Jeanette Winterson is best known for her debut novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, published in 1985. Since then she’d had a prolific career, publishing several other novels, a short story collection, a memoir, and a number of children’s books. Lighthousekeeping was her first novel after completing a ‘cycle’, in her own words, that began with Oranges and ended with The Power Book in 2000. It’s a beguiling and unique work, appropriate for beginning again.
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After only three novels, Sally Rooney is one of the most popular authors working today. Two of her books (Normal People and Conversations with Friends) have been adapted for TV, and she’s won a number of literary awards. My gut instinct with popular books is to avoid them, for the same reason I avoid top 40 music and action blockbusters, but every so often something piques my curiosity and I decide to jump on the bandwagon. This was the case with Normal People, and for once, I’m glad I did.
David Wong is the pseudonym of Jason Pargin, former editor of the humour site Cracked.com. The lead character of his series of comedy-horror novels is also called David Wong, though the book is not (I hope) based on Pargin’s real life. David’s best friend is the John of the title, and the two of them help people out with problems relating to the supernatural. Things go south when an evil force begins breaking through reality that goes by the name of Korrok.
Thomas Ligotti is not well-known outside of the horror industry. Ironically, he’s best known for something he hasn’t written, which is the first season of True Detective. That series referenced and in some cases virtually quoted from his non-fiction philosophical work The Conspiracy Against the Human Race. However, his work has been in print since the mid-80s, and his oeuvre consists mostly of short stories.
Book Review: Batman: Year One, by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli, with Richmond Lewis (1987)10/28/2022 In the mid-1980s, DC Comics decided to release new origin stories for each of their major superheroes. While most of them had their origin changed in some way, it was decided that the specifics of Batman’s should be left intact, and the focus should be telling it in more detail. Frank Miller had previously worked for DC on The Dark Knight Returns, so he was brought in for this new project, Year One.
Darren Shan was an author I never got into as a teenager, mostly because my parents didn’t let me read his books (which they’d forgotten about when I reminded them!). To be fair, I can see why – they’re very extreme for their target audience. Copious amounts of graphic violence and gore are par for the course, really pushing the boundaries of what’s acceptable for children. I’m not 10 anymore, though, and for what it’s worth, I quite enjoyed myself.
I have previously talked about my interest in books that authors write after completing a masterpiece, and Anansi Boys fits that description. It is the semi-sequel to Gaiman’s 2001 novel American Gods, which won the Hugo Award for Best Novel and was adapted into a TV series. The African trickster god Anansi appears in that book, and Anansi Boys was written to further explore the character.
Alan Garner’s Treacle Walker is the author’s first novel since 2012. A return to the fantasy genre in which he began his career, it’s a dense and multi-layered work that resists easy interpretation. The title does not refer to the sugary syrup, but to an older meaning of the word, referring to a type of healing concoction used since ancient times, and by extension any kind of curative substance. It’s an appropriate title for a book with a deep connection to the past.
Cyberpunk is enjoying more popularity now than it did in its heyday of the 80s. Perhaps this is because reality has finally caught up with the fantasy. Out of all the subgenres of science fiction, it seems to be the one that has best predicted our current reality; we live in cyberpunk cities now, with flashing neon advertising and towering skyscrapers of glass, and corporations effectively run the world. All of this was prefigured in William Gibson’s pioneering science fiction masterpiece Neuromancer.
Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose is a classic of contemporary literature. First published in Italian in 1980 (the English translation came out in 1983), it is a murder mystery that doubles as a philosophical treatise. It is a dense and complex work, notorious for its difficulty, but is nevertheless one of the bestselling books of all time.
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Atticus Book ReviewsBook reviews and reading recommendations written by volunteers and friends of the shop! |