For this week's books column, we've rounded up a selection of short stories to give you something to read. 

 

People who never read any Stephen King, or who read Christine or Carrie at school, tend to have a fixed idea of him in their heads. But as well as being the man who wrote the Shining, he's also the man who wrote the Shawshank Redemption, and Stand by Me, and  hundreds of other short stories that often defy expectations.  

This is from his latest collection, the Bazaar of Bad Dreams. It's not his best short story collection (if reading this makes you want to delve into some more of his work I'd recommend starting with Skeleton Crew or Just After Sunset), but this story, inspired by the true story of a mother and her children who died in a crash, stands out.

Brenda's won some money on the lottery and she's using it to pay off some of her debts and hire a people carrier to drive her friend Jasmine and their assorted children back to their home town. But even the joy of winning isn't enough to lift the grey from Brenda's life. Because she knows: "Every time you see bright stuff, somebody turns on the rain machine. The bright stuff is never colorfast."

  • Covehithe, by China Mieville

    Even wondered what happens to a decommissioned oil rig? This story gives you an answer you almost certainly won't have expected. 
    If you like this, read The City and the City, a crime novel in a sci-fi setting. Mieville is not a writer who explains as he goes along, and the City and the City is at once a romp of a murder mystery while also demanding concentration to take in the setting - two cities occupying the same patch of land where the residents are required to pretend the other doesn't exist.

 

  • Winter Break, by Hilary Mantel

    Hilary Mantel might now be best known to thousands as the Wolf Hall author or the woman who wrote THAT Margaret Thatcher short story (or if you read the Daily Mail the woman who slagged off our Kate Middleton), but she too is a prolific short story writer. Like Stephen King her stories often explore the darker side of the human personality and this story is no different. You'll see the end coming, probably, but that won't spoil your enjoyment.
  • Wild Swimming, by Elodie Harper

    Stephen King picked this as his winner of the Guardian's short story competition and it's really not bad at all.
     
  • Evidence by Isaac Asimov (pdf, scroll to p105)

    From the man who wrote the three Laws of Robotics, a story that will make you wonder whether there really are androids among us. 

This tale of a young woman who swims in a creek in Kenya is a former winner of the BBC Radio 4 Short Story competition, and deservedly so.