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The Book of Liverpool

A City in Short Fiction

Edited by Maria Crossan and Eleanor Rees

The Book of Liverpool: A City in Short Fiction
Categories: 20th Century, 21st Century, Anthologies, British
Imprint: Comma Press
Publisher: Comma Press
Available as:
  • Description
  • Editors
  • Reviews
  • Featuring
    Beryl Bainbridge, Brian Patten, Clive Barker, Frank Cottrell Boyce, Ramsey Campbell, Paul Farley, Margaret Murphy, Dinesh Allirajah, James Friel, and Tracy Aston.

    A baby blown out of an upstairs window by a WWII bomb lives to hear others tell the tale…

    A woman embarks on a long-term obsession with a city landmark, abandoning her lover for the Liver…

    A bricklayer working on the foundations of a never-built cathedral becomes its evangelist, its full splendour soaring only in his mind…

    Bringing together fiction from some of the city’s most celebrated writers, The Book of Liverpool traces the unique contours that decades of social and economic change can impress on a city. Set against key historical moments from the Second World War to the Capital of Culture year, these stories question what ‘belonging’ and ‘home’ mean in the Liverpudlian context, from the regenerated city centre to satellite suburbs, from the sparring cathedrals to the no-go concrete housing estates. Liverpool emerges in these short stories as a city in constant flux: haunted by ghosts, buoyed up by myths, and shifting with an ebb and flow like the Mersey itself.

    Praise for Maria Crossan 'Manchester is fast becoming the UK's most influential centre for short story writing, and much of this is due to the passionate championing of the genre by Ra Page, founder of Comma Press.'
    The Guardian
    'A fine streetwise cacophony.'
    The Independent
    'Acquaint yourself with these fresh and varied new literary voices.'
    The Independent on Sunday
    'Europe is heavy with history and the trace left by cataclysm and upheaval. These are present in these tales, and yet coexist with a kind of wry and knowing playfulness.'
    A.S. Byatt in The Times
    'A stellar collection.'
    The Times Online
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The Book of Leeds Edited by Tom Palmer and Maria Crossan
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