DJ Taylor has twice been longlisted for the Booker (in 1998 when the longlist was a less distinct concept, and in 2011) and also won the Whitbread (now Costa) Biography award in 2003 for his biography of George Orwell.

This when published in June will I think be his third published short story collection - very much in the style of its predecessor “Stewkey Blues”, also published by the North Norfolk (Cromer) based small press – Salt.

And so much of my review from that collection easily transfers to this.

It is a collection which ranges:

Over time (from the 1970s of the author’s late childhood/youth right up to the near present day – one story in particular – the excellent Annie Prioux influenced “Moving On” itself goes from 1983 to 2007); across Norfolk (this time from Hunstanton on the West Coast to Sea Palling on the East Coast, and from Cromer in the North to Methwold in the South, and with a particular concentration on the various postcodes and districts of Norwich – again “Moving On” ranges all over Norwich and the surrounding areas as its follow a family over their various habitations) and across social class (from the Oxford-aspiring private school educated “elite” of Norwich, the denizens of the rougher parts of Norwich and Norfolk, and the urban middle class either relocating to, having a second home in or simply vacationing in the county).

A particular repeating theme this time seems to be traders: “At Mr McAllisters” is set in a Norwich toy/model aircraft shop, “Drowning in Hunny” in a seafront shop for holiday-makers and “In the Land of Grey and Pink” on a Norwich market stall. All three businesses are going through a time of uncertainty and change and this fits the wider sense of wistfulness and melancholia that permeates this collection like the last.

The author called his previous collection a love letter to Norfolk and (just as I said there) that is my birth county, location of almost all my extended family and location of my second home – it is one I found naturally interesting despite (again repeating myself) as much as Norfolk is very much home, short stories as a literary form being an alien territory for me.

Note that this collection ends with two stories: “Agency” set in a New York literary agency and “Out of Season” set pre-WWII in a French beach resort hotel – and even though both feature an English author (the first as narrator and the second as side-character), they seemed to be out of place in the context of the wider collection, and meant the excellent collection ended on a slight down note.