'Antonia Byatt's first collection of stories displays all her talent as a novelist, but spiced with additional friskiness... a bright, sensual prose that seems to paint rather than describe' - Penelope Lively, Evening Standard It should come as no surprise that short stories by the author of the magical Possession are populated by erudite paranoiacs, witches, changelings, and the ghost of a dead child. A S Byatt's short fictions explore the fragile ties between generations, the dizzying abyss of loss and the elaborate memories we construct against it, resulting in a book that compels us to inhabit other lives and returns us to our own with new knowledge, compassion, and a sense of wonder.