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This Isn't the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You
A man builds a tree house by a river, in anticipation of the coming flood. A sugar-beet crashes through a young woman's windscreen. A boy sets fire to a barn. A pair of itinerant labourers sit by a lake, talking about shovels and sex, while fighter-planes fly low overhead and prepare for war.
These aren't the sort of things you imagine happening to someone like you. But sometimes they do.
Set in the flat and threatened fenland landscape, where the sky is dominant and the sea lurks just beyond the horizon, these delicate, dangerous, and sometimes deeply funny stories tell of things buried and unearthed, of familiar places made strange, and of lives where much is hidden, much is at risk, and tender moments are hard-won.
Watch Jon McGregor reading from This Isn't the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You
Jon McGregor discusses This Isn't the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You
These aren't the sort of things you imagine happening to someone like you. But sometimes they do.
Set in the flat and threatened fenland landscape, where the sky is dominant and the sea lurks just beyond the horizon, these delicate, dangerous, and sometimes deeply funny stories tell of things buried and unearthed, of familiar places made strange, and of lives where much is hidden, much is at risk, and tender moments are hard-won.
Watch Jon McGregor reading from This Isn't the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You
Jon McGregor discusses This Isn't the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You
262 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 2012
94 people are currently reading
1,435 people want to read
About the author
Jon McGregor
37Ìýbooks790ÌýfollowersJon McGregor is a British author who has written three novels. His first novel, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, was nominated for the 2002 Booker Prize and was the winner of both the Betty Trask Prize and the Somerset Maugham Award in 2003. So Many Ways to Begin was published in 2006 and was on the Booker prize long list. Even the Dogs was published in 2010, and his newest work, Reservoir 13, was published in April 2017.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 143 reviews
January 22, 2021
According to Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ stats, I will be the 1,000th person to read/rate this book. I wonder what I get for such an achievement. 🙃
This was a collection of short stories originally published in 2012 in hardcover format (Bloomsbury) and then published about 3 years ago in paperback format (4th Estate). It consists of 29 short stories of varying length. One short story consists of just one sentence…the longest story is 30 pages, and the average length is 3-10 pages. Stories are grouped into four sections, but I can’t tell why. Each of the 29 stories has a location in Lincolnshire, England connected with it, but again I am not sure why this is so. That is, why is one story associated with Stickford and another associated with Welton and another associated with Holbeach? Maybe I will find out from reading reviews.
3.24 stars overall, but some of the stories were so creepy/good and the fact that I really like McGregor’s writing will push me over into 4-star territory. 😊
There were several stories that brought to mind “Reservoir 13� (and The Reservoir Tapes), which I loved, but it was for me creepy/scary/troubling but very, very good. Extremely clever and original.
Those stories in this collection which reminded me of that style were:
� In Winter the Sky (husband reveals a long-kept secret to wife, that she was also involved in to some extent, unknowingly) [location: Upwell] [3.5 stars]
� If It Keeps on Raining (I got the sense the protagonist had been involved in some sort of stampede at a soccer stadium in which someone(s) lost their lives) [Susworth] [3.5 stars]
� Vessel (A man paying his respects to a recent widow has ulterior motives) [Halton Holegate] [4 stars]
� Which Reminded Her, Later (a strange women stays with the vicar and his wife…she has some vague illness that she wants to be diagnosed…I was waiting for something to happen) [Grantham] [4.5 stars]
� We Wave and Call (really good story and made me feel anxious…like what’s going to happen to this character???) [Wainfleet] [4.5 stars]
� Wires (humorous and at the same time there’s something off about the two men who help a woman who has had an accident on the highway when a sugar beet crashed through her windshield) [Messingham] [5 stars]
� What Happened to Mr. Davison (when you find out please tell me!) [Cadwell] [5 stars]
Other stories that were memorable but did not evoke a sense of discomfort/angst (like uh-oh, what terrible or bad thing is going to happen now?) were:
� The Chicken and the Egg (man has a morbid fear that the next eff he cracks open will reveal a perfectly formed chick�.eggs, anyone?) [Stickford] [4.5 stars]
� French Tea Sutton on Sea] [3.5 stars]
� Close (bittersweet story of a single women who never married on a group tour who meets a man from Minnesota] [Gainsborough] [5 stars]
� Years of This, Now (very poignant and sad� this is the second time Grantham is stated as locale…only time in this collection…I wonder why) [Grantham] [5 stars]
� The Cleaning (man and wife come back to their house after a flood…woman abandoned the man and their children before the flood…the house is ruined and she does not appear to be cognizant of the damage she herself wrought) [Holbeach] [5 stars]
So there. I am glad I read this collection. I would recommend it, but I liked to a greater degree Reservoir 13 (2017), The Reservoir Tapes (2017), Even the Dogs (2010), and “If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things� (2002). I have not yet read “So Many Ways to Begin� (2006).
Notes: Two of the stories were previously published in Granta [In Winter the Sky (What the Sky Sees) Issue 78, 2002; Which Reminded Her Later, Issue 99, 2007] and one in Guardian Weekend magazine [July 22, 2011, We Wave and Call].
Reviews:
� Very good review from Maggie O’Farrell in which she says “To � anyone else feeling downcast about the state of the short story today � I say, read Jon McGregor's new book. Its verve, its inventiveness, its sheer quiet audacity will reassure you that the short story is alive, well and reaching new heights.�
�
�
This was a collection of short stories originally published in 2012 in hardcover format (Bloomsbury) and then published about 3 years ago in paperback format (4th Estate). It consists of 29 short stories of varying length. One short story consists of just one sentence…the longest story is 30 pages, and the average length is 3-10 pages. Stories are grouped into four sections, but I can’t tell why. Each of the 29 stories has a location in Lincolnshire, England connected with it, but again I am not sure why this is so. That is, why is one story associated with Stickford and another associated with Welton and another associated with Holbeach? Maybe I will find out from reading reviews.
