As the name suggests, this collection of short stories is part of a quartet named for the four Classical elements, all of them featuring work by famous writers who have effectively donated their work for Oxfam to publish. The contributions are fairly wide-ranging too, with Ian Rankin splashed on the cover next to Kate Atkinson, Rose Tremain jostling for space with Marti Leimbach, and so on. It’s a pleasantly worthwhile venture, and, on the cover at least, it seems to be well conceived.

Within, the emphasis definitely seems to be on variety, with a broad range of subjects covered: from the death of Tolstoy to The Death of Marat via an autistic child and memories of a Ukrainian mother, the stories all enjoy their own very individual link to the book’s overarching theme. But how do those stories measure up to one another? Well, despite a generally high standard, it would seem to be that variety is the order of the day here too. The opening poem by Vikram Seth does nothing for me, and people who enjoy modern poetry will probably wonder whether it was really worth putting his name on the cover for such an inconsequential piece. But then the first story from Rose Tremain, for all its literary incestuousness – writers writing about writers, again – is actually an excellent read, balancing a rather dry humour with a genuinely interesting and emotional recreation of historical events.

Equally arresting is Marti Leimbach’s account of living with autism, which seems to offer such an intensity of personal experience – capably reworked by the writer – that it remains for me one of the stand-out pieces of the book. For all that such altered states of living and being are something of a staple among writers with serious literary ambitions, Leimbach’s writing seems to exude a touching honesty which remains hard to ignore. Finally, The Death of Marat, an account of a white African lady’s plot to assassinate her despotic president – inspired by the parallels of the titular event – is a fairly gripping read. The rather obvious parallels with current political realities are somewhat leaden, and perhaps more of a hindrance than a help to the work, but it manages to retain a necessary distance from these things and so never falls foul of the writers’ tendency to hector and patronise their audiences. It is also very finely judged in terms of exposition and progression, and despite its length – it’s the longest piece in the book by some stretch – it remains engaging right to the end.

On the other hand, some of the contributions are rather underwhelming. Ian Rankin’s offering is certainly witty – Rebus finds a man killed by frozen urine falling from a plane – but since his entire contribution to the book is only 250 words long, including his biography, one wonders if the siting of his name in pole position on the front cover isn’t something of a cynical marketing ploy. Then there is the rather puzzling contribution from Hanif Kureishi, which seems laboriously overworked and takes us nowhere in spite of its pretensions to carry us on a journey into a fifty-year-old man’s past. As a rather tepid improvisation along the same lines as Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled, it is easily the weakest and most time-consuming part of the collection.

Overall, however, this book remains an entertaining read, and is probably a very good choice of summer reading for those with an occasionally serious taste in books. It isn’t the best collection of short stories I have ever read, but it’s a very long way from being the worst: it’s only a fiver, and the proceeds go to charity. You could do a lot, lot worse.

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