Samanta Schweblin. This is a name I have been hearing for years but for some reason I had never read any of her books before this past December. After three books, she is definitely one of my favorite writers. Well, after one book, really. As soon as I finished her story collection “Siete casas vacías” I knew I was in literary love. For me, Schweblin is Lucy in the Sky with a touch of Kafka. Her stories are surreal and whimsical but with a dangerous […]
I wish for more
I picked up this 2017 collection of short stories because it featured contributions of several writers whose work I’ve reviewed before and liked, and the subject of djinn (or jinn or genies, whatever term you prefer) has been popping up on my radar quite a bit lately. The Djinn Falls in Love and Other Stories was a brilliant way for me to start CBR11 — immensely entertaining, sometimes provocative, and an entree to the works of writers new to me but whose work I will definitely be tracking down. The stories are a wonderful mix of styles and settings and shed light not only on the nature of the djinn but on human nature as well. The djinn, created by Allah from smokeless fire, are sometimes depicted as tricky and/or evil, but in some ways they are no different from humans.
Lyndsay Faye is the best.
I’ve read quite a bit of Sherlock Holmes pastiche, though by no means even close to all of it, and so far, I think Lyndsay Faye’s version of Holmes and Watson is my favorite. This collection, which was gifted to me by Bunnybean for Book Exchange in CBR9, is made up of fifteen stories published over a period of ten years, many of them in The Strand, the very same magazine that published Conan Doyle’s original stories. All of the stories mimic Conan Doyle’s style, […]
Good, eh, okay, and sweet
So I was inspired by my lovely book exchange gifts to attempt to read through all of the Pride and Prejudice variations I currently own. I say “attempt” because it’s a lot. I started off with A Very Austen Christmas, an anthology of Christmas stories, because it’s seasonal I guess. And the wifi is broken at my house, so that means more reading at home instead of noodling around on the internet! “Her Christmas Gift” by Robin Helm This is a Pride and Prejudice story, […]