3.24 stars overall, but some of the stories were so creepy/good and the fact that I really like McGregor’s writing will push me over into 4-star territory. 😊
There were several stories that brought to mind “Reservoir 13� (and The Reservoir Tapes), which I loved, but it was for me creepy/scary/troubling but very, very good. Extremely clever and original.
Those stories in this collection which reminded me of that style were:
� In Winter the Sky (husband reveals a long-kept secret to wife, that she was also involved in to some extent, unknowingly) [location: Upwell] [3.5 stars]
� If It Keeps on Raining (I got the sense the protagonist had been involved in some sort of stampede at a soccer stadium in which someone(s) lost their lives) [Susworth] [3.5 stars]
� Vessel (A man paying his respects to a recent widow has ulterior motives) [Halton Holegate] [4 stars]
� Which Reminded Her, Later (a strange women stays with the vicar and his wife…she has some vague illness that she wants to be diagnosed…I was waiting for something to happen) [Grantham] [4.5 stars]
� We Wave and Call (really good story and made me feel anxious…like what’s going to happen to this character???) [Wainfleet] [4.5 stars]
� Wires (humorous and at the same time there’s something off about the two men who help a woman who has had an accident on the highway when a sugar beet crashed through her windshield) [Messingham] [5 stars]
� What Happened to Mr. Davison (when you find out please tell me!) [Cadwell] [5 stars]
Other stories that were memorable but did not evoke a sense of discomfort/angst (like uh-oh, what terrible or bad thing is going to happen now?) were:
� The Chicken and the Egg (man has a morbid fear that the next eff he cracks open will reveal a perfectly formed chick�.eggs, anyone?) [Stickford] [4.5 stars]
� French Tea Sutton on Sea] [3.5 stars]
� Close (bittersweet story of a single women who never married on a group tour who meets a man from Minnesota] [Gainsborough] [5 stars]
� Years of This, Now (very poignant and sad� this is the second time Grantham is stated as locale…only time in this collection…I wonder why) [Grantham] [5 stars]
� The Cleaning (man and wife come back to their house after a flood…woman abandoned the man and their children before the flood…the house is ruined and she does not appear to be cognizant of the damage she herself wrought) [Holbeach] [5 stars]
So there. I am glad I read this collection. I would recommend it, but I liked to a greater degree Reservoir 13 (2017), The Reservoir Tapes (2017), Even the Dogs (2010), and “If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things� (2002). I have not yet read “So Many Ways to Begin� (2006).
Notes: Two of the stories were previously published in Granta [In Winter the Sky (What the Sky Sees) Issue 78, 2002; Which Reminded Her Later, Issue 99, 2007] and one in Guardian Weekend magazine [July 22, 2011, We Wave and Call].
Reviews:
� Very good review from Maggie O’Farrell in which she says “To � anyone else feeling downcast about the state of the short story today � I say, read Jon McGregor's new book. Its verve, its inventiveness, its sheer quiet audacity will reassure you that the short story is alive, well and reaching new heights.�
�
�
December 25, 2019
Dün: Öykü kitapları rörörö
Bugün: Aşırı iyi! Kitap. Aşırı. İyi.
Yalan yok, kitabı ismi çok etkileyici olduğu için almıştım ama içeriği yüzümü kara çıkartmadı.
Sıradan bir öykü kitabı olmaktan oldukça uzak, inanılmaz keyifli bir okuma süreci sunuyor. Öyküler birbirine bağlanıyor ve yazım tarzı bölümler aktıkça değişiyor.
Gerçekten beğendim, yazarı bi' yakın takibe alalım bakalım.
Klasik okuma süreçlerinden bıkan okurlar ve RS ile savaşanlar için ideal.
Bugün: Aşırı iyi! Kitap. Aşırı. İyi.
Yalan yok, kitabı ismi çok etkileyici olduğu için almıştım ama içeriği yüzümü kara çıkartmadı.
Sıradan bir öykü kitabı olmaktan oldukça uzak, inanılmaz keyifli bir okuma süreci sunuyor. Öyküler birbirine bağlanıyor ve yazım tarzı bölümler aktıkça değişiyor.
Gerçekten beğendim, yazarı bi' yakın takibe alalım bakalım.
Klasik okuma süreçlerinden bıkan okurlar ve RS ile savaşanlar için ideal.
March 29, 2013
These stories make up a true collection, one of place. Perhaps because much of it is set in the fens, at times I was reminded of Graham Swift's and that I want to reread that novel one day. Only two of the stories have recurring characters, but it's as if each story needs the other to achieve that unifying impression of place, and that alone was impressive. (The sum being much greater than its parts?)
Some of the stories are brilliant, but none reached the high bar set by his novels. A few of the very short pieces worked for me; most didn't. A few of the stories have speculative elements. A few of the forms are inventive and with a couple of these I felt impatient, even a touch bored, but I was won over, partly, by their effective endings.
The place-names under the title of each story and the Memorial Stone 'roll-call' at the end might've meant more to me if I knew more about these villages and parishes, and what must be their vanishing landscapes and ways of life.
Some of the stories are brilliant, but none reached the high bar set by his novels. A few of the very short pieces worked for me; most didn't. A few of the stories have speculative elements. A few of the forms are inventive and with a couple of these I felt impatient, even a touch bored, but I was won over, partly, by their effective endings.
The place-names under the title of each story and the Memorial Stone 'roll-call' at the end might've meant more to me if I knew more about these villages and parishes, and what must be their vanishing landscapes and ways of life.
