Safe Return Doubtful

Set in a Florida trailer park for the elderly, this coarse tale tells of the life and peculiar powers of a young woman who has fallen hard times, called ‘Too Much’, a girl who grew up with her anarchist granddaddy in the Florida swamplands and whose name refers to her…

It’s necessary to change the way you read to appreciate Bukowski best. Similar to listening to Tom Waits, early Dylan, Ginsberg. Some passages, and it’s not always easy to identify which ones, need reading over and over again, often with a break between them, to get the most from them.…

Translated by Sarah Moses This dystopian horror tale postulates that humans have reverted to cannibalism after a virus has finished off animals. Credible scenario or not, and however seriously you take it, this is an intelligent musing on the future of mankind and a satirical contemplation on past inhumanities. This…

Translated by Julia Meitov Hersey It’s a considerable divergence from my normal reading habits to read a Ukranian fantasy novel, but I am really pleased I did. It may be categorised as fantasy, but ‘weird fiction’ may suit it better, as certainly it is far from the usual. It lacks…

Translated by Orr Scarf I’ve been slow reading this award winning Hebrew novel, the recently published translation of which (from <i>Orr Scharf</i>) will surely gain more accolades. There are a few words to check the meaning of, fortunately just by highlighting them on the eReader, but chiefly because after only…

A long summer in the London of the late fifties is the setting, as the nameless eighteen year old protagonist makes his living taking pornographic photographs in the few gaps in his hectic social life spent on his Vespa and in the coffee bars and jazz clubs. As the months…