Ox-Tales: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Oxfam, £5 each
Buy short stories and help the wretched of the earth! I don’t mean short-story writers, on this occasion, though that injunction usually holds too. No: I mean, if you buy one or, preferably, all four of these pretty, pocket-sized paperbacks you’ll be donating to Oxfam.
Cooked up between the Hay Festival’s impresario Peter Florence and Mark Ellingham of Profile Books, Ox-Tales is a sort of literary equivalent of the War Child album: a gallimaufry of short fiction donated by various authors — about two thirds original stories, about a third novel-extracts.
These have been gussied up into four very loosely themed volumes, each of which is accompanied by an elemental poem by Vikram Seth (sample: ‘Fa-yaah/ O fayah-fayah-fayaaah/ Dizayaah/ Hot hot hot/ I’m burning a lot with dizayaah’ etc.) At the end of each a two-page coda explains the work that Oxfam is doing in that element — drinking water, farming, climate change, controls on the arms trade (fire) and such like.
Short stories are hard enough to review as it is, and a project like this doesn’t invite criticism so much as statistical analysis.
Get Britain's best politics newsletters
Register to get The Spectator's insight and opinion straight to your inbox. You can then read two free articles each week.
Already a subscriber? Log in
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in