March 29, 2012
I really wanted to give this 5 stars, because a good half or more of the stories are just terrific. I also see McGregor as one of the great up and coming English fiction writers (as opposed to British � there’s no end of brilliant Scottish, Irish and Welsh writers). Him and Ross Raisin. You feel with McGregor he is always pushing at boundaries in order to express himself with more accuracy, with more empathy. So he bends the usual practises of fiction in order to make us feel. It puts some people off � I felt was a truly fine attempt at getting under the drug addicts� skin, literally as well as metaphorically, but others felt its use of the first person plural and the unfinished sentences too tricksy. I felt it worked, in the end. Here, as well as many excellent straightforward narratives, including two that were runners-up in the BBC national Short Story competitions 2010 and 2011, McGregor pushes and squashes and mucks about with language and form like a kid with paint. A lot works � eg the second story ‘In Winter the Sky� about a man who (I don't think this is a spoiler as it happens fairly early on) accidentally kills someone through careless driving on a lonely road at night and decides to bury him. There are quite a few stories about this, two I’ve read recently in and , are both very good, tense pieces, but this one also looks at the long term effects of the burden of knowledge as well as the 'dealing with the body' bit. The protagonist is married to an aspiring poet and along with the story on one side, on the facing page are her attempts at poems with crossings out etc. I feel this adds depth, colour, complexity to the piece, but it could have gone so wrong. McGregor takes chances. He also makes you reader work quite hard � e.g. ‘Supplementary Notes To the Testimony of Appellants B & E� is as it says notes to a document the reader doesn’t see so they have to fill in the story. Another uses a similar technique using a ‘found document� (about a group preparing for an environmental catastrophe) with comments on it from some kind of authority. Like this latter many seem to be set in the near future before or after some disaster, war or rebellion, eg there's a modern day Noah building a treehouse and raft being laughed at by the locals, in another there are aircaft constantly bombing a beach.
There are some experimental very short pieces too like the following complete ones:
Song
Grimsby
Chinese restaurants, laundrettes, baked potato vans.
These are a few of my favourite extractor-fans.
Fleeing Complexity
Irby in the Marsh
The fire spread quicker than the little bastard was expecting
I like the latter, the first baffles. Every story is accompanied by a place name and all are set in the flat fenlands of Eastern England and surrounding areas, and do make significant use of landscape. But do I really need a 'story' (the last in the book) which simply lists place names grouped together by type:
I don't think so. I'm wondering if I did that, sent some place names to an editor as a story how s/he might react. Of course in the context of the book it does have more significance, but even so...
Similarly I thought this, the last page of a story called 'The Remains' was taking the piss:
So that's why in the end I went for four stars. However just writing about the book has made me want to keep it and re-read (it's a library copy due back today) and the stories that are good are so good they may force me back to make this five stars.
There are some experimental very short pieces too like the following complete ones:
Song
Grimsby
Chinese restaurants, laundrettes, baked potato vans.
These are a few of my favourite extractor-fans.
Fleeing Complexity
Irby in the Marsh
The fire spread quicker than the little bastard was expecting
I like the latter, the first baffles. Every story is accompanied by a place name and all are set in the flat fenlands of Eastern England and surrounding areas, and do make significant use of landscape. But do I really need a 'story' (the last in the book) which simply lists place names grouped together by type:
I don't think so. I'm wondering if I did that, sent some place names to an editor as a story how s/he might react. Of course in the context of the book it does have more significance, but even so...
Similarly I thought this, the last page of a story called 'The Remains' was taking the piss:
So that's why in the end I went for four stars. However just writing about the book has made me want to keep it and re-read (it's a library copy due back today) and the stories that are good are so good they may force me back to make this five stars.
January 8, 2018
These short stories range from stream-of-consciousness monologue to the cold hard precision of a bureaucratic report to the awkward rambling of a transcript. Each is haunting and indelible, while being utterly impressive � impressive in the sense of being impressed upon the reader, of leaving a mark.
This is one of the very best collections I’ve ever read, and if you’re a fan of short fiction, particularly short fiction that leaves a lot to the reader’s imagination, this is right up your alley. The author does not over-explain his characters and their motivations; as the flap copy says, the real story lies in what is only unknowingly revealed. While many of the characters reveal small, petty, or even criminal interior lives, more often the reader is reminded of their own secret wishes or self-effacing moments. We empathize so much with the characters that we forget that we are reading someone else’s words, and not just thinking our own thoughts.
This is one of the very best collections I’ve ever read, and if you’re a fan of short fiction, particularly short fiction that leaves a lot to the reader’s imagination, this is right up your alley. The author does not over-explain his characters and their motivations; as the flap copy says, the real story lies in what is only unknowingly revealed. While many of the characters reveal small, petty, or even criminal interior lives, more often the reader is reminded of their own secret wishes or self-effacing moments. We empathize so much with the characters that we forget that we are reading someone else’s words, and not just thinking our own thoughts.
February 7, 2017
Spicuiri din recenzia finala care se gaseste
August 8, 2012
I think the title is ironic. The sort of things that happen in the stories can and do happen to many of us but it is the consideration and contemplation of the events that show us the extraordinary in ordinary lives.
The stories are mostly set in a specific and closely observed landscape in an indistinct time when the characters seem to be on the brink of or living through a catastrophic situation.
Some of the stories are far more engaging and intriguing than others and I think the author is playing with narrative styles, either to amuse himself or to invite the reader to consider how we assess the truth of an account and how we determine where our sympathies will lie. I think...
The stories are mostly set in a specific and closely observed landscape in an indistinct time when the characters seem to be on the brink of or living through a catastrophic situation.
Some of the stories are far more engaging and intriguing than others and I think the author is playing with narrative styles, either to amuse himself or to invite the reader to consider how we assess the truth of an account and how we determine where our sympathies will lie. I think...
