“I mean, why should I figure I’m so special, the world is going to end while I’m around?” In The Sundial, perhaps Shirley Jackson’s most comical novel, twelve rather disagreeable individuals are cooped together in a mansion waiting for the end of the world. “The house would be guarded during the night of destruction and […]
MoreA delightful and thoughtful summer romance meets the classical music world in Jenn Marie Thorne’s criminally underrated Night Music. Ruby, the seventeen-year-old daughter of the renowned composer Martin Chertok, has always felt the pressure of her name. However, unlike her older siblings, who have all embarked on successful musical careers, Ruby messes up her audition […]
More“Gods die. And when they truly die they are unmourned and unremembered. Ideas are more difficult to kill than people, but they can be killed, in the end.” It isn’t surprising that American Gods is regarded as one of the genre-bending novels of all time. Over the course of 500 pages Neil Gaiman deftly blends […]
MoreRusting Earth…The Fifth Season is a spectacular read. “This is what you must remember: the ending of one story is just the beginning of another. This has happened before, after all.” Reviewing The Fifth Season is no small feat. We have N.K. Jemisin’s writing style, her intricate and all-encompassing world-building, and her unflinching and emotionally […]
More“IT WAS DUSK – winter dusk. Snow lay white and shining over the pleated hills, and icicles hung from the forest trees. Snow lay piled on the dark road across Willoughby Wold, but from dawn men had been clearing it with brooms and shovels. There were hundreds of them at work, wrapped in sacking because […]
MoreThe Murder of Roger Ackroyd is an excellent example of why I consider Agatha Christie to be the Queen of Crime. “Fortunately words, ingeniously used, will serve to mask the ugliness of naked facts.” It’s curious that one of the most influential crime novels ever written came about by accident. The idea for this novel […]
More“Bow all your heads to our adored Mary Katherine.” In recent years Shirley Jackson has experienced a kind of renascence. Perhaps because of Netflix’s adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House or possibly thanks to contemporary authors (such as Donna Tartt, Neil Gaiman, and Stephen King) who have credited Jackson as their inspiration, enhancing her […]
More“The difference between her and them was as stark as the gulf between those who’d escaped a catastrophe unscathed and others who’d been forever mutilated by it.” This was such a wonderful and poignant collection of short stories.In a interview on LitHub Edwige Danticat said that one of the reasons why she loves the short […]
MoreI can definitely see why many consider And Then There Were None to be Agatha Christie’s magnum opus. Over the past year I have read—or listened to—approximately 30 works by her. With the exception of one one or two anomalies, her books have never failed to entertain me. And I agree with those who call […]
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