A novel about a woman who becomes obsessed with a novel? Europa Editions, 2011 Just the sort of story which is guaranteed to appeal to a voracious (even, at times, overly excitable) reader. Even if the novel with which the main character is obsessed is Robert Louis Stevenson's
"There’s no backstitching in stories. Nothing can be locked in place." So says a character in Studio Saint-Ex, but readers of Ania Szado's second novel might disagree; she seems to have no trouble locking a good story in place. She began where all good stories begin, with a fascination. In
It begins with a short but vividly drawn scene: two lovers alone in a room in Paris in 1917. Sensorily rich and broadly sketched: the reader is immediately engaged. Not only by the substance, but by a couple of unexpected phrases therein: questions arise. Those questions are soon set aside
When the angels invaded the plotline of "Supernatural", I stopped watching weekly. I prefer stone rabbits and hedgehogs in my flowerbeds, over white winged statues. And when a girlfriend told me that the child she lost at full-term is an angel now, I struggled to keep my face expressionless, silently repeating
I've read some remarkable short story collections this year: Théodora Armstrong's Clear Skies, No Wind, 100% Visibility, Ayelet Tsabari's The Best Place on Earth, Saleema Nawaz's Mother Superior, Richard van Camp's Godless But Loyal to Heaven, Miranda Hill's Sleeping Funny, and Paul Headrick's The Doctrine of Affections. Three more collections have captured
