Introduction

I’ve chosen twelve stories that I frequently find myself coming back to and thinking about, whether I first read them years ago or discovered them relatively recently. They all haunt me and, in their different ways, say or reveal something true. Looking at my selection now, it strikes me that one reason they’ve stayed with me is because they are all slightly audacious. By ‘audacious’ I don’t mean showy or experimental, but they’re stories where I can imagine how the same idea might easily have fallen flat (how it could have been taken too far, or not far enough), yet the writer makes it work perfectly, and it’s as if you’ve witnessed someone pull off an astonishing acrobatic feat.