Photo: Ed Shaw Lindsey Davis is a British author. The first Falco book, The Silver Pigs, won the Authors’ Club Best First Novel award in 1989. Lindsey has won several awards, including the Crimewriters’ Association Dagger in the Library, Ellis Peters Historical Dagger, as well as the Crimewriters’ Association Cartier Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement …
Continue reading Bringing Ancient Rome to Life: An Interview with Lindsey Davis
Photo: FU via Adobe Stock Crime fiction has consistently been one of the most popular genres—in 2014, around one in three novels published in English was a crime novel.[1] What makes this genre so popular? For one, the plot is a puzzle, challenging the reader to guess who done it—which was what first attracted me …
Published by Virago, 2006, 496 pages. “...nobody knows better than a ghost how hard it is to put him or her into words shadowy, yet transparent enough...If a ghost story sends a cold shiver down one’s spine, it has done its job and done it well.”—Edith Wharton, quoted in Richard Dalby’s Preface If you’ve been …
Continue reading The Virago Book of Ghost Stories: Edited by Richard Dalby
Titus Groan / Gormenghast / Titus AlonePublished by Penguin / Methuen / Vintage. Titus Groan, 1946, 506 pages. Gormenghast, 1950, 511 pages. Titus Alone, 1959; revised version published in 1970, 263 pages. “Gormenghast.“Withdrawn and ruinous, it broods in umbra: the immemorial masonry: the towers, the tracts. Is all corroding? No. Through an avenue of spires …
Photo: Maria Starus via AdobeStock We’re coming to the end of 2024. It’s been quite a year. But it’s good to know that people are still reading. And reading widely, judging by the lists you sent me. As always, we have a rich and varied collection. The longest part of this list is the one …
Review by Kristine GouldingPublished by Faber & Faber, 2023, 496 pages. Francis Spufford’s Cahokia Jazz is an exceptional alternate history that transports readers to a reimagined 1920s America. In this version of the past, Cahokia—a thriving city built around the real-life Cahokia Mounds near a village called St. Louis—has replaced New York as the cultural …
Published by Charco Press, 2024, 265 pages. “As usual, she stops at El Barón’s tomb, to pay her respects, making the sign of the cross, then laying her fingers on the glass. The touch sets the flakes flying. A voice commences recounting its stories, other voices join in, more and more, as if blown by …
Continue reading The Cemetery of Untold Stories: Julia Alvarez
Translated from Arabic by Leri Price.Published by Faber, 2023, 404 pages. Original version published in 2019. January 1907. A flood wipes out the village of Hosh Hanna, near Aleppo, leaving only two survivors. At the time, Hanna Gregoros—who had built this village—is away with his friend Zakariya Bayazidi. They return home to total devastation: Hanna’s …
Continue reading No One Prayed Over Their Graves: Khaled Khalifa
Robert W. Norris is an American writer and retired teacher who lives near Fukuoka, Japan. Robert’s books include his memoir, The Good Lord Willing and the Creek Don’t Rise (2023); novels, including Looking for the Summer (1996); The Many Roads to Japan: A Search for Identity (1997); Toraware (1998); and Autumn Shadows in August (2006). …
Continue reading A Life’s Journey: An Interview with Robert W. Norris
Published by HarperOne / Coronet, 2022, 293 pages. “Everybody has secrets. Everybody. I guess the difference is that we either die with them and let them eat us up, or we put them out there, wrestle with them (or they wrestle with us) until we . . . reconcile. Secrets are what swallow us.” In …
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