FANTASTIC FICTION – Escapes to other places and other times

Neal Shusterman (About | Neal Shusterman) is an American writer of young adult fiction. He won the 2015 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature for his book Challenger Deep. To sample Shusterman’s large body of work try Unwind (2007). The summary is as follows: The story takes place in a future version of the United […]

Martha Batalha (batalha-martha | RCW Literary Agency) is a Brazilian born writer and journalist. She has written for the newspapers O Dia, O Globo and Extra. In 2013, Batalha founded the publishing house Desiderata, which was sold to Ediouro publishing group in 2008. The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmão was published in 2017 and the

Any rational person’s appetite for horror is met in early 2026 by turning the radio on each morning. Should the world not be disturbing enough for your taste, reach for a recent horror novel by Gabino Iglesias (Gabino Iglesias | Facebook). The summary is as follows: For childhood friends Gabe, Xavier, Tavo, Paul, and Bimbo,

Andrew Miller (Andrew Miller | Award-winning writer) has published ten novels and has won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the International Dublin Literary Award, the Costa Book Award of the Year, the Winston Graham Historical Prize and the Walter Scott Prize. Miller’s most recent novel is ‘The Land In Winter‘, and would be a great start

The 2025 Booker Prize winner might be the best option to finish your reading programme this year. The author, David Szalay, (David Szalay interview: ‘I wanted to write about what it’s like to be a living body in the world’ | The Booker Prizes), was born in Montreal in 1974 in a Jewish family of a

‘Dark Academia’ (12 of the best dark academia books of all time) is a genre of fiction attracting a lot of attention. Its aesthetic centres on higher education, traditional lifestyles, Gothic architecture, ancient art and poetry, classical literature, elite college life, psychological manipulation, and the embrace of darkness. To try out this genre reach for

It is early June 2025 and the headline news covers a spat between the world’s richest man and the the world’s most powerful man (Opinion | Musk and Trump’s Twitter Fight Reveals How Power Works Today – POLITICO). It is not edifying. Comparison with the finer specimens of humanity in its history speaks to another

The theme of this book is how best to educate a child. The subject’s mother deserts her husband, leaving young Richard behind. The boy is brought up by his father, Sir Austin Feverel, on strict educational principles. Being secluded at home and subjected to this regime does not prevent Richard falling in love with Lucy

This story covers the period from 1957 to 1953. The setting is rural Mississippi, a landscape of baked clay and shacks with cinder yards. It relates the redneck poverty of David whose father drifts from job to job. Respectable folk shun the family because they cannot afford to pay church dues. When the father dies