All That Man Is comprises eleven short stories, each told from the perspective of a different man. The stories cover men of different ages, loosely in ascending order, beginning with a student and ending with an octogenarian nearing the end of life. Its eligibility for the Booker depended on it being considered a novel, which is something of a stretch. While there is one direct connection made between characters in different stories, and several others implied, the connection between the tales is more thematic than anything else, so in many senses not unusual for a short story collection., Which, let’s be honest, this is. Where Flesh took as its focus the full life of one man, this book instead views that same span of life through the eyes of a range of different men. While there are obvious differences, though, between the men, with some significant variation in social status alongside the obvious variety of ages, there are also many similarities. Is the book ‘all that man is’ in the sense of man in his ‘rich diversity’, or rather, ‘all that man is’ in the sense that, ultimately, there is not much to set us all apart? Is this limited range part of the point: at the heart of it, we’re all driven by the same few things and all destined for the same outcome?

I Could Be Famous is a book of semi-connected short stories set in California and largely around the LA/Hollywood celebrity ecosystem. Ten of the stories have young women as their focus, mostly in some way connected to or on the periphery of this celebrity culture (from aspirational actors to minor reality TV stars). One more story (Trick) focuses on the established actor Arlo Banks, who has recently found his career somewhat derailed by allegations of cannibalism. He also crops up again in several of the other stories, and it is implied that he is somehow a connecting thread between all of the women in the book.

For the first time on here I’m tackling a collection of short stories. Liberation Day contains nine of them, with no immediately obvious uniting theme. They move between realist character studies, packed with humour and insight, and much darker mini-dystopias.