Impossible
to find and on my wish list for years, there was always a fear that the
author’s fascinating true-life story might overshadow her fiction. However,
this book immediately struck an emotional, nostalgic chord and has remained on
my mind throughout the year.
In the early 80s, a troubled American teen
battles with unrequited love, criminal activity and addiction to a certain soft
drink. As was common for most British kids of that era, the US is portrayed as an
escapist dream world, filtered through music and magazines, rather than any
form of reality.
I love this book because of its naively romantic longing for a future that offers something, anything (no matter how
melodramatic), as a means of leaving behind the boring, mundane present.
The legendary lost novel in which fourteen-year-old Preston Wildey-King must choose between his all-consuming passion for Pepsi Cola and his love for schoolmate Peggy.
"He walked into the turbulent super market. There were people everywhere. His eyes swept over the shelves and stabilised on a large stack of Pepsi-colas. He could almost experience the cool fizzy liquid descending his parched throat."
Written by June-Alison Gibbons when she was only 16, The Pepsi Cola Addict is considered one of the great works of twentieth-century outsider literature. More than just a literary curiosity, however, this tale of a teenager whose passion for…
This
collection is often compared to Angela Carter, and the subject matter is
superficially similar (adopting European folklore and fairytales to address
contemporary issues), yet the style is quite different— Petrushevskaya's
writing is sparse rather than florid and her tone bleakly emotive as opposed to
ironic.
Settings merge the dark forests and woodcutter's huts of folklore with
rundown high-rises and derelict train stations to illustrate the severe
conditions the author was then witnessing in the Soviet Union, with magic and
fantastical scenarios acting as a contrast to the poverty and suffering.
However, these fairytales are not as grim as they may first appear, the
underlying theme being that is never too late to redeem yourself or find
happiness; even in the most desperate situations, even in the final moments
before death. Favourite stories: "Revenge," "The Cabbage Patch Mother," "Marliena's Secret," and (the scariest) "The Black Coat."
New York Times Bestseller Winner of the World Fantasy Award One of New York magazine’s 10 Best Books of the Year One of NPR’s 5 Best Works of Foreign Fiction
The celebrated scary fairy tales of Russia’s preeminent contemporary fiction writer—the author of the prizewinning memoir about growing up in Stalinist Russia, The Girl from the Metropol Hotel
Vanishings and aparitions, nightmares and twists of fate, mysterious ailments and supernatural interventions haunt these stories by the Russian master Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, heir to the spellbinding tradition of Gogol and Poe. Blending the miraculous with the macabre, and leavened by a mischievous…
Leonora is one of my favourite artists; thus, I strongly suspected I would also love her writing. This novel is set in an isolated retirement
village, complete with eccentric inhabitants, surreal architecture and a
tongue-in-cheek back story structured in the style of an old-fashioned gothic
novel.
Marian Letherby, a geriatric Nancy Drew, must unravel a series of
mysteries and murder plots before time runs out, not just for her, but for the
world itself (cue unexpectedly apocalyptic ending).
I loved that this book
focuses on characters in their twilight years but was written with a mischief
and playfulness usually associated with children’s books. It gave me hope that
old age might be more fun than I thought…
An old woman enters into a fantastical world of dreams and nightmares in this surrealist classic admired by Björk and Luis Buñuel.
Leonora Carrington, painter, playwright, and novelist, was a surrealist trickster par excellence, and The Hearing Trumpet is the witty, celebratory key to her anarchic and allusive body of work. The novel begins in the bourgeois comfort of a residential corner of a Mexican city and ends with a man-made apocalypse that promises to usher in the earth’s rebirth. In between we are swept off to a most curious old-age home run by a self-improvement cult and drawn several…
Felicity "Tea" Greene is a new kind of witch, an "AfterWitch," although she may not yet know it. Living in the isolated rural village of Blight, Tea
feels bored and frustrated, yet every time she attempts to leave the village,
something goes wrong. At first, the reasons appear accountable and mundane.
After a while, Tea begins to suspect there may be
more to it. Could there be a conspiracy to prevent her from leaving,
to stop her from joining her sister in the city? Is Tea the victim of black magic, or are her fears unfounded,
triggered by her mental health issues?
AfterWitch is a new kind of witch story—a
teenager's struggle for identity as she fights against the oppressive forces
who want to "take back control."
