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@caulusdictyo

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🌊 The Sea Cloak by Nayrouz Qarmout translated by Perween Richards and Charis Bredin (2019) 🌊

While waiting for school a young girl sees her neighbour; a woman babysits her little niece and remembers her own childhood; a man asks his employer for his wages and a favour; a family goes to the beach...

In this collection of eleven short stories, ordinary people do very ordinary things, but the backdrop of their lives is anything but because they happen to live in Gaza.

The blurb describes Gaza as 'the world's largest prison' but a prison full of children and rubble and bombs and drones. It is far worse now. Exquisitely written and quietly powerful, I can't recommend this more. Everyone should read this book, but the people who really should probably won't bother. by @caulusdictyo

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19 hours ago

Today's #twelvebooksontuesday is dedicated to all things #gothicliterature and who doesn't love a good jump scare/creepy castle/vampire/flame haired temptress/murderous melodrama mash up?? The artwork on some of these is really gorgeous too😍 I'm off to have a quick swoon and a dose of smelling salts but I'll leave you with these lovelies...

🧛‍♀️ Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu
🦇 Gothic Short Stories
✨️ The Jewel of Seven Stars by Sheridan Le Fanu
💉 Armadale by Willie Collins
🇮🇹 The Italian by Ann Radcliffe
⛪️ The Monk by Matthew Lewis
🌙 Zofloya by Charlotte Dacre
👩🏻 Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
🏰 We have always lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
🔪 The String of Pearls by Thomas Preskett Prest
🖤 The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
👨🏻‍🦳 Uncle Silas by Sheridan Le Fanu by @caulusdictyo

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3 days ago

🗡Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman (2012)🗡

It's 1348, and plague is ravaging France. Thomas, a disgraced and excommunicated knight, has joined a group of brigands, travelling around the north of the country, searching for food and shelter. They find a village where all are dead except a strange young girl with a holy mission to travel to Avignon. Thomas is unsure whether she is a witch or an angel but he is drawn to protect her and ultimately join her, in an epic battle between good and evil.

I never know quite what genre I'm reading but I think this might be described as Historical/Fantasy/Horror. Not my regular fare, but I fancied something different, and I found it a very enjoyable read. There is a great big plot, interesting characters and a neat circular story arc peppered with lots of little 'aha' moments when pieces of the story click together most satisfyingly. It is super gory though - plenty of plague ridden corpses and hellish devilish violence so definitely not everyone's cup of tea. If I'm going to be picky, which of course I am, I think it did get a bit baggy towards the end even though the climax itself is very powerful. Lots of religious liberties are taken as well, which might be problematic for some readers. It was first published a few years ago but has become super popular right now for some zeitgeisty type reason and is very much a #bookstagrammademereadit book. by @caulusdictyo

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6 days ago

My toadstools are multiplying and my cauldron is bubbling 🫧 so it must be time for some seasonal witchy and weird reading plans. Here are four October hopefuls...

😬 Claimed by Gertrude Barrows Bennett
😷 Masks by Fumiko Enchi
🧐 An English Murder by Cyril Hare
😱 Bewitched - The Ghostly Tales of Edith Wharton

As Donovan 🎶 would tell you it IS the season of the witch and 'You've got to pick up every stitch...' Some great knitting advice there! 🧙‍♀️ by @caulusdictyo

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9 days ago

🔗 Kindred by Octavia E Butler (1979) 🔗

Dana is a young black writer who finds herself transported back in time from 1970s USA to a slave owning plantation in Maryland. She saves the life of a little boy called Rufus Weylin, the son and heir of the farm and a direct ancestor of Dana's, but this occasion is only the start of their interactions. Every time Rufus is in danger, Dana appears, and her visits to the plantation get longer as she experiences the barbarism of slavery first hand.

I have been meaning to read Octavia Butler for a long time. Finally, I got the nudge when Kindred was the September choice for the #quietclassics buddyread and it is a quietly powerful and devastating read. Butler's prose is deceptively simple, but she brings so much depth and thought to the story.

It's a classic that is on curricula all over the world for lots of good reasons but there are a few things that particularly stand out for me. In going back in time, Dana comes face to face with her kindred, her family tree, both the enslaved and the enslavers and discovers just how she came to be. That is a tough realisation.

The Weylin family are not even considered the harshest 'masters' in the area and yet their crimes are both appalling and perfectly legal. They are just normal law abiding citizens who don't have a problem buying and selling human beings including their own children. That pretty much sums up the moral vacuum they inhabit and never reflect upon. by @caulusdictyo

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11 days ago

🦚 Ladies of the Rachmaninoff Eyes by Henry Van Dyke (1966) 🦚

Oliver is a sixteen year old orphan who writes poetry, has a pet peacock and lives with his Aunt Harry, a housekeeper, and her wealthy boss Etta Klein. They are the 'ladies of the Rachmaninoff eyes' and they dote on Oliver, especially Etta who is grieving the death of her beloved elder son. To make contact with him, she organises a seance with local warlock and conman, Maurice Le Fleur, but Oliver doesn't trust Maurice one bit and will do anything to stop it going ahead.

This book has so much going for it in a Capote kind of way, but it didn't quite deliver for me. The title, the characters (even their names), the prose and the dialogue are all dazzingly brilliant but the plot handling is a bit clumsy and in a book as short as this, it's difficult to get around.

