24 Stories of Hope for Survivors - edited by Kathy Burke

I got this book on Unbound, the publisher where you pledge for books and if they get 100% funding they get published. There's a lot of non-fiction stuff on there and also a lot of stuff by marginalised authors, so I love to support stuff. I've got three things I've funded that are still being funded or being published, but I really like it when things drop through my letter box!

So when I first saw this project come up for funding, I backed it straight away. It was set up in the wake of the Grenfell tragedy last June to help survivors of the tragedy. Kathy Burke, writer and comedian, signed on to edit the book almost straight away. 24 stories were chosen from 250 entries, and the authors include well known authors like Irvine Welsh, Christopher Brookmyre, and Meera Syal, as well as new and emerging authors. As a backer of the book, I got my name printed in the back of the book, which feels really lovely to me :)

The book arrived a couple of weeks ago and I promised myself I would pick it up immediately, on the anniversary of the fire. It arrived earlier for backers; it was published generally on the anniversary of the fire itself.

Like all short story collections, there are stories I really liked and ones I didn't like so much. There are stories of wildly different lengths in, too, so that some are only a couple of pages long and others are longer. Some of the really short ones were the ones I liked best and really wanted to hear more of! They encompass a wide range of subjects, although there are a couple that are about the Grenfell fire itself. I liked these a lot, especially the one about the 19 year old immigrant who lived there.

Some of the stories I didn't like that much, but at least they were only short!

In all I would recommend the collection, I'm giving it 3.5 stars out of five.