2024 Advent Book 11 – “Playing Sardines” by Michele Roberts

When I indicated my favoured genres for this Advent calendar I understood that the majority of the books received would be crime/suspense/thriller novels, which is fine by me as they form the majority of my reading. Today’s book, however, is a work of literary fiction, one of the genres I chose. It’s Playing Sardines” by Michele Roberts.

This book, unfortunately, suffers from a recent trend of publishers which is that there is no synopsis or blurb about the book on the back cover or the first page but instead there are quotations from publications and other authors saying how much they enjoyed it. This is very unhelpful to a reader who picks it up and wants to know what it is about before they buy a copy and I wish that publishers wouldn’t do it. I have resorted to reading reviews on Amazon and I find that this is a book of short stories about women and that it is admired for the beautiful language used.

I used to dislike short stories but I have learned to enjoy them in later life – the trick is to read them more slowly than I would a novel and thus I appreciate them better. I will definitely try this book which looks like the sort of book I might pick out for myself. It is in very good condition.