Tiny Deaths by Robert Shearman

What a powerful and wonderful book this is. In deliberately toned-down and undemonstrative prose, Shearman takes the lives of average people, suburbanites, office-workers, the patiently married, the mildly disappointed, and, with one single fundamental shift of perspective (for want of a better word), creates a reality that surprises, informs and moves, often deeply. I found most of these stories compelling, touching, occasionally gut-wrenching, often funny, with a capacity to tell truths about the way we live that many far more ambitiously written books just don’t have. It’s the kind of book you want to press into other people’s hands.

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