For the Fire volume of Oxfam’s elementally themed fundraising quartet, we have a mixture of short stories and extracts from forthcoming novels to get our teeth in to, (very) loosely connected by the ideas of fire, violence and suffering – and the extracts are in many cases the more satisfying and intriguing reading.

John Le Carré’s wry contribution is a small but perfectly formed parable on the virtues of silence and inaction, and can’t fail to bring a smile, though I suppose I had hoped for something meatier. Meat is very much at the forefront of the protagonists”s mind in Mark Haddon’s ‘The Island’, the story of Ariadne, abandoned on the island of Naxos by Theseus. Haddon imagines the fate of a pampered woman totally unprepared for the rigours of survival, and tells how she came to attain immortality through the attentions of the god Dionysos. It’s an interesting story well told, though I admit it makes a lot more sense now that I have Googled the relevant mythology (prompted, strangely, by the mention of Ariadne in one of the other stories in the book).

Lionel Shriver, author of the magnificent and haunting We Need to Talk About Kevin, previews her next novel, offering up an encounter between two old school ‘friends’ many years after their paths diverged. Shriver shows her mastery of human psychology and captures the essence of the mixture of awe and loathing that one schoolboy feels towards another who is the centre of the social whirl, the golden boy – and how the object of these emotions felt about his own experiences. How these feelings translate in to their actions and attitudes as adults is fascinating and probably something we can all relate to. This tale certainly bodes well for Shriver’s next novel as a whole.

Also providing extracts are Sebastian Faulks, who is once again turning his attention to some profoundly unsympathetic characters in a work which may well reasonate with the prevailing anti-capitalist attitude, judging by this piece; and William Sutcliffe, whose ‘Sandcastles: a Negotiation’ is a wonderful portrayal of put-upon parenthood that descends chillingly to the beginning of every parent’s worst nightmare.

There is also an enjoyable story from Victoria Hislop (‘Aflame in Athens’), and as someone who has recently acquired a puppy, Jeanette Winterson’s ‘Dog Days’ raised a few smiles too. Compilations such as Ox-Tales have it in their nature to be a bit hit-and-miss, but I can safely say that Fire is mostly hit, with the added benefit of giving you a good taste of some novels to come, and being in aid of a worthy cause too.

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