Philip Hensher

Short stories to enjoy in lockdown

Philip Hensher chooses some of his favourite authors, including Chekhov, V.S. Pritchett, Alice Munro and Italo Calvino

Alice Munro, photographed by Nancy Crampton. Her story ‘Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage’ is a sunny account of wrongdoing all round [Bridgeman Images] 
issue 02 May 2020

In these circumstances there’s a temptation to reach for the longest novel imaginable. If you’re not going to read Proust now, as the days stretch ahead and the horizons shrink to an hour’s walk a day, when is it going to happen? But it seems much more likely that reading is going to contract, and the most you’ll realistically manage is a short story a day.

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Disagree with half of it, enjoy reading all of it

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