Helen Simpson is a British writer whose short stories have won many awards, and I very much enjoyed this collection. I like her tone and her style of writing. She paints wonderful images, as when she writes "Nearby stood a bush of peonies with big pink faces, amorous and Elizabethan in their high-colored finery". Or "How moody it was, the weather: hormonal, melodramatic, lurching from thunder to glaring sun and back again in the space of an hour". Several of the stories reference climate change in some way, but it is never heavy-handed. I liked the way she worked this into the various story lines. In "The Tipping Point" Simpson writes of "our sins of pollution (which) lock into the clouds and come down as acid rain." Her sense of humor is delightful. There is very much to like about this author and these stories. Well written, but ugh, what a depressing look at the future of mankind. Each story touches on climate change and it's future effects in some horribly damaging way. Very darkly funny though too--for instance one story is a monologue of a person trying to convince a investor in the need for personal carbon imprint coaches, like life coaches. I really like her collection "Getting a Life" where the thread running though seemed to be modern motherhood, while dry and ironic, it didn't seems as doomed as this.
Do You like book In-Flight Entertainment (2010)?
Collection of short stories. Global warming seems to be a common thread throughout the stories.
—duhduh
Collection of short stories. Global warming seems to be a common thread throughout the stories.
—sagar
Delicious, sometimes grim short stories; perfect little gems.
—Kmilk
