Love Hurts - A Book of Love Stories

24 stories, 363 pages and a bumper crop of accomplished writers: Geras, Ure, Johnson, Alcock, Nimmo, Masters and Wynne Jones to name but a few - all for £3.50. This collection is an amalgamation of three previous Mammoth titles and it really is one of the best anthologies I've encountered. There are a variety of styles here - material sufficient for a study in itsel - and none with the, sometimes, suspiciously manufactured feel of stories commissioned for anthologies. The writing is consistently sensitive and excellent - a pity the rather disappointing cover fails to do justice to its meritorious contents.