May 30, 2013
Review by Sam Ruddock - Summer Reads Producer
This Isn't The Sort Of Thing That Happens To Someone Like You could be the title of any of Jon McGregor's four published books. He's a writer interested in moments that change lives and the legacy of these upon his characters. His debut, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, took this concept literally, fusing narratives charting the effects of a single incident and using them to create tension as another narrative built to that crescendo moment. Even the Dogs - his Dublin IMPAC Prize winning novel about a group of drug addicts watching the final journey of one of their own - is all about the after-effects of these single moments. McGregor is a master of writing voice, particularly those of the dispossessed. He captures the humanity, the universal, without romanticising. His characters narrate with the hesitant, repetitive, circuitry, unfinished speech we all use. And his prose is vibrant, playful, energetic, and alive.
The thirty stories collected in This Isn't The Sort Of Thing That Happens To Someone Like You have been written over the last decade: its a summary of his career to date as he grows from a talented wordsmith and storyteller to one of our foremost writers (and, in his own words, 'Britain's second best short story writer' - a reference to 'If It Keeps On Raining' and 'Wires' finishing as runner up in the BBC National Short Story Competition for 2010 and 2011 respectively), challenging conventions and forms of storytelling, pushing boundaries all the time with how words on a page can be used to communicate something. McGregor has written of his appreciation of David Foster Wallace and you can feel his influence here. This Isn't The Sort Of Thing That Happens To Someone Like You is funny, challenging, scary, affirming, and much more besides. It is very good indeed.
The things you don't see happening to someone like you begin with an older couple, arguing gently over the washing up. They aren't all dramatic. A man builds a tree house by the river, in preparation for a coming flood. A sugar beet crashes through the windscreen of a young woman. Fighter jets fly overhead as a war looms. Crime, political tensions, environmental Armageddon, accidents, stagnation in life.
They are all set in the vast flat landscapes of the Fen's, where sky and horizons blend and long flat roads stretch into the distance. Its farming landscape, traditionally mined in literature for themes of memory and forgetting. These are stories that explore the psychology of life in a flat reclaimed landscape, stolen from the sea, and where one of the things we don't see coming may just be its return to the sea. All the while, these places - Upwell, Irby in the Marsh, Messingham, Lincoln etc - feel as if they are being inscribed into stone against the forgetting of the future.
View This Isn't The Sort Of Thing That Happens To Someone Like You - Jon McGregor in a larger map
These stories are born of cycling the landscapes. Their settings correspond with their imaginings. The landscapes are both incidental and central to providing cohesion to the collection. These landscapes are perhaps best explored in 'In Winter the Sky' where a woman's poems about the colour and atmosphere of the sky are set alongside a story about burying the past in the soil, only for floodwaters to bring it back to the surface years later.
'People are not drawn here by the romantic sound of the place.
People don't much come here at all, and so the landscape
remains empty and
retains its beauty and
the beauty of this place is not in the names but the shapes
the flatness / hugeness / completeness of the landscape.
Only what is beneath the surface of the earth is hidden
(and sometimes not even that)
and everything else is made visible beneath the sky.'
One has a strange experience reading many of the stories here. McGregor experiments with different narrative styles - poetry alongside prose, stories told through a surveillance report or a redacted security document - and one goes into these with a slight sense of trepidation. Yet it is these stories that are some of the most rewarding. For they challenge ones sense of a story, of what a story is about, of why a story is told.
If there is a criticism, it is that there are perhaps a few too many stories here. The three experiments with form, the five or six most engaging stories - 'Wires' and 'If It Keeps On Raining', 'Which Reminded Her Later', 'We Wave and Call' - and a few of the shorter entries would have been more than enough. Between six and ten fewer stories would have made it one of the finest collections I have encountered.
Jon McGregor is my favourite contemporary British writer. It was delightful, therefore, to see this collection selected from a longlist of 116 books, to feature in the Summer Reads programme I run. Six great books selected by readers for readers. Books that inspire adventures and expand horizons. If you're looking for tried and tested books, these six come with a readers stamp of approval and a personal recommendation: we fell in love with these books and thought you might too.
This Isn't The Sort Of Thing That Happens To Someone Like You could be the title of any of Jon McGregor's four published books. He's a writer interested in moments that change lives and the legacy of these upon his characters. His debut, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, took this concept literally, fusing narratives charting the effects of a single incident and using them to create tension as another narrative built to that crescendo moment. Even the Dogs - his Dublin IMPAC Prize winning novel about a group of drug addicts watching the final journey of one of their own - is all about the after-effects of these single moments. McGregor is a master of writing voice, particularly those of the dispossessed. He captures the humanity, the universal, without romanticising. His characters narrate with the hesitant, repetitive, circuitry, unfinished speech we all use. And his prose is vibrant, playful, energetic, and alive.
The thirty stories collected in This Isn't The Sort Of Thing That Happens To Someone Like You have been written over the last decade: its a summary of his career to date as he grows from a talented wordsmith and storyteller to one of our foremost writers (and, in his own words, 'Britain's second best short story writer' - a reference to 'If It Keeps On Raining' and 'Wires' finishing as runner up in the BBC National Short Story Competition for 2010 and 2011 respectively), challenging conventions and forms of storytelling, pushing boundaries all the time with how words on a page can be used to communicate something. McGregor has written of his appreciation of David Foster Wallace and you can feel his influence here. This Isn't The Sort Of Thing That Happens To Someone Like You is funny, challenging, scary, affirming, and much more besides. It is very good indeed.
The things you don't see happening to someone like you begin with an older couple, arguing gently over the washing up. They aren't all dramatic. A man builds a tree house by the river, in preparation for a coming flood. A sugar beet crashes through the windscreen of a young woman. Fighter jets fly overhead as a war looms. Crime, political tensions, environmental Armageddon, accidents, stagnation in life.
They are all set in the vast flat landscapes of the Fen's, where sky and horizons blend and long flat roads stretch into the distance. Its farming landscape, traditionally mined in literature for themes of memory and forgetting. These are stories that explore the psychology of life in a flat reclaimed landscape, stolen from the sea, and where one of the things we don't see coming may just be its return to the sea. All the while, these places - Upwell, Irby in the Marsh, Messingham, Lincoln etc - feel as if they are being inscribed into stone against the forgetting of the future.
