2 books which shouldn’t be shelved: High Times and Swan Lake

Once you’ve finished a book what do you do with it? Shelve it away so it can barely be seen? How about, instead, exhibiting it on a window sill or mantelpiece to invite comment, to become an ever present part of your life? Not all books lend themselves to this of course, but High Times: [...]

Murderous books, and stories told on skin

The Last Giants By Francois Place (original title: Les derniers géants), winner in the picture book category of the 1993 Prix Sorcières, is a fictional account of a 19th-century naturalist whose discovery of a race of giants ultimately leads to their destruction, despite his personal sensitivity and respect for them. In 1849 Archibald Leopold Ruthmore [...]

Flying high with a yellow balloon

Iris on Books is one of my favourite blogs for reviews of fiction for adults. Iris tends to review classics and forgotten classics, books about and written by women, with a focus that I particularly like on world literature. For the month of June, Iris (who happens to be Dutch by birth but currently living [...]

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