Serendipity: A Miscellany of Short Stories

John Butler

Dec 2012 · Pneuma Springs Publishing

About this ebook

An avid reader of short stories myself, I have enjoyed journeying along with the likes of Mark Twain, O’Henry, Maupassant, Frank O’Connor and others of such ilk. Nearer home, writers like Keith Waterhouse, Bill Naughton, Sid Chaplin, Stan Barstow are among my favourites and of course the inimitable P.G.Wodehouse. In gathering together over the years, this collection of short stories, I feel somewhat like a campanologist with his carillon of bells – ringing the changes. In ‘Serendipity’ there is something for everyone. If your taste is humour there are plenty including ‘It’s No Laughing Matter’, ‘Stop! …Don’t Go Any Further’. There are slices of real life in ‘Arthur’, ‘Lanky Franky’, ‘Death of the Hindenburg’ and ‘My Only Sunshine’. There is satire and irreligious ones – written without any malice. In the animal stories ‘The Dog’, ‘The Gulls’ Court’ and ‘The Camel’ I have given myself full rein and enjoyed exercising anthropomorphism. In short ‘Serendipity’ is the word - take a dip and find your winner. I hope while reading these stories you will be able to share the enjoyment that I felt when writing them. Book reviews online: PublishedBestsellers website.

About the author

After leaving university John tried to make a career in banking but finding himself a square peg in a round hole, decided to enter the teaching profession. In his forty years of teaching, he has taught all ages from infants to 6th form, eventually becoming a headmaster. As secretary of his local teachers’ union he was involved with reports and political matters in education. On retirement he started a course of lectures for the W.E.A and Sheffield University, teaching creative writing to adults. He had a short story accepted by a Chicago magazine and the Daily Mail published his account of the death and resurrection of Oscar, his children’s goldfish. He has travelled to many places in the world. On its sesquicentennial anniversary he followed the route of the Oregan Trail. He has also travelled extensively through the USSR, in Europe and the Road to Samarkand. And of course Ireland!