REVIEWS
AND COMMENTS ON BALANCING ON THE EDGE OF THE WORLD:
'Quite
swept me off my feet ... Nothing would have induced me
to interrupt Balancing on the Edge of the World by Elizabeth
Baines until I'd read them all' - Dovegreyreader. Read
a review by Dovegreyreader here.
'One
of those books I had to force myself to put down just
so the experience of reading it wouldn't end.' - Tania
Hershman
'One
of the best short story collections I have ever read'
- Jamieson Wolf
'Stunning
short stories' - Sally Zigmond. Read whole review here.
'What
makes Elizabeth Baines' collection so brilliant ... is
that she perfectly plays with both the page-turning quality
of novel's fiction, and a crafted beauty you usually only
associate with verse... They're funny, and moving, and
thoughtful - but above all, they're short stories which
celebrate how beguiling short stories can be. Read and
be enchanted.' - Rob Shearman, author World Fantasy Award
winning collection Tiny Deaths. Read the full review here.
'This
is storytelling for the 21st century' - Jim Murdoch. Whole
review here.
'Every
story is meticulously crafted, and I loved how the stories
are told with such a compact grace... There is an emotional
honesty to them that is really raw and intense, and I
found them very affecting' - Shelf Life blog. Read the
whole review here.
'Frank,
original prose underpins all the stories and the central
motif, power…This is a stunning debut collection
by a writer whose prose deliberates its characters and
themes with a keen sense of literary drama' - Melissa
Lee-Houghton, The Short Review. Full review here.
'A
terrific collection - luminous, witty and wise' - Livi
Michael
'Each
story strikes to the heart' - Sue
Guiney
'This
is the real deal' - Matt Bell on one of the stories in the
book, 'Daniel Smith Disappears off the Face of the Earth'
Full appreciation here.
'There’s
this great sense of delight in words, in expression, that
lends a freshness to even the most traditional piece here.
It feels rather like her characters are really glad to just
be able to tell you about their lives, even when those lives
are not necessarily much fun. The overall effect is like
walking down the street and seeing people in their living
room who have forgotten that people outside can see in,
except this time you can hear them, too.' - Bookmunch blog.
Read whole review here.
'Elizabeth
Baines' specialty is unpacking relationships ...[She is]
wincingly funny about the creative process and 'The Shooting
Script' ought to be required reading for anyone who fancies
themselves writing for television. She's both lyrical and
clear-sighted when she looks at the world through a child's
eyes ...Enormous aplomb ...Very well-written' - Adele Geras.
Full review here.
'A
very high standard of writing indeed and I enjoyed it very
much... I'd definitely read more Baines' - Anne Brooke.
Full review here
'Elizabeth Baines is a superb stylist - a latter-day fabulist
in fact - and her writing reminded me of Chekhov's in that
it was spare and paid attention to the subtleties of everyday
experience.' - Clare Dudman
'I
was moved and impressed by its intelligence, emotional acuity
and sheer variety' - Charles Lambert.
'Impressive
collection... She finds and plucks out important and remarkable
moments from the otherwise ordinary. It is quite a skill.'
- Scott Pack. Full
review here.
'A
description of a mugging that manages to be both beautiful
and harrowing, one of those perfect pieces of short fiction
that sticks with you and makes you see the next puddle you
walk past differently' - Katie Rathfelder on 'Daniel Smith
Disappears off the Face of the Earth', Bookmunch. See full
review of the collection here.
ABOUT
BALANCING ON THE EDGE OF THE WORLD
Where
is the Edge of the World? It's a back alley in Chinatown,
or the dark suburban street where muggers jump you, it's
a mountain camp in the dusk for an estranged father and
son. It's the endless dunes where you lose your way, it's
a seat in a pram at the top of a hill. It's the place where
an erotic encounter can lead you. It's the unacknowledged
scientific view, or the intuitive insight which conventional
medicine ignores. It's the powerlessness resulting from
lost language and suppressed history, it's the moment with
the rough kids in the woods when you understand you're no
better than them. It's the place where you can wrest back
power - rebel against a violent father, expose a conman,
discover you have magic powers.
It's
between these covers. You
can go there by clicking here
or here
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