I’ve just finished Jamila Gavin’s wonderful The Blood Stone (Egmont, 2003) which is a really unsettling but rewarding read. I read an interview with her in Wasafiri (Issue 60) which made me pick this up and I’ve made to attempts to read it twice but I’ve aways been too tired and this is certainly not [...]
I’ve just come across an argument on one of children’s mailing lists regarding Jaclyn Dolamore’s debut novel, Magic Under Glass. The publisher, Bloomsbury USA, have put a white girl on the cover of a novel where the protagonist is dark-skinned which reprises the cover issues that Justine Larbalestier originally had for her novel, Liar.
The Reading [...]
The Guardian reports that another book in the seminal Gormenghast series is to be published in 2011. “Titus Awakes” was taken from notes left by Mervyn Peake byhis widow, Maeve Gilmore, who completed the book before her death which appears to bring the story to a natural conclusion. Sebastian Peake, who has championed his father’s [...]
Jonathan Lethem is one of those writers whom I admire but don’t pretend to always “Get”. On and off, I’ve begun (re)reading his books which I’ve got on my shelf and I’ll probably try and get hold of his comic as well. I think I interviewed him for The Third Alternative (as it was then) [...]
Robert Jackson Bennett’s debut novel, Mr Shivers, plays out to a sound track of a demented Ennio Morricone or Nick Cave against the 1930s dustbowl. Marcus Connelly is hunting down Mr Shivers, a scarred man who leaves death in his tracks.
As he traverses across the rusty, dust covered arteries (the heart f’urring slowly under its [...]
Dave Eggers The Wild Things is a retelling of the Maurice Sendak book that dovetails and segues from the forthcoming Spike Jonze film. Rather than trying to retell a classic story, Eggers explores what the Wild Things are and how Max re-appraises his world.
Max is coming to terms with his parents’ divorce and their new [...]
It has been a while since I’ve read any Anne Rice novels. I loved Interview with the Vampire and still think it is a masterpiece and a brilliant novel of faith, a crie de couer that worked through the death of a child and the resulting emotions. Despite flashes, such as Cry to Heaven and [...]
I went, partially, out of curiosity to the IBBY conference at Roehampton at yesterday which was themed around Graphic Novels and comics. I find it slightly odd going to these events as I’m not a professional scholar/researcher nor do I work as a librarian – I do it for fun since my day job is currently [...]
The Guardian have a piece on Maurice Sendak’s rebuttal to parents fear of Where the Wild Thigs Are. I heard him on an archive piece on Radio 4 where he said that he thought that parents ought to go to Hell if they are worried about the Wild Things. It reminds me about The Observer’s [...]
I’ve raved about Michelle Zink’s Prophecy of the Sisters before on the blog as one of those really pleasant surprises. She kindly answered some questions about the book and future plans having just come off tour in the US.
What inspired you to write Prophecy of the Sisters?
Many of my ideas begin with an old myth [...]