View This Isn't The Sort Of Thing That Happens To Someone Like You - Jon McGregor in a larger map
These stories are born of cycling the landscapes. Their settings correspond with their imaginings. The landscapes are both incidental and central to providing cohesion to the collection. These landscapes are perhaps best explored in 'In Winter the Sky' where a woman's poems about the colour and atmosphere of the sky are set alongside a story about burying the past in the soil, only for floodwaters to bring it back to the surface years later.
'People are not drawn here by the romantic sound of the place.
People don't much come here at all, and so the landscape
remains empty and
retains its beauty and
the beauty of this place is not in the names but the shapes
the flatness / hugeness / completeness of the landscape.
Only what is beneath the surface of the earth is hidden
(and sometimes not even that)
and everything else is made visible beneath the sky.'
One has a strange experience reading many of the stories here. McGregor experiments with different narrative styles - poetry alongside prose, stories told through a surveillance report or a redacted security document - and one goes into these with a slight sense of trepidation. Yet it is these stories that are some of the most rewarding. For they challenge ones sense of a story, of what a story is about, of why a story is told.
If there is a criticism, it is that there are perhaps a few too many stories here. The three experiments with form, the five or six most engaging stories - 'Wires' and 'If It Keeps On Raining', 'Which Reminded Her Later', 'We Wave and Call' - and a few of the shorter entries would have been more than enough. Between six and ten fewer stories would have made it one of the finest collections I have encountered.
Jon McGregor is my favourite contemporary British writer. It was delightful, therefore, to see this collection selected from a longlist of 116 books, to feature in the Summer Reads programme I run. Six great books selected by readers for readers. Books that inspire adventures and expand horizons. If you're looking for tried and tested books, these six come with a readers stamp of approval and a personal recommendation: we fell in love with these books and thought you might too.
April 28, 2020
Pretty good. Some of the stories I didn't quite get, but I definitely liked 'Wires' and 'We Wave and Call'. Some interesting experimental stuff too, such as an entire story written in the form of footnotes to court proceedings, or a story only one sentence long.
June 25, 2014
My friend the crime writer Jim Kelly whose books are set in Ely and King's Lynn, recommended this collection to me because my novel Ninepins was set in the fens and these stories, too, all have the fen landscape as their backdrop - though in this case Lincs rather more than Norfolk or Cambs.
I was totally blown away - so much so that I felt completely disorientated when reading it on the train back from London and nearly missed my stop at Cambridge station and ended up adrift in King's Lynn - which would have been strangely appropriate! The stories are dark, funny, quirky, atmospheric and all richly different, but it's the voices which are the most amazing thing about the book. They hit you, fresh and sharp and real and distinctive from the very first line, which often feels like the middle snatch of a conversation you'd been having with this person in your head without realising it. Utterly brilliant stuff.
Great title, too.
I was totally blown away - so much so that I felt completely disorientated when reading it on the train back from London and nearly missed my stop at Cambridge station and ended up adrift in King's Lynn - which would have been strangely appropriate! The stories are dark, funny, quirky, atmospheric and all richly different, but it's the voices which are the most amazing thing about the book. They hit you, fresh and sharp and real and distinctive from the very first line, which often feels like the middle snatch of a conversation you'd been having with this person in your head without realising it. Utterly brilliant stuff.
Great title, too.
February 5, 2018
I tend not to be a fan of short stories, they’re usually not as good as novels. This, of course, is a sweeping generalisation and, like all sweeping generalisations, is wrong. What I like are stories with a bit of depth, which is not the same thing as length though the two are easily conflated.
This collection of short stories all share a general setting and contain repeated themes, in a couple of notable instances repeated characters as well. The book as a whole therefore isn’t so different from the two novels of his I’ve read and loved (Reservoir 13 and If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things) which have been made up of a large ensemble of characters who often interact little.
There’s a huge variety of writing style and interesting experimentation on show here, not all of which work but the book, as a whole, is wonderful, highly recommended.
This collection of short stories all share a general setting and contain repeated themes, in a couple of notable instances repeated characters as well. The book as a whole therefore isn’t so different from the two novels of his I’ve read and loved (Reservoir 13 and If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things) which have been made up of a large ensemble of characters who often interact little.
There’s a huge variety of writing style and interesting experimentation on show here, not all of which work but the book, as a whole, is wonderful, highly recommended.
August 26, 2017
This collection is uneven. Some of the stories are brilliant and others seem like an afterthought. The stream-of-consciousness style is entertaining, although I found a few stories a bit pointless. This book would have benefited from more curating, culling, and editing. I'm not sure why it's considered one of the best short story collections of all time.
December 30, 2024
I love Jon McGregor and even if I have preferred his novels these short stories were still immensely readable. It’s so impressive the way that he improvises with style and genre and voice in a way that feels completely natural. It almost feels as if he is playing and testing out different styles for his next novel. And how can you find fault with someone who creates a whole story with one single line? Of course not everything quite worked for me but even then I can’t help but admire the effort. One of my favourite contemporary authors and I do need to make a more concerted effort to read some of his lesser known back catalogue.
March 29, 2025
some of these stories were fine i guess. i just can’t get over the fact that contemporary fiction seems to have a patent on banality
April 2, 2025
liked some of the stories� hate it when written language imitates spoken language
May 29, 2016
Interactive Storytelling
Jon McGregor doesn't so much tell stories as invite the reader to find them. Take the first two items in this collection, one short, the other fairly long. "That Colour" is a single paragraph of just over a page. A woman standing in the front row of a cottage calls to a man washing dishes in the kitchen to come and look at the autumnal leaves over the road. He finishes the washing; he comes to her; he takes her hand. That is all. But the writing makes you ask questions—about their relationship, their ages, their history, their mental health—and your questions are the heart of this beautiful story.
