Helen Simpson's sixth short-story collection, Cockfosters, follows Four Bare Legs in a Bed (1990), Dear George (1995), Hey Yeah Right Get a Life (2000), Constitutional (2005) and In-Flight Entertainment (2010). A Bunch of Fives: Selected Stories (2012) includes five stories from each of her first five collections. She has received the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the Somerset Maugham Award, the Hawthornden Prize and the E.M.Forster Award. She lives in London.

"It's all packed with Simpson's deadpan wit - she is one of the most sharply funny writers in England today" Times Literary Supplement "When it comes to contemporary maestros of the short-story form, Helen Simpson is up there with Alice Munro... If they had any sense the 10:10 carbon-reduction campaign would distribute this book for free, such is its power" -- Lucy Atkins The Sunday Times "The best short story writer now working in English" Financial Times "In-Flight Entertainment is quite delectable, confirming her as the queen of the comic short story" Sunday Telegraph "Helen Simpson can weave more thought and feeling into a thousand words than some achieve in as many pages" Intelligent Life