I first read this book many, many years ago, and this year some strange and unexpected impulse made me seek it out again as a matter of urgency. Fittingly, I found a second hand copy of an orange-covered Penguin in a tiny local bookshop, and read it in a couple of days. It's an astonishing book - the characters are so flawed and yet so empathically drawn. Nostalgia for a bygone era is tempered by the strictures and toxicity of the Flyte family dynamics, and the intractable conflict between faith and love that pervades the book is heartbreaking. Even now, months later, lines, and scenes, and the emotions they evoked still haunt me.
As an aside, the 1980s TV adaptation was utterly brilliant too. I'm not usually a big fan of screen adaptations of books I've loved, but this one remains pretty much perfect.
It is WW2 and Captain Charles Ryder reflects on his time at Oxford during the twenties and a world now changed. As a lonely student Charles was captivated by the outrageous and decadent Sebastian Flyte and invited to spend time at the Flyte's family home - the magnificent Brideshead. Here Charles becomes infatuated by its eccentric, aristocratic inhabitants, and in particular with Julia, Sebastian's startling and remote sister. But as his own spiritual and social distance becomes marked, Charles discovers a crueller world, where duty and desire, faith and happiness can only ever conflict.
This is the first book by Ursula K. LeGuin that I've read, and I was expecting it to be more of a fantasy novel. But I wasn't disappointed, and I found myself very quickly drawn into the world of Gethen and Genly Ai's struggle to understand the its people. It's a book that examines how we can transcend the differences between us to embrace the similarities, the power of friendship, and an exploration of sexual identity that was decades ahead of its time. I loved it.
50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION-WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY DAVID MITCHELL AND A NEW AFTERWORD BY CHARLIE JANE ANDERS
Ursula K. Le Guin's groundbreaking work of science fiction-winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards.
A lone human ambassador is sent to the icebound planet of Winter, a world without sexual prejudice, where the inhabitants' gender is fluid. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the strange, intriguing culture he encounters...
Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an…
A delightful fantasy story with wonderful characters, a beautifully realised world, and a compelling storyline. I listened to it as an audio book and was utterly transported.
An Instant USA Today & Indie Bestseller An Oprah Daily Top 25 Fantasy Book of 2022 An NPR Best Sci Fi, Fantasy, & Speculative Fiction Book of 2022 A Goodreads Best Fantasy Choice Award Nominee
From Hugo, Nebula, and Locus award-winning author T. Kingfisher comes an original and subversive fantasy adventure.
*A very special hardcover edition, featuring gold foil stamp on the casing and custom endpapers illustrated by the author.*
This isn't the kind of fairytale where the princess marries a prince. It's the one where she kills him.
'The play has conjured evil spirits. These are what haunt your dreams. Your words have opened doors to them.'
On a bitter winter night on Bankside, young fortune-teller Sarah Stone foresees an unimaginable fate: a new play has awakened sinister forces that will lead her to her death. Terrified, she begs the playwright to abandon it, but he refuses, aware the play is one of his best.
Sarah’s battle has begun.
Misfortune haunts the days that follow. Nonetheless, illicit desires still flourish, and Sarah turns to her charismatic cousin Tom for help. But she is unaware that Tom is keeping secrets of his own, and the aid he offers is fraught with unexpected danger.
As the shadow of unhallowed magic darkens the riverside brothels and taverns, forbidden acts of love lead to madness, murder, and accusations of witchcraft.
And Sarah, caught in a seductive web of dark magic and desire, may soon find it is impossible to escape her grisly destiny.
Set vividly against the world of Jacobean London, Touch of a Witch is a darkly gothic thriller where nightmares are rooted in reality, and the lines between good and evil are hard to find.