The second story, "In Winter the Sky," is much longer. But more than that, it is composed of two separate layers. The main one is about a man confessing to his wife about something that happened when they were courting, years before. But every few paragraphs, in the Kindle edition, you get a phrase formatted as a hyperlink. Click on it, and you see what seems like the draft of a fragment of a poem, apparently written by the wife, with alternate texts and crossings-out. [In print editions, these appear on facing pages.] The relevance of the poems is evocative rather than literal; their images distill the flat fenland country of East Lincolnshire in which all these stories are set. Eventually, you get crossings-out in the prose text too, as if facts could be changed by the manner in which you tell them; as though the mistakes of life could be edited away. And all this in a landscape perpetually subject to editing of a physical kind, as frequent floods erase and rearrange the land.
Every story in the collection is headed with the name of a place, often just a small village you can hardly see on the map. Two of the stories are set elsewhere, but feature people from the same area; another appears to be set in New York, but not in the way you expect. The Fenland is a country of scattered dwellings and loneliness; many of the characters in the story are sad and isolated, nursing self-inflicted wounds from broken marriages or one terrible mistake. One of the saddest stories, "Keeping Watch over the Sheep," shows a disgraced father being turned away from the school auditorium where his daughter in performing in her first Nativity Play. Another divorced man appears in "If It Keeps On Raining," exiled to a desolate cottage on a river bank; but this, one of the longest in the book, turns into a doomsday scenario anticipating the results of global warming.
The doomsday theme increases towards the end of the book, in stories which are even more radically experimental in form. "Supplementary Notes to the Testimony of Appellants B & E," for example, is just that: footnotes to some kind of legal inquiry, that you gradually work out as relating to a group of children forced to flee Eastern England as war refugees. "The Last Ditch" is more complex still, consisting of notes preparing a commune to withstand possible siege, footnotes to those notes, further notes added by some central authority that has managed to get hold of the document, and finally a set of action recommendations—all utterly chilling, as though the Branch Davidians had moved from Waco, Texas, to Lincolnshire, England.
I started this review intending to give the collection only three stars, for despite the brilliant innovation of some of the stories, there are just too many of them: thirty in all, some little more than a line or two in length. But as I pick out the best among them, I don't see how I can award less than four, and a high four at that. And then there are the stories which are not experimental at all, or even especially oblique, but quite simply human. As is the vicar's wife in "Which Reminded Her, Later" who finds it hard to cope when her Good Samaritan husband brings a very strange woman to stay at the vicarage. But uniquely, this couple returns in a later story, "Years of This, Now," in which the balance of their love is reversed. Yes there are some duds, yes there are too many, but these are stories that invite readers to think, to imagine, and, in the best of them, to feel.
Jon McGregor doesn't so much tell stories as invite the reader to find them. Take the first two items in this collection, one short, the other fairly long. "That Colour" is a single paragraph of just over a page. A woman standing in the front row of a cottage calls to a man washing dishes in the kitchen to come and look at the autumnal leaves over the road. He finishes the washing; he comes to her; he takes her hand. That is all. But the writing makes you ask questions—about their relationship, their ages, their history, their mental health—and your questions are the heart of this beautiful story.
The second story, "In Winter the Sky," is much longer. But more than that, it is composed of two separate layers. The main one is about a man confessing to his wife about something that happened when they were courting, years before. But every few paragraphs, in the Kindle edition, you get a phrase formatted as a hyperlink. Click on it, and you see what seems like the draft of a fragment of a poem, apparently written by the wife, with alternate texts and crossings-out. [In print editions, these appear on facing pages.] The relevance of the poems is evocative rather than literal; their images distill the flat fenland country of East Lincolnshire in which all these stories are set. Eventually, you get crossings-out in the prose text too, as if facts could be changed by the manner in which you tell them; as though the mistakes of life could be edited away. And all this in a landscape perpetually subject to editing of a physical kind, as frequent floods erase and rearrange the land.
Every story in the collection is headed with the name of a place, often just a small village you can hardly see on the map. Two of the stories are set elsewhere, but feature people from the same area; another appears to be set in New York, but not in the way you expect. The Fenland is a country of scattered dwellings and loneliness; many of the characters in the story are sad and isolated, nursing self-inflicted wounds from broken marriages or one terrible mistake. One of the saddest stories, "Keeping Watch over the Sheep," shows a disgraced father being turned away from the school auditorium where his daughter in performing in her first Nativity Play. Another divorced man appears in "If It Keeps On Raining," exiled to a desolate cottage on a river bank; but this, one of the longest in the book, turns into a doomsday scenario anticipating the results of global warming.
The doomsday theme increases towards the end of the book, in stories which are even more radically experimental in form. "Supplementary Notes to the Testimony of Appellants B & E," for example, is just that: footnotes to some kind of legal inquiry, that you gradually work out as relating to a group of children forced to flee Eastern England as war refugees. "The Last Ditch" is more complex still, consisting of notes preparing a commune to withstand possible siege, footnotes to those notes, further notes added by some central authority that has managed to get hold of the document, and finally a set of action recommendations—all utterly chilling, as though the Branch Davidians had moved from Waco, Texas, to Lincolnshire, England.
I started this review intending to give the collection only three stars, for despite the brilliant innovation of some of the stories, there are just too many of them: thirty in all, some little more than a line or two in length. But as I pick out the best among them, I don't see how I can award less than four, and a high four at that. And then there are the stories which are not experimental at all, or even especially oblique, but quite simply human. As is the vicar's wife in "Which Reminded Her, Later" who finds it hard to cope when her Good Samaritan husband brings a very strange woman to stay at the vicarage. But uniquely, this couple returns in a later story, "Years of This, Now," in which the balance of their love is reversed. Yes there are some duds, yes there are too many, but these are stories that invite readers to think, to imagine, and, in the best of them, to feel.
