This Saturday is all-historical, as was last week's, with one proper Shelf Discovery choice and one of my "particularly Canlit Shelf Discovery" choices. Next Saturday will feature three of my favourite fantasy reads. Joan Aiken's The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (1963) It may have been cheating a little to re-read
Ninni Holmqvist's The Unit (2006) Trans. Marlaine Delargy (2009) I started reading this one evening when I got home from work and I jumped out of my guilty reader's skin when Mr. B.I.P. came home from work because I had planned to do a dozen different things and, instead, had
Nu Nu Yi's Smile as They Bow Translated from the Burmese by Alfred Birnbaum and Thi Thi Aye Hyperion Books, 2008 Reading this felt, for me, a little like reading a Katherine Mansfield short story. You know, the way that you slip in and out of the world she creates
Here is what I like about this year's Orange Prize list. Although I really don't need much convincing on this one: reading the OP backlist is an ongoing pet project of mine. First: Rebecca Gowers' The Twisted Heart Lorrie Moore's A Gate at the Stairs (Because I've already read them
Kristjana Gunnars' The Substance of Forgetting (1992) Taking on the work of Kristjana Gunnars could take you in a variety of directions. Off the shelf came a short story collection (Any Day But This, 2004), a poetry collection (Silence of the Country, 2002) and a collection of essays (which remains
