National Network for Equitable Library Service

A beautiful new edition of Hugh Hood’s debut story collection. It all started toward the end of the 1930s, when the young Hugh Hood serviced a flourishing Saturday Evening Post delivery route with more than fifty weekly customers. That was where the author-to-be first encountered the short story, in the fiction of the famous magazine writers Damon Runyon, Guy Gilpatric, Arthur Train, and the master of them all, P.G. Wodehouse. Hood would go on to write several novels and short story collections.

This short story is taken from the collection Cover Before Striking. The most common phrase in print is “cover before striking,” a warning to those about to innocently strike a match to be careful not to burn their fingers. Uppal’s characters in Cover Before Striking are all people pushing their lives to new levels of intensity, danger, or passion as they test their limits and those of the world. Implacable and just a little unhinged, the stories of Cover Before Striking each move toward that moment of contact when the sparks begin to fly, when destruction and beauty seem to blur together.

This short story is taken from the collection Cover Before Striking. The most common phrase in print is “cover before striking,” a warning to those about to innocently strike a match to be careful not to burn their fingers. Uppal’s characters in Cover Before Striking are all people pushing their lives to new levels of intensity, danger, or passion as they test their limits and those of the world. Implacable and just a little unhinged, the stories of Cover Before Striking each move toward that moment of contact when the sparks begin to fly, when destruction and beauty seem to blur together.

This short story is taken from the collection Cover Before Striking. The most common phrase in print is “cover before striking,” a warning to those about to innocently strike a match to be careful not to burn their fingers. Uppal’s characters in Cover Before Striking are all people pushing their lives to new levels of intensity, danger, or passion as they test their limits and those of the world. Implacable and just a little unhinged, the stories of Cover Before Striking each move toward that moment of contact when the sparks begin to fly, when destruction and beauty seem to blur together.

This short story is taken from the collection Cover Before Striking. The most common phrase in print is “cover before striking,” a warning to those about to innocently strike a match to be careful not to burn their fingers. Uppal’s characters in Cover Before Striking are all people pushing their lives to new levels of intensity, danger, or passion as they test their limits and those of the world. Implacable and just a little unhinged, the stories of Cover Before Striking each move toward that moment of contact when the sparks begin to fly, when destruction and beauty seem to blur together.

This short story is taken from the collection Cover Before Striking. The most common phrase in print is “cover before striking,” a warning to those about to innocently strike a match to be careful not to burn their fingers. Uppal’s characters in Cover Before Striking are all people pushing their lives to new levels of intensity, danger, or passion as they test their limits and those of the world. Implacable and just a little unhinged, the stories of Cover Before Striking each move toward that moment of contact when the sparks begin to fly, when destruction and beauty seem to blur together.

This short story is taken from the collection Cover Before Striking. The most common phrase in print is “cover before striking,” a warning to those about to innocently strike a match to be careful not to burn their fingers. Uppal’s characters in Cover Before Striking are all people pushing their lives to new levels of intensity, danger, or passion as they test their limits and those of the world. Implacable and just a little unhinged, the stories of Cover Before Striking each move toward that moment of contact when the sparks begin to fly, when destruction and beauty seem to blur together.

This short story is taken from the collection Cover Before Striking. The most common phrase in print is “cover before striking,” a warning to those about to innocently strike a match to be careful not to burn their fingers. Uppal’s characters in Cover Before Striking are all people pushing their lives to new levels of intensity, danger, or passion as they test their limits and those of the world. Implacable and just a little unhinged, the stories of Cover Before Striking each move toward that moment of contact when the sparks begin to fly, when destruction and beauty seem to blur together.

This short story is taken from the collection Cover Before Striking. The most common phrase in print is “cover before striking,” a warning to those about to innocently strike a match to be careful not to burn their fingers. Uppal's characters in Cover Before Striking are all people pushing their lives to new levels of intensity, danger, or passion as they test their limits and those of the world.

This short story is taken from the collection Cover Before Striking. The most common phrase in print is “cover before striking,” a warning to those about to innocently strike a match to be careful not to burn their fingers. Uppal’s characters in Cover Before Striking are all people pushing their lives to new levels of intensity, danger, or passion as they test their limits and those of the world. Implacable and just a little unhinged, the stories of Cover Before Striking each move toward that moment of contact when the sparks begin to fly, when destruction and beauty seem to blur together.