Demon Copperhead proves that even when a story is old
or familiar - this one is a retelling of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield - it
can still be a breathtaking page-turner.
Like David in the 1840s, Demon grows
up in the 1980s and 90s amid poverty and violence, but he turns his experiences
into words that made me gasp and hurt and giggle. His story tells readers about
addiction, failing welfare systems, government neglect, and the kindness and
endurance of good people.
When I wasn’t reading it, I couldn’t stop thinking
about it. I begged that Demon would find happiness, and it made me angry that he, and
so many other people, have to fight so hard for it.
Demon's story begins with his traumatic birth to a single mother in a single-wide trailer, looking 'like a little blue prizefighter.' For the life ahead of him he would need all of that fighting spirit, along with buckets of charm, a quick wit, and some unexpected talents, legal and otherwise.
In the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, poverty isn't an idea, it's as natural as the grass grows. For a generation growing up in this world, at the heart of the modern opioid crisis, addiction isn't an abstraction, it's neighbours, parents, and friends. 'Family' could mean love, or reluctant foster…
I’d
never heard of this 1940s novel, but it was recommended to me because I liked Sam
Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners.
Norman Collins’ household of
London lodgers shows us everyday life in the 1930s and war - night clubs,
offices, parlours, rainy streets and sunny parks, séances, and dances. So many
stories of this time are about stereotyped characters speaking lost slang, but
this could have been published yesterday.
The moment I finished it, I missed
kindly retired clerk Mr. Josser, elderly club hostess Connie, would-be gangster
Percy Boon, and Henry Squales, the apparently fake spiritualist medium... or is he?
Also known as Dulcimer Street, Norman Collins's London Belongs to Me is a Dickensian romp through working-class London on the eve of the Second World War. This Penguin Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Ed Glinert, author of The London Compendium.
It is 1938 and the prospect of war hangs over every London inhabitant. But the city doesn't stop. Everywhere people continue to work, drink, fall in love, fight and struggle to get on in life. At the lodging-house at No.10 Dulcimer Street, Kennington, the buttoned-up clerk Mr Josser returns home with the clock he has received as a…
This
illustrated collection of weird, chilling, quirky stories of ghosts, witches, and occult creatures includes very famous writers such as M.R. James, Edith
Nesbit, and Thomas Hardy, as well as less well-known ones like Bernard Capes and John
Collier.
I saved up their tales, rationing myself to one per day because they
were such a pleasure, each one a neat little parcel of beautifully shivery
words.
Being worried about pagan sacrifice and lurking monsters was a lot
better than worrying about real stuff, and this horrid, lovely book made me
happy.
'Wicked witches, bad fairies, and the restless dead be damned, for those who are looking to fill up their folk horror fiction shelves, Damnable Tales is a must-have' Andy Paciorek, Horrified Magazine 'I had to keep pulling myself away from it so I didn't finish it in one sitting . . . An incredible book' Annie Kapur, Vocal Media
This richly illustrated anthology gathers together classic short stories from masters of supernatural fiction including M. R. James, Sheridan Le Fanu and Arthur Machen, alongside lesser-known voices in the field including Eleanor Scott and Margery Lawrence, and popular writers less bound…
The world of witch-hunts and witch-trials sounds archaic and fanciful, these terms are relics of an unenlightened, brutal age. However, we often hear ‘witch-hunt’ in today’s media, and the misogyny that shaped witch trials is all too familiar. Three women were prosecuted under a version of the 1735 Witchcraft Act as recently as 2018.
In Witchcraft, I use thirteen significant trials to tell the global history of witchcraft and witch-hunts. As well as exploring the origins of witch-hunts through some of the most famous trials from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century, my book takes us in new and surprising directions into modern times. It’s a beautifully illustrated, immersive history of witchcraft.
