Ornithology: Sixteen Short Stories
How many crows make a murder? When might you see a plunging of gannets? Why should you fear a charm of goldfinches?
In Paris in the 1980s, a young man is lured by an unexpected predator into a perilous game.
As a writer working on a locked-room mystery starts to go blind, his vision becomes populated by birds.
Two sisters perform an act of revenge that leads to a deadly transformation.
In his new collection of disquieting, surreal short stories, Nicholas Royle examines the haunting beauty and many uncanny qualities of birds, and explores – amid moments of black comedy – the dark mystery of human desire.
Readers also enjoyed
Nicholas Royle
Nicholas Royle is the author of two previous collections, Mortality and Ornithology, as well as In Camera (with David Gledhill). His seven novels include The Director’s Cut, Antwerp, and First Novel. Reader in Creative Writing at the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University, he is head judge of the annual Manchester Fiction Prize and series editor of Best British Short Stories. He also runs Nightjar Press, publishing original short stories in chapbook format.
Novels
- Counterparts (1993)
- Saxophone Dreams (1996)
- The Matter of the Heart (1997)
- The Director's Cut (2000)
- Antwerp (2004)
- The Appetite (2008)
More books by Nicholas Royle
