
reading stories, and has taken that love
for reading and sort of transferred
it to another skill which is his own
writing. So really a great joy to read
and the typewriter
connection is kind of fun but he's just
great with character of course, fantastic
with dialogue as you might expect there is
one story which is very much set within
the world of film which is very, very
funny because of
the insights that he of course has about
what it must be like following a famous
movie star around the world publicising
a film. But there are just, as I said,
brilliantly observed characters and
dialogue that he makes look sort of
effortless but I know isn't. It requires
a lot of work to make dialogue seem like
normal dialogue but also entertaining
and that's the main thing I was so
entertained by these stories. Funny and you're very happy to read on
and get to another one because they are
great, great entertainment. So there you go,
that is Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks.
Now I mentioned on Twitter that if we reached
10,000 subscribers on YouTube I would do
the giveaway. We did reach 10,000
subscribers on YouTube. So we're going to
do a giveaway and it's gonna be a rather
special giveaway because Tom Hanks is
coming over to the UK and doing a couple
of very, very exclusive events. These of
course have sold out, there are some
signed copies of his books, these of
course have sold out too. However, we've
made a deal, and what I can offer as a
prize for somebody here is a personally
dedicated copy of Uncommon Type by Tom
Hanks signed by Tom Hanks so I will pick
a winner and that name will be passed on
and then he will dedicate the book to
you and we will post it out to you.
That's pretty good right? That's pretty exciting!
What do you have to do to win
this amazing prize? Well you have to be
subscribed to this channel, that is the
first thing, so if you haven't pressed
that button already, press that button
now. There's probably one there, there's
probably one popping up here -
just find the subscribe button and make
sure you press it. I want you to
subscribe because I want you to come
back, I want you to keep watching this
vlog, getting great book recommendations
and also there's loads of other stuff
that's gonna be appearing on this channel.
Fantastic interviews, all sorts of stuff
And what you need to do is you need to
leave a comment below. Now we could get
really clever with this and we could
sort of say that because there's this
typewriter connection maybe you should
type, on your keyboard, in the comments
section telling me why you think you
deserve this signed copy of
Uncommon Type. You don't have to write a massive
essay, just keep it short and pithy like
a short story and tell me why you
deserve that copy I will go through the
comments and I will pick a winner before
he comes over to do the signing, will
probably be within the next couple of
weeks, I might be more specific with the
date once I've worked out what the hell
I'm doing, but anyway, for now subscribe
leave a comment below and I will pick
winners. Oh, one winner,
let's be very clear. There will be one
winner. So there we go, I think that's
pretty exciting. Come back next week and
you will hear Sian talking about her
next choice, but most importantly keep
reading, keep coming back here, subscribe
and join the bookish chat. See you soon.
