Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) Signet-Penguin, 1992 In Dracula, you might expect to find a traditional tale of fright, narrated by the guy sitting next to the campfire, who's holding the end of the flashlight (er, torch) so that his face is illuminated in the spookiest way possible. But, no. Bram
Anita Silvey's 500 Great Books for Teens Houghton Mifflin, 2006 As the reading year stretches on, I can't help but start thinking about the reading-year-to-come. (I'm not proud of my wandering reader's eye. But I've accepted it because there are more serious flaws to eradicate first!) So this time of
Daphne duMaurier's Flight of the Falcon (1965) Penguin, 1969 Virago Modern Classic No. 516 Did you notice that I was complaining about the female characters (and their complete and utter uselessness/sexlessness/vixenishness) in The Birds last week? Oh, I admit, that made me a bit nervous. I was really wondering if
Daphne Du Maurier's The Birds (1952) Arrow Books, 1992 Virago Modern Classic No. 498 My favourite story from this collection is "The Apple Tree". Partly because I've long believed that there is more to a tree than one might think, thanks to years of reading L.M. Montgomery's novels, in which
Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger Virago, 2009 When I saw this one with Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna on this year's longlist, I was both tremendously excited and a bit sad, too, because I knew this was going to pluck them both off the Rainy Day Reader's shelf. (The one which
