By “fast reading,” we do not mean some magic technique that will allow you to read a thousand pages in an hour. This is not required when reading fiction – who wants to speed up the pleasure? But it so happens that there is simply no time for this pleasure. Then small prose comes to the rescue. In Russia, the story is somewhat dismissive, this is something frivolous, a literary trinket, although in recent years attempts by publishers to such a situation have been noticeable. We, too, join this movement and tell today about three collections of stories.

Lera Manovich. “Goodbye Anna K.”

A collection of stories and other small sketches for those who love clear and at the same time not flat texts.

Lera Manovich is a poet, prose writer, playwright, member of the Moscow Writers’ Union. Works were published in several literary collections and magazines “Friendship of peoples”, “Ural”, “New World”. Manovich’s works were translated into German, English, Polish and Serbian languages ​​and were awarded at the International Voloshin Competition and the Prize. Babel. And the collection “Goodbye, Anna K.” got into the long list of the NoS literary prize.

Photo: Lera Manovich’s personal page, Facebook.com

At the same time, Lera Manovich’s work is still unfamiliar to a wide readership. It’s a shame, because her stories are noteworthy. The author writes about different things, her heroes are not alike – from barefoot village guys to old women in Alzheimer, for some she comes up with the fate that has taken place, about others she tells only a small episode of a weekday. But all the stories are full-blooded, vivid and emotional. Manovich skillfully combines gentle nostalgia with the evil (and sometimes cruel) truth of life. The world of her stories is the world of ordinary people, the inhabitants of Russia – villages and megalopolises, in some heroes the features of our neighbors, fellow travelers of morning minibuses, ourselves are easily guessed.

Some of the stories probably have an autobiographical basis, from this reading of the book you quickly begin to feel like a conversation with a friend, in you exchange anecdotes from life. At the same time, the language of the collection is simple, but not colloquial, each word in it is in its place. Sometimes you even wonder how the author succeeds in pulling voluminous pictures out of the back streets of the reader’s memory with a short sentence. So Manovich writes about the fish factory’s camp site and says that “the canteen is stuffy,” and these four words take you to the camp site from your childhood, or to a sanatorium, or to a pioneer camp on the banks of the Volga – this “appetizing stuffiness” suddenly becomes a time machine. And the people about whom he writes rather quickly cease to be just characters, they are alive, it is easy for them to sympathize, their joys and troubles are understandable, their stories are probable and everyday. Surely, there will be more than one character that will annoy you, there will be those that will make you excite, but it will hardly be possible to remain stony-indifferent when reading Lera Manovchi’s collection.

336 pages

2021 year

Labyrinth – 470 rubles, Ozone – 510 rubles.

Yu Nesbo. “Jealousy”

This author of detective thrillers, the ambassador of the Norwegian noir, we have already mentioned in our reviews. Russian and world readers know Nesbo primarily as the writer who invented Harry Hole. Few can resist the charm of a destructive detective. Nesbo himself, apparently, decided that it was time to tie up with Hole. For several years he has been trying to get away from the popular cycle, writing independent novels and stories, and now he has released a collection of stories.

Photo: Michaela Petre from the personal page of Yu Nesbo, Facebook.com

Jealousy is seven crime stories in which the author somehow explores one of the most archaic feelings. The feeling is dark and inescapable, for many centuries pushing people to the wildest deeds. Nesbo looks at the fate of several couples. Talking about murders in such a seemingly banal way, the Norwegian remains true to himself and gives out the usual tales about how the offended husband cut off his wife’s lover, and famously twists the plots and rewards the heroes with a sophisticated fantasy. Both in the choice of the method of reprisal, and in inventing pious excuses for his crime.

There are also twin brothers, one of whom goes missing during a mountaineering expedition on a Greek island. And the sweet chatters and gradually fall in love with each other in the air travel companions. The best jewelry, confectionery, hand cream or garbage truck … can explode with the instruments of reprisal in Nesbo’s stories.

Seven short stories with gripping plots and well-presented criminal psychology are what you need to tickle your nerves on a dark evening.

288 pages

2021 year

Bookvoyed – 480 rubles, Liters – 240 rubles

“Skip the line. Scenes of Soviet Life in the Stories of Contemporary Writers “

A collection of stories, essays and other short prose (and even a little poetry) by various Russian authors. The topic of the book is indicated in the title. I must say right away that I recommend that you familiarize yourself with the paper version for the sake of accurate and touching illustrations by Sasha Nikolaenko.

Illustration: labirint.ru

We hasten to reassure our opponents – “Out of Line” does not assert that life in the Soviet Union was exceptionally good or, on the contrary, uncompromisingly bad. These are mostly memoir sketches of authors of different generations.

The collection contains a variety of aspects of Soviet life: fashion and scarcity, pioneering and friendship of peoples, meeting with foreign culture and the birth of the myth that “it was better in Soviet times.”

Lyudmila Ulitskaya talked about the values ​​of a sewing machine in a Soviet family, how difficult it was to get at least some decent fabric, about the endless alteration of the things of older relatives for the well of younger ones, and how, with all the difficulties of some Soviet people, they knew how to be stylish.

Evgeny Vodolazkin shared his experience of pioneer leadership, and Alexander Genis – notes from a fascinating hitchhiking trip through the Soviet republics. In the story “The Country Needs Paper”, Shamil Idiatullin seems to recall how the waste collection was organized in his school years, and as a result, it turns out about the reading experience of his childhood. The fact is that in newspapers and thick literary magazines in those years one could find translated science fiction stories, which could not be published in books. Young Shamil learned to look for interesting works with them much earlier than adults.

Sad and funny, warm and painful essays, stories, essays, even literary articles and one poem from thirty-eight famous Russian authors are collected in the collection “Skip the line”. With some works, you may want to argue, they say “lies, it never happened”, like others you will read as if they were written on the basis of your personal memories. This book can become a bridge between generations – stories from the collection are suitable for talking about them over tea with your grandmother or reading episodes to children.

528 pages

2021 year

Moscowbooks.ru – 614 rubles, liters – 320 rubles