More good books

Books that have shone out during my recent long run of duds as being really splendid reads, giving me faith that good books are out there if you keep at it long enough. Gossamer Years This is the revised translation by Edward Seidensticker from 1960 of a nameless 10th-century Japanese noblewoman’s complaints about her very … Continue reading More good books →

Liz Williams, Comet Weather

Comet Weather scooped me up and ran away with me. I was up two nights in a row reading it until I was too tired, or I'd reached the end. It's a meaty read, not a slithering skinny thing, but a proper novel, filled with delight and tension and fascinating things. I thoroughly enjoyed it, … Continue reading Liz Williams, Comet Weather →

Xan Brooks, The Clocks in This House All Tell Different Times

This novel annoyed me so much, for its ignorance, or wilful avoidance, of historical accuracy and plausibility. But, if it isn't historical fiction, then it's a deeply uncomfortable read because of its implausibility: we are reading about the systematised prostitution of children in a fantasical story about physical damage in a brutalised society. Some reviewers … Continue reading Xan Brooks, The Clocks in This House All Tell Different Times →

N K Sulway, Rupetta

In the seventeenth century, in the French countryside, an automaton called Rupetta is created. She has a psychic connection with her Wynder, the woman of the family who created her, who reaches into her chest to touch the mechanics of her silver and leather heart, and for whom she feels a great and powerful love. … Continue reading N K Sulway, Rupetta →

Rebecca West: This Real Night, and Cousin Rosamund

These two novels are the sequels to West's The Fountain Overflows (1957), a saga about an eccentric and musical Aubrey family in London from the Edwardian period to the Depression. I really loved The Fountain Overflows, but I'm not so sure about its sequels. This may be because they were incomplete on West's death, and … Continue reading Rebecca West: This Real Night, and Cousin Rosamund →

Rebecca West, The Fountain Overflows

I took a while to get into this sturdy family saga: it was blocking the reading pile for weeks while I struggled to pay it proper attention. Then something clicked, and the peculiarities of The Fountain Overflows (1956) began to attract my attention. At first I thought that it was rather like Rose Macaulay’s Told … Continue reading Rebecca West, The Fountain Overflows →

Science fiction and speculative fiction from Iraq

I really like the concept of Iraq + 100. Stories from a Century After the Invasion. In 2013 Hassan Blasim and his collaborator Ra Page, the founder of Comma Press, asked well-known Iraqi writers to write speculative short stories envisioning Iraq in 2113 or thereabouts. The Introduction and Afterword are persuasive about the artistic ambitions of this … Continue reading Science fiction and speculative fiction from Iraq →

More magic in London: Ben Aaronovitch’s The Hanging Tree

The Hanging Tree is the sixth in the Peter Grant Rivers of London series – about a wizard’s apprentice in a special department of London’s Metropolitan Police, dedicated to sorting out the ‘weird bollocks’ that the regular Met don’t wish to have anything to do with. I think the best way to update other fans, … Continue reading More magic in London: Ben Aaronovitch’s The Hanging Tree →

The 1947 Club: Mistress Masham’s Repose by T H White

I reread this less-known novel by T H White for the #1947Club because I had a Folio Club edition that I’d never read. My paperback copy of Mistress Masham’s Repose fell apart through overuse many years ago, so I was very happy to find this large, illustrated, embossed edition in a fancy cardboard slipcase, lurking under … Continue reading The 1947 Club: Mistress Masham’s Repose by T H White →

Dark whimsy: Mr Powys’ Mr Weston and Mr Peake’s Mr Pye

Mr Weston’s Good Wine, by T F Powys (1927), and Mervyn Peake’s Mr Pye (1953) are English fantasies about sex, sin and other violations of civilised behaviour. Mr Weston’s Good Wine is an allegorical inter-war rural fantasia about casual rape, and Mr Pye uses a prim and postwar Channel Islands setting that shimmies with loathing … Continue reading Dark whimsy: Mr Powys’ Mr Weston and Mr Peake’s Mr Pye →