There’s a Dostoyevsky quote, if that doesn’t sound too pretentious: ‘Low ceilings and tiny rooms cramp the soul and the mind. I ended up having to ration myself out with the stories, to give each one a bit of breathing room and space to percolate in my head, because given the short story form it was easy for some of the ideas to just dissipate immediately after reading. Standouts - in the sense that I remember them most - are the story in which a woman's abusive former partner moves nearby with his new wife and child; the young boy torn between two sides of his family; the two stories Poets Rise and Poets Rise Again, which can't really be adequately described and need to be read. Josie’s stories are like her comedy – beautifully observed, strange, good-hearted, unsettling and truly funny.

Stand up comedian Josie Long's short story collection came as a surprise, there is nothing in the way of an upbeat tone, instead what you get is an astute and observational eye on the darker and more unsettling aspects of life. Like with most collection there were some stories that I enjoyed more than others but as a whole I really enjoyed and was captivated by this one. It is something that I’ve really, really put so much into and there’s a chance that people are going to fucking read it! My favorites of the bunch are: Gallus, What You Could Have Done and A Photo Taken at a Small-Town Museum. My favourite was 2021, 2021 but thinking back and writing this review three weeks later I can’t really remember exactly, all I know is it follows the survivor of an abusive relationship and I believe she comes into contact with her ex (the abuser) and how it was quite tense.

Blurb for the show – which debuted at the Edinburgh Fringe this August – satys the comedian is ‘even more delirious with tiredness and chock-full of confused emotion about the ever-changing, terrible yet beautiful world around her’. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. They’ve usually got fancy covers or clever titles, and I’m often drawn in by the promise of all the different themes they’ll cover in seemingly few pages.

Here we have a range of offbeat and punchy vignettes which each offer a 'slice of life' insight into the various characters' lives and human experiences. I'd highly recommend Because I Don't Know What You Mean and What You Don't, especially if you're after a dark and intriguing collection of short stories which make you think. I’m sending you this newsletter because I’ve written a short story collection and I am incredibly excited to say that it’s coming out next month. RELATED: ‘ Comedian and author Ruby Wax’s honest exploration of her mental health struggles in her latest book, I’m Not As Well As I Thought I Was, unveiling treatments, musings, and a captivating European adventure. Despite Long being a well-known comedian this collection of short stories are anything but 'funny', in fact they are all somewhat disturbing in nature.

The Raymond Carver-like title of the collection gives us a sense of the key problem that many of these characters face, one of communication.

The intimacy of the inner dialogue throughout each story was very interesting and how it was written gave the feeling that you were really seeing something you weren't supposed to. One mixed blessing is the strong influence of Raymond Carver, most clearly in the deliberately unwieldy title of the collection and the echo of 'A Small Good Thing' in Long's 'A Little Dirty Thing'. I've been a Josie Long fan for years, and when I learned that her first book was going to be a collection of short stories, rather than a my-life-in-twelve-lessons-memoir-polemic (as we've seen from so many comedians over the last decade or so), it felt so right: Long's work on Book Shambles and Short Cuts, alongside the Radio 4 plays and micro-budget films she's made, feel suited to this genre, and certainly influenced by it. The short stories cover a wonderful span of types of people and situations, and all feel real, both for the good, bad and cringeworthy!And between gigging, she’s also spent a decade presenting BBC’s award-winning mini documentary series Short Cuts, hosted a parenting podcast with her partner and fellow comedian Johnny Donahoe, and co-founded Arts Emergency, a vital charity helping young people into creative careers. These are the stories where Long fully explores the characters' world and teases its complexities out, giving the protagonist and the reader moments of epiphany. I loved London, but I also felt like London wanted me dead,” Josie Long tells me, with a seasoned comedian’s ear for a pithy line. This is an excellent collection of stories, a selection that packs a powerful punch in bitesize chunks.