"the guardian review Book of short stories" by Lisa Allardice (ed) (Guardian Creative, 2011)

• An Idyll in Winter (William Trevor) - Anthony was 22 when he was a private tutor for Mary Bella on a farm. He later became a cartographer, married, and had kids. Mary became orphaned when she was 24 or so. When he had to return to the area for business he popped in. There and then he decided to walk out of his marriage and stay at the farm. His wife was stoical. Their older child, 9, stopped eating. He returned, and the girl improved. He went back to the farm. Mary was worried about his daughter. One morning he left, returning to his understanding wife. The tone at times is like a fable.
• Underbrush Man (Margaret Atwood) - first a dog's PoV, then its owner's PoV (a mother of 2, kids left home, husband left with a younger woman). On their morning walk they find a blood-faced body in bushes. Then we switch to the PoV of a schoolgirl, a distant onlooker who sees the dog bite the leg of the body and the body (man) get up and the woman collapse. Two other men appear. Finally we get the PoV of the bitten man. He's an artist and his two friends are recording reactions. His partner left him a month before. He wonders whether he and the lady might become friends.
• Miracle (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie) - In Lagos, Ifemelu's mother switches between religions hoping for luck. Aunty Uju (who had come from her village to live with them, like an older sister to Ifemelu) easily gets a doctor job. Grandad is sacked because he didn't suck up to the right people, and starts going to church. Ifemelu (15, female) knows that Uju (25) is mistress of a married General. Ifemelu goes to her asking for money to pay the rent, but Uju says she hasn't been paid and has to ask for money from the General. A few days later Uju (rather embarrassed) hands over 2 years worth of rent to Ifemula's father. The Uju/Ifemelu relationship has changed.
• Cockfosters (Helen Simpson) - 2 schoolmates, women in their forties, discuss peers and aging while on the Tube. No.
• The Closing Door (Rose Tremain) - It's 1954. A girl is catching a train to boarding school. Her father died in the final week of the war - his parents are paying the school fees. Her mother, who sees her off, notices that some of the other mothers are relieved to see their kids go. She follows two of them back to their house. She phones her daughter who seems much happier than she does.
• Terminator: Attack of the Drone (Mohsin Hamid) - 2 men with US accents try to shoot down an enemy machine. Not much to the story. Maybe it's really the Middle East?
• Portraits (Rachel Cusk) - an artist (born 1854; he does self-portraits at least yearly) is currently painting a singer. He wonders about the effectiveness of painting and writing. He has long dreams about peers dying. After his death his widow notes a change in his writing when he did the singer's portrait, which has become his most highly regarded painting.
• Trespassing (Margaret Drabble) - even as a girl Elizabeth enjoyed the idea of trespass. Now a professor emeritus, children grown, she explored derelict buildings - old asylums, etc. She gets worked up (it takes a page!) about rising electricity bills from EDF (a French company). She goes on a coastal walk by Hinkley power station, trespasses into the site reserved for station C, the nature trails "closed until further notice". A man (Malayan?) in Hi-Vis tells her the way back to the public path. Back home she recalls Verdi - "Io sono straniera in questo suol".
• Embedded or The Silent Countenance of Suleiman al Dewani (Hisham Matar) - The Libyan narrator, stuck in Cairo, meets the guy mentioned in the title. 20 years later, he meets him again - "It is hard to trust a man who does not change". After the Egyptian revolution and the Libyan uprising it's time to get him.
• Moths of the New World (Audrey Niffenegger) - "The book woke up in a strange man's appartment ... Or: the book was a small-boned light-haired woman ... Like most real books she spent a great deal of her time sleeping ... Moths of the New World had never met a reader before ... The man saw a woman climb into a book and disappear ... He fell to the floor insensible and the bookcase fell on top of him. He bled to death ... Weekends meant less to Bo now that he was dead. ... He had been surprised to find himself working in a library after death". Bo's sent out into the real world to find Moths. I like it.
• The Man Who Fell (Polly Samson) - A young man meets a woman - a victim of domestic violence, a falconer. He goes home for his mother's birthday. She swims a mile down river each year. She's thinking of moving in with a man. There's quite a lot of going back and forwards in time, more than perhaps is necessary. Otherwise i like it.