October 23, 2012
This Isn't the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You is a collection of short stories: 30 stories, of varying lengths (one is just one sentence; one is thirty pages) and varying styles (1st-person, 2nd-person, and 3rd person narration are all used; one story is in the form of a numbered list of "Supplementary Notes To The Testimony Of Appellants B & E"; another is a list of place names). I don't read that many short story collections, and I don't know why not: when they're good, as this book is, I quite like them. I like short short stories especially, and stories that play with form, stories that are vignettes or moments: all of which there were a lot of in this book.
Most of these stories are set in England, or a dystopic future England; the ones that aren't set in England are still about characters who are clearly English, and each story has a place-name after the title: Horncastle, or Upwell, or Grantham, or Gainsborough, or the very English-sounding "Irby in the Marsh." The tone is often matter-of-fact, and the focus is often on a moment of connection (and/or disconnect) between two characters, like this, from the first story, "That Colour":
There's a story that alternates between prose and poetry, which actually started out as a story all in prose that later was reworked: it's about a couple and a moment from the past that haunts their lives, and you can read the whole thing . I like how this story, particularly, evokes the landscape—the landscape near the fens, the , flat, with fields and water and sky: or as the story puts it, "/fields of wheat / canals & drains / tarmac roads" (7). There is humor, sometimes, in the moments of disconnection, like this bit from this story:
My favorite in the book, "Close," is one of the few not actually set in England—it's about a pair of tourists in Japan, and it's great for the way it conveys a chance encounter, and the weight that one of the participants can attach to it, with the specific details of that encounter's setting: the crunching gravel of the grounds of the Imperial Palace, what the tour guide says and how she says it, the history that the characters learn. My other favorite is "Wires," which starts like this, and has lots of really funny moments (though there are undertones of unease in it, too):
I like the way these stories set a scene, or set a situation in motion, then explore it.
Most of these stories are set in England, or a dystopic future England; the ones that aren't set in England are still about characters who are clearly English, and each story has a place-name after the title: Horncastle, or Upwell, or Grantham, or Gainsborough, or the very English-sounding "Irby in the Marsh." The tone is often matter-of-fact, and the focus is often on a moment of connection (and/or disconnect) between two characters, like this, from the first story, "That Colour":
She stood by the window and said, Those trees are turning that beautiful colour again. Is that right, I asked. I was at the back of the house, in the kitchen. I was doing the dishes. The water wasn't hot enough. She said, I don't know what colour you'd call it." And: "I don't know what they are. Some kind of maple or sycamore, perhaps. This happens every year and she always seems taken by surprise. (3)
There's a story that alternates between prose and poetry, which actually started out as a story all in prose that later was reworked: it's about a couple and a moment from the past that haunts their lives, and you can read the whole thing . I like how this story, particularly, evokes the landscape—the landscape near the fens, the , flat, with fields and water and sky: or as the story puts it, "/fields of wheat / canals & drains / tarmac roads" (7). There is humor, sometimes, in the moments of disconnection, like this bit from this story:
She had only ever called it writing: he was the one who used the word 'poems'. But whenever he said it � 'poems' � it was with an affected air, as if the pretension was hers. So, for example, he might come crashing in from the barn late one afternoon, with his boots on, and say Would you just leave your bloody poems alone for one minute and help me get the seed-drill loaded up?. There were five other places he could have put the bloody in hat sentence, but he chose to put it there, next to 'poems'. This is an example, she would tell him, if he was interested, of what placement could do. (28)
My favorite in the book, "Close," is one of the few not actually set in England—it's about a pair of tourists in Japan, and it's great for the way it conveys a chance encounter, and the weight that one of the participants can attach to it, with the specific details of that encounter's setting: the crunching gravel of the grounds of the Imperial Palace, what the tour guide says and how she says it, the history that the characters learn. My other favorite is "Wires," which starts like this, and has lots of really funny moments (though there are undertones of unease in it, too):
It was a sugar-beet, presumably, since that was a sugar-beet lorry in front of her and this thing turning in the air at something like sixty miles an hour had just fallen off it. (160)
I like the way these stories set a scene, or set a situation in motion, then explore it.
November 21, 2012
I’m a huge fan of Jon McGregor’s novel’s � If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things is one of my favourite books, ever. So, as a keen reader of short stories, I was tremendously excited to get my hands on This Isn’t The Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You � so much so I even bought it in hardback, which I haven’t done with another book in as long as I remember. These stories are more experimental, more subtle than the novels (not that they were unsubtle or conventional, quite the opposite) and are sometimes quite hard to get hold of. This collection is largely set in the flat waterlogged area of eastern England called the Fens and are filled with a sense of foreboding, a brooding kind of menace of things hidden only just under the surface. Perhaps my expectations of this collection were somewhat unrealistic but, for me, only about half of the stories really worked. My favourite was In Winter The Sky in which pages of story are printed on facing pages to poems the narrator is working on, complete with crossings out and some attempts at concrete layout. This was a story where the experimental techniques fitted perfectly with the story and created a unique and exciting reading experience. Some of the other experiments left me cold � in particular, one story is printed in type so small it was a real strain to read and I felt didn’t repay the effort needed. Others that employ a narrative voice belonging to a character that is as flat and dull as the landscape, sailed a little too close to being flat and dull themselves. These stories don’t deliver resolution, often stopping short of any kind of revelation and in most cases this works beautifully, leaving the reader filling in the disturbing details for themselves but in others I felt the balance went the wrong way � leaving the reader feeling a little short changed. All in all, I would recommend this collection but only if you're prepared to be flexible with your definition of 'story'.
