The Past Present
By Sylvia Petter
Iumix Limited - 2001
ISBN: 1843200058 - Paperback
Contemporary Fiction - short stories

Reviewed by: Amy Mehta, MyShelf.com
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"The Past Present" is a collection of insightful short stories that take a closer look at people of different countries and cultures. The overall effect is an analysis of certain aspects of the human condition, as it explores how one's actions may affect others. We meet an Austrian émigré that is now a tutor for German and an unfaithful businessman that soothes his conscience by buying his wife wooden dolls after each indiscretion. We also hear the thoughts of a young woman seeking to explain the circumstances she is in as she is about to be the victim of a fatal plane accident. Of course, while many of the tales offer a bittersweet truth, and some tales are sadder than others, by no means is the whole book a collection of sob stories.

Pick this one up - you might just learn something about a land that, until now, seemed foreign and very different from our country. Wonderful books like this one serve as a useful reminder that we are all much more similar than we realize.

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