Small cracks sounded from the fire and the rest was silence. The girl was seated between her parents, the three of them aligned on a log her father had found and rolled to the glade of their campsite. They were alone in this place. The wind seemed to change whenever the girl faced the fire Read More
Paul Auster Faber & Faber; Hbk; £20 For an author whose work has always been concerned, above all else, with the idea that “the world is so unpredictable,” it seems no small irony that Paul Auster’s fiction has remained so rigidly formulaic over the entirety of his career. For years, anyone even remotely familiar with Read More
Mike McCormack (Canongate, 2016), pbk, £8.99 Mike McCormack’s new novel comes much garlanded, having won both the BGE Irish Book of the year and the Goldsmith Prize for Literature in 2016, as well as earning a place on the Man Booker Prize longlist. Canongate’s website informs us that Solar Bones is a novel “narrated Read More
The ancient saying – ‘time and tide wait for no man’ – provides a poignant way to sum up Jon McGregor’s Reservoir 13, a modern-day novel set in rural England. It is a novel that lures the reader in, with an opening scene detailing a search party for a missing thirteen-year-old girl, before beginning its Read More
The degree of abuse suffered is not always obvious to the observer but only known by the victim who is reluctant to share it with others. (Please feel free to handle the pieces) Ralph Mavin —- A man gets up one morning and he leaves his Read More
Polyzoa; sessile aquatic animals forming mossy colonies of small polyps each having a curved or circular ridge bearing tentacles; they attach to stones or seaweed, are filter feeders, and reproduce by budding. She looks up from her book. This new girl’s raised arm is the colour of Miss Jelly’s leather-bound volume of the complete works Read More
Mother: Now I hate this house I hate living here This place is just a mess I hate my job I am so tired It’s alright for you I’m too old for all that Just wait until you get to my age If I took all those pills I have Read More
There are a lot of different ways to learn about magic. As many as there are people to have them. Mostly, they fall under three themes. Something horrible can happen to you, you can survive something or lose someone, and that can knock you into magic’s path. If you learn of magic through that, your Read More
She keeps her hands clasped together. She can see the chipped red nail varnish on her toenails. A strand of someone else’s hair disturbs the symmetry of the ceramic floor. Reflections from the water play on the wall. Coach watches her, not the other girls who are narrow shouldered and slim. He moves her elbows Read More
All I’ve ever really wanted to be is a writer. I want to be able to express myself through words, to write down my life, to tell stories about the lives of all the fictional people I have inside my head, to think myself worthy of poetry, to have nice stationary and a phenomenal desk. Read More