The Things We Nearly Miss

Some of the things that shape a life are remarkably easy to miss. A feather kept in a pocket. A shopping list found in a drawer. A stranger at the wrong funeral. A chair nobody quite knows how to throw away. A door that opens the other way.

In thirty-three modern fables, Belinda Bates turns her attention to the ordinary moments, objects and encounters that so often pass unnoticed — and finds within them questions about memory, inheritance, uncertainty, relationships, curiosity and the peculiar business of being human.

These are not stories with morals waiting at the end. They offer something less certain, and perhaps more interesting: a change of angle, an unexpected recognition, a question that follows you home.