Title: The Heart and Other Viscera: Stories Writer: Félix J. Palma Publishing House: Atria Books Date of Publication:September 17th 2019 Rating: 5 stars ”At that time of evening, the playground resembled a childhood graveyard. The swings creaked mournfully in the breeze, the slide rose toward the moon like an abrupt, useless object, and the crisscrossed bars of the climbing…
Month: October 2019
A Spell of Winter
Title: A Spell of Winter Writer: Helen Dunmore Publishing House: Penguin Date of Publication: June 6th 2019 (first published January 1st 1995) Rating: 5 stars ‘’They were bringing my uncle Joseph down the stairs. Narrow, twisty stairs they put in houses where they’d given no thought to the living or the dead. You couldn’t get a coffin up them.’’ Helen…
Prague In Legends
Title: Prague In Legends Writer: Anna Novotná (illustrated by Jan Klimeš) Publishing House: Práh Date of Publication: 2016 Rating: 5 stars ‘’It is said that the St Vitus bells can change their sound according to the mood of the nation.’ In Prague, History and Legend walk hand in hand and greet you in every corner. The Golden City created after…
Humiliation
Title: Humiliation (original title: Qué vergüenza) Writer: Paulina Flores (translated by Megan McDowell) Publishing House: Oneworld Publications Date of Publication: November 7th 2019 (first published 2015) Rating: 4 stars ‘’I had the hope I would be able to forget. I longed for the freedom of a heroine, a life of my own, a happy one. Back then I ridiculously faced…
The Life of Death
Title: The Life of Death Writer: Lucy Booth Publishing House: Unbound Date of Publication: May 2nd 2019 Rating: 5 stars ”I am there when you are born. When you cross the road. When the live wire frays in a Bakelite plug. I am there in the hospital canteen, by the frozen pond, in the carbon monoxide fug of a terraced…
Halloween Reads
Oh, it’s THAT time of the year again! Carved pumpkins staring at us with their mischievous smiles shining in the dark, orange-gold and red leaves and lights, children dressed as ghosts and witches, super exciting decorations providing excuses for us lovers of the Gothic aesthetics to fill our house with skulls and brooms and coffins….
By Night Under the Stone Bridge
Title: By Night Under the Stone Bridge (original title: Nachts unter der steinernen Brücke. Ein Roman aus dem alten Prag) Writer: Leo Perutz (translated by Eric Mosbacher) Publishing House: Arcade Publishing Date of Publication: April 1st 1990 (first published 1953) Rating: 5 stars “They say a deaf man heard a dumb man talking about a blind man who saw a…
The Hound of the Baskervilles
Title: The Hound of the Baskervilles Writer: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Publishing House: Penguin Clothbound Classics Date of Publication: October 1st 2009 (first published August 1901) Rating: 5 stars (Oh, come on…I was looking for a chance to use a Sherlock screencap for my header image…😁) ‘’It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I covet…
The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women
Title: The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women Writer: Various ed. by Marie O’Regan Publishing House: Running Press Date of Publication: October 18th 2012 Rating: 4 stars ”Although the stories vary from tales of ghostly children to those of lost pets, from murder to accidental death, from rage to sorrow and back again, one thing is central to…
Starve Acre
Title: Starve Acre Writer: Andrew Michael Hurley Publishing House: John Murray Date of Publication: October 31st 2019 Rating: 2 stars ”He says my name sometimes. He tells me to come to the tree.” A young family moves to the moors, to a house where dreams and nightmares co-exist. The forest nearby hides secrets and strange apparitions. But the young…
The Binding
Title: The Binding Writer: Bridget Collins Publishing House: The Borough Press Date of Publication: January 10th 2019 Rating: 4 stars ‘’I laid my hand over the bruises on my arm, fitting my fingers into the marks. The wind murmured in the thatch and drove another gust of rain against the window-pane, but the house was thick-walled, solid, as old as…
Mary Shelley
Title: Mary Shelley Writer: Mª Isabel Sánchez Vegara & illustrated by Yelena Bryksenkova Publishing House: Frances Lincoln Children’s Books Date of Publication: October 1st 2019 Rating: 5 stars I have long coveted the Little People, Big Dreams series. It seems to me that the time has come for the intermediate students to familiarize themselves with writers, scientists, artists that have shaped…
Literary Landscapes: Charting the Worlds of Classic Literature
Title: Literary Landscapes: Charting the Worlds of Classic Literature Writer: Edited by John Sutherland Publishing House: Black Dog & Leventhal Date of Publication: November 13th 2018 Rating: 5 stars ‘’Literary landscape is composed of words which must be recomposed in a frame of imagination. ‘’The inward eye’’, British ‘’Lakeland’’ poet William Wordsworth called it, drawing a distinction between perception and…
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