Title: Murder at Christmas Writer: Various edited by Cecily Gayford Publishing House: Profile Books Date of Publication: November 7th 2019 Rating: 4 stars ‘’Murder under the mistletoe – and the man who must have done it couldn’t have done it. That’s my Christmas and I don’t feel merry, thank you very much all the same.’’…
Tag: short stories
The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories
Title: The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories Vol.1 Writer: Edited by Tara Moore Publishing House: Valancourt Books Rating: 4 stars ‘’Imagine a midwinter night, an early sunset, a long drafty evening spent by candlelight. The season of Christmas coincides with the shortest days of the year and, for middle-class Victorians, a chance for…
Silent Nights
Title: Silent Nights: Christmas Mysteries Writer: Various edited by Martin Edwards Publishing House: British Library Crime Classics Date of Publication: October 1st 2015 Rating: 5 stars ‘’When television becomes tiresome, and party games pall, the prospect of curling up in the warm with a good mystery is enticing – and much better for the digestion…
A Christmas Memory
Title: A Christmas Memory Writer: Truman Capote Publishing House: Penguin Classics Date of Publication: October 29th 2020 (first published 1956) Rating: 5 stars ‘’It’s fruitcake weather.’’ ‘’Now a nude December fig branch grates against the window. The kitchen is empty, the cakes are gone; yesterday we courted the last of them to the post office, where…
The Twelve Strange Days of Christmas
Title: The Twelve Strange Days of Christmas Writer: Syd Moore Publishing House: Oneworld Publications Date of Publication: October 3rd 2019 Rating: 5 stars ‘’Draw in close, throw another log on the fire if you will. It’s a chill night. I shall just add some of that coal. Now, this may take quite a while so…
Spirits of the Season: Christmas Hauntings
Title: Spirits of the Season: Christmas Hauntings Writer: Tanya Kirk Publishing House: British Library Date of Publication: August 1st 2019 Rating: 5 stars ‘’The second Mrs. Ryder was a young woman not easily frightened, but now she stood in the dusk of the passage leaning back against the wall, her hand on her heart, looking…
Classic Ghost Stories
Title: Classic Ghost Stories Writer: Various Publishing House: Vintage Classics Date of Publication: October 12th 2017 Rating: 5 stars ‘’If the picture within was bright and cheerful, the prospect was dreary enough without. The fairy forest of snow-wreathed trees, the white valleys and undulating banks of snow had vanished, and the rain dropped slowly and…
Don’t Look Now and Other Stories
Title: Don’t Look Now and Other Stories Writer: Daphne du Maurier Publishing House: Penguin Books Ltd. Date of Publication: June 29th 2006 (first published 1940) Rating: 5 stars ‘’The twins were standing there, the blind one still holding on to her sister’s arm, her sightless eyes fixed firmly upon him. He felt himself held, unable…
The Diving Pool
Title: The Diving Pool and Other Stories (original title: (ダイヴィング・プール) Writer: Yoko Ogawa (translated by Stephen Snyder) Publishing House: Vintage Publishing Date of Publication: April 2nd 2014 (first published 1990) Rating: 5 stars ‘’Since I was a little girl, I’ve disliked the thirtieth of December. I could always get through the thirty-first by telling myself…
Grimm Tales for Young and Old
Title: Grimm Tales for Young and Old Writer: Philip Pullman Publishing House: Penguin Classics Date of Publication:September 5th 2013 (first published September 27th 2012) Rating: 3 stars “I want to be God. I want to cause the sun and the moon to rise. I can’t bear it when I see them rising and I haven’t…
New York Stories
Title: New York Stories Writer: Edited by Diana Secker Tesdell Publishing House: Everyman’s Library Date of Publication: January 4th 2011 Rating: 5 stars ‘’The houses across the street were silent and perhaps unoccupied at this time of day; she let her eyes move with the rhythm of the tune, from window to window along one…
The Shortest Day
Title: The Shortest Day Writer: Colm Tóibín Publishing House: Amazon Original Stories Date of Publication: November 3rd 2020 Rating: 5 stars ‘’Thus, it was the strangeness of the night sky and the seasons that they loved and missed, the strangeness of fire and water, the strangeness they noted in each other.’’ It is Christmas and…
Τhe Garden of Forking Paths
Title: The Garden of Forking Paths Writer: Jorge Luis Borges (translated by Donald A.Yates, Andrew Hurley, James E.Irby Publishing House: Penguin Modern Classics Date of Publication: February 22nd 2018 Rating: 5 stars ‘’Summer was drawing to a close, and I realised that the book was monstrous.’’ Jorge Luis Borges, one of the most prominent Argentinian…
The Missing Girl
Title: The Missing Girl Writer: Shirley Jackson Publishing House: Penguin Modern Date of Publication: February 22nd 2018 Rating: 5 stars ‘’It was one of those spring mornings in March; the sky between the buildings was bright and blue and the city air, warmed by motors and a million breaths, had a freshness and a sense…
To Be Read at Dusk
Title: To Be Read at Dusk Writer: Charles Dickens Publishing House: Penguin Little Black Classics Date of Publication: March 3rd 2016 (first published 1852) Rating: 5 stars ‘’Τhe monstrous thought came into my mind as I perused the fixed eyes and the saturnine face, that this was a spirit, not a man.’’ Charles Dickens. The…
Τhe Virago Book of Witches
Title: The Virago Book of Witches Writer: Edited by Shahrukh Husain Publishing House: Virago Date of Publication: September 1st 2020 (first published 1993) Rating: 5 stars ‘’When have I last looked on The round green eyes and the long wavering bodies Of the dark leopards of the moon? All the wild witches, those most noble…
Florida
Title: Florida Writer: Lauren Groff Publishing House: Riverhead Books Date of Publication: June 5th 2018 Rating: 5 stars ‘’It is terribly true, even if the truth does not comfort, that if you look at the moon for long enough night after night, as I have, you will see that the old cartoons are correct, that…
Flowers of Mold
Title: Flowers of Mold (original title 옆집 여자) Writer: Ha Seong-Nan (tr. by Janet Hong) Publishing House: Open Letter Date of Publication: April 23rd 2019 (first published 1999) Rating: 5 stars ‘’Teacher, I want to fly, but the ground keeps pulling me down.’’ Korean Literature is rapidly flourishing thanks to a plethora of wonderful women…
Hag: Forgotten Folktales Retold
Τitle:Hag Forgotten Folktales Retold Writer: Various curated by Professor Carolyne Larrington Publishing House: Virago Date of Publication: October 8th 2020 by Virago Rating: 5 stars ‘’Human existence so often calls for exploration through the imagination, through metaphors, images, narratives that give shape to emotions and conditions, to our sense of being and our struggles to…
Ο Ταξιδιώτης κι η Μαργαρίτα
Τίτλος: Ο Ταξιδιώτης και η Μαργαρίτα Συγγραφέας: Ευγένιος Τριβιζάς Εκδοτικός Οίκος: Πατάκης (Σειρά Κύκνοι) Έτος Έκδοσης: 2017 (1η Έκδοση 1996) Rating: 5 stars ‘’Χρόνια και χρόνια ταξίδευε, σ’ανατολή και δύση. Γνώρισε χειμώνες λευκούς στης καταχνιάς τα ασημένια δάση, και φλογισμένα καλοκαίρα σε κήπους τροπικούς με χρυσοπλούμιστα πουλιά και πορφυρούς λωτούς. Οι νεράιδες του δειλινού τον…