August 17, 2020
Brilliant short stories of all sorts and lengths. What they all have in common is the style of the writer, who has his own set of rules for punctuation. It works perfectly. Some of the stories are mere sketches, others are almost crying out to become novels. There is so much details in just a limited amount of words. The main characters are often people born with a "weaving error" or they have to react in and to circumstances that could force every person into making the wrong choices. Some stories look like they are the planning of a civil war, but they do fit into this book. You just have to imagine who is the main character behind it. I can recommend this book highly!
February 17, 2018
I've been reading more short stories recently, and am really starting to appreciate that they are an art form.. These are very eclectic, so there is an element of surprise each time. They are all linked by an acute perception of how people think and feel, in all manner of situations. Lyrical language and, often, the perfect word to give exactly the right nuance.. A delight, and one to reread and savour.
May 2, 2020
Each story stand really well on its own, and McGregor is an expert in using experimental forms to tell a story. And, the best thing of all, the way he uses experimental forms (every sentence starts with the same two words, the story consists of footnotes to an unknown text, story written in the 2nd person, the story is three lines long, etc,...) makes it not irritating to read, which can be the case with experimental prose.
May 30, 2020
Hm... Accomidated? Intimiccomplished? Either of those words would do, like? Anyway that is what I feel after reading this collection of short stories? Genius! Hasn’t put me off reading his novel though, my feeling after reading these short stories I mean? Cos that’s what I’m going to do right after posting this, for want of a better word, review.? I’m going to read If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, is what I am getting at, and see how I feel about it.
June 30, 2017
can't give this a five in good conscious because there are a few short stories that i didn't like that much in here, but i still ABSOLUTELY recommend you pick it up, some of the short stories here are the best things i've read all year.
personal favorite stories: wires, we wave and call, and we were just driving around
personal favorite stories: wires, we wave and call, and we were just driving around
December 8, 2019
I admired these stories but didn’t love them the way I did McGregor’s novel Reservoir 13. Except for the first one, I missed some kind of humanity, compassion, or warmth. Maybe it’s that Reservoir 13 was in part about community and connection, while many of these stories were about what keeps people apart, or missed communication.
August 7, 2017
Very mixed bag. Some utterly stunning short stories - they will stay with me. Some real misses.
Almost felt as though it was the work of a class of students - some at genius level, some who rushed a quick assignment just before class.
Almost felt as though it was the work of a class of students - some at genius level, some who rushed a quick assignment just before class.
March 20, 2020
The story "We Wave and Call" is heartbreakingly beautiful.
July 12, 2022
I'm not a great lover of short stories as a rule but am always keen to hoover up any material from Jon McGregor that I can find.
If you've read any of his novels and enjoyed them, I'd strongly recommend that you give these stories a go as, within them, you'll find all of the ingredients that make him such a wonderfully expressive writer - his dazzling prose, his unerring ear for authentic dialogue, his extraordinary eye for detail, his instinctive affection for the underdog and his remarkable capacity for peeling back the covers and finding the tragedy and redemption in everyday lives.
He is a truly gifted writer.
If you've read any of his novels and enjoyed them, I'd strongly recommend that you give these stories a go as, within them, you'll find all of the ingredients that make him such a wonderfully expressive writer - his dazzling prose, his unerring ear for authentic dialogue, his extraordinary eye for detail, his instinctive affection for the underdog and his remarkable capacity for peeling back the covers and finding the tragedy and redemption in everyday lives.
He is a truly gifted writer.
November 20, 2022
These short stories are largely directionless, slice-of-life observational pieces. The writing is good but the stories don't float my boat.
5.5/10
5.5/10
November 23, 2022
favorieten:
"we wave and call" !!!!!!!
"we were just driving around"
"if it keeps on raining"
"years of this, now"
"the remains"
"we wave and call" !!!!!!!
"we were just driving around"
"if it keeps on raining"
"years of this, now"
"the remains"
March 14, 2012
When I first began reading this volume, I thought perhaps that the stories were connected. They all appear to take place in Lincolnshire (with one exception, which takes place in Japan, in which a main character from the Lincolnshire area is on vacation), and the author is careful to note specific place names. However, the stories themselves seem to have little to do with the named places, and most could have taken place anywhere.
Some of the stories are experimental in nature. An early story intersperses a man's tale with the rough draft poems of his wife, who uses the poetry to react to his tale. One story, named Fleeting Complexity (which apparently is linked to the location "Irby in the Marsh") consists, in its entirety, of the sentence "The fire spread quicker than the little bastard was expecting." Which is certainly a great sentence, but a story? The final story in the collection is Memorial Stone, and it consists of nothing but six pages of place names. All artfully grouped (e.g., places ending in -ham), but still...nothing but place names. I can appreciate that the author enjoys the sounds of the names, but I question whether it qualifies as fiction.
In the end, there appear to be only one pair of stories linked by the couple at the center. The less experimental stories are well-written, and a few are engaging, but as a whole, I found the collection to be forgettable. While I'd be curious to see the items McGregor wrote that were long-listed for the Man Booker prize, I probably wouldn't expend a lot of energy in seeking them out.
Some of the stories are experimental in nature. An early story intersperses a man's tale with the rough draft poems of his wife, who uses the poetry to react to his tale. One story, named Fleeting Complexity (which apparently is linked to the location "Irby in the Marsh") consists, in its entirety, of the sentence "The fire spread quicker than the little bastard was expecting." Which is certainly a great sentence, but a story? The final story in the collection is Memorial Stone, and it consists of nothing but six pages of place names. All artfully grouped (e.g., places ending in -ham), but still...nothing but place names. I can appreciate that the author enjoys the sounds of the names, but I question whether it qualifies as fiction.
In the end, there appear to be only one pair of stories linked by the couple at the center. The less experimental stories are well-written, and a few are engaging, but as a whole, I found the collection to be forgettable. While I'd be curious to see the items McGregor wrote that were long-listed for the Man Booker prize, I probably wouldn't expend a lot of energy in seeking them out.
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