However, it is very enjoyable, especially for the prose, which is gorgeous, and the Etta-Harry relationship which transcends race, class and religion until of course it doesn't. (Etta is white, Harry and Oliver are black) Anyhow I'm planning to read ALL the lovely #fabereditions I can find and I'll probably try the sequel to this too. The prose alone will be worth it.

"They had woven a bickering, bantering tapestry together that was stronger than husband and wife, or sisters or cousins. And this bickering I learned was not to be made light of; it was high seriousness; it was the way they made love." by @caulusdictyo

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14 days ago

When I'm floundering around for a #twelvebooksontuesday idea I usually go back to names of some description - girls, boys, Mr, Mrs, Miss, whatever.

Today it's full names and Irish writers (especially Sebastian Barry) seem to like them for some reason 🤔 I've read four of these but no Irish ones☘️

Have a good Tuesday. We're having a stormy one so I better get the 🕯🕯 ready...

📚The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoët by David Mitchell
📚Kim Jiyoung Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo
📚Annie Dunne by Sebastian Barry
📚Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
📚The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty by Sebastian Barry
📚Thérese Raquin by Émile Zola
📚Eugenie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac
📚The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair by Joël Dicker
📚Orlando King by Isabel Colegate
📚Mary Lavelle by Kate O'Brien
📚Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane
📚The Temptation of Eileen Hughes by Brian Moore by @caulusdictyo

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17 days ago

💙 A Parisian Affair by Guy de Maupassant translated by Siân Miles (1880-91) 💙

Guy de Maupassant wrote about 300 short stories and this beautiful blue 💙 #penguinclassics collection has thirty four of them.

A few months ago I read his last novel, Alien Hearts, and it reminded me just how much I love his writing and how long it has been since I read some of his wonderful short stories.

Not all his tales are love affairs but plenty of them concern relationships between the sexes. He is not a social campaigner like Zola but his women characters tend to be far more interesting than his men. They live in a man's world and often have to resort to ingenious workarounds just to survive.

So if you ever have a spare ten minutes and feel the need to be transported to 19th century France, this is all you need. Much more enlightening than a doomscroll and five stars 🌟 all around! by @caulusdictyo

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19 days ago

Three new books and a toadstool #fridaytreat

I'm very easy to please. Happy weekend 💖✨️📚 by @caulusdictyo

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20 days ago

For #twelvebooksontuesday I'm singing the praises of the short story. It is #shortyseptember after all so here are a few of my favourites- tbh it was hard to whittle them down to a menu of twelve, so this might be a two parter 🤔 You have been warned!

For authenticity and honesty, Lucia Berlin cannot be beaten but if you're looking for high operatic melodrama, try Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by Nikolai Leskov - Chekov's favourite writer, apparently and no stranger to a short story himself!

If you're looking for writers who understand exactly how people tick, you need one of the two Williams- Somerset Maugham & Trevor. Clarice Lispector, Silvina Ocampo and Shirley Jackson can provide you with all the eerie unease you need and if that's not enough spookery, Edith Wharton will provide a few ghostly bumps in the night👻🌙 But if fairies🧚‍♂️are more to your liking, Angela Carter's Fairy Tales will give you a new perspective on old favourites.🧙

Guy de Maupassant's stories are very brief, very French and very brilliant 🇫🇷. Truman Capote can be relied upon to make you laugh, cry and wince all at the same time and Stefan Zweig will tell you all you need to know about love❤️ So if short stories still aren't your thing, maybe you've just been reading the wrong ones 🤔

Do you have any short favourites 😍 ?? by @caulusdictyo

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24 days ago

👞🔧Suspicion by Seichō Matsumoto translated by Jesse Kirkwood (1982) 🔧👞

On a rainy night, a speeding car veers off the docks into the murky waters, leaving one of the occupants dead and the other accused of murder. The survivor, Onizuka Kumako, has a shady past, yakuza links, a confrontational personality, plenty of motive and she happens to be a woman. The inevitable media circus seems to make this an impossible case to win but can her defence lawyer find some reasonable doubt??

This is short but very sweet and satisfying. Onizuka is a memorable character, but Matsumoto chooses to focus more on the psychological travails of one of the journalists covering her story. This is only my second Matsumoto - I read thr excellent A Quiet Place a few months ago - and Suspicion is a classy, sophisticated novel with an excellent ending. Just right for #shortbookseptember (if that's still a thing) or an inbetweeny read 📚 by @caulusdictyo

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a month ago

🙍🏼‍♂️ Lord Jim at Home by Dinah Brooke (1973) 🙍🏼‍♂️

Giles Trenchard is born in the 1930s into an upper middle class family. He follows the usual route for his type - prep school, public school, active duty in the navy and then law school - in the hope that he will follow in the legal footsteps of his father and grandfather, both bigwigs in Cornish society. But Giles' family is rotten with generational dysfunction. His abusive nanny, ineffective mother and bullying father exacerbate Giles' own shortcomings. Clearly something is going to give and it won't be pretty.

This is a monstrous story told in a matter of fact way and it is absolutely brilliant. It's darkly witty and as a description of the casual cruelty of a certain class towards their children, it pulls no punches. There are some incredibly grim scenes that are difficult to forget but Dinah Brooke has a remarkable and unique style. I was both grossed out and engrossed.

If you have a strong stomach go for it. You won't be disappointed but maybe don't read too much about it beforehand. The best way I can describe this book is if Molly Keane took her kid gloves off and really went for the jugular. Ottessa Moshfegh is a fan (she wrote the foreword for this edition) and it's based on a true story but save all that extra information until AFTER you've finished it. by @caulusdictyo

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a month ago