A Jungle of Tales

              This was the book that first introduced me to the idea of magical realism. I read it when I was about fifteen or so and found it to be equal parts disturbing and enchanting. Doing this third or fourth re-read soon after my analysis of ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ , the influences of Garcia Marquez’s most famous work are unmistakable. We have, for example, a narrative that follows multiple generations of a family which includes members who can see ghosts, members who are overly enthusiastic about new technology, an ethereally beautiful but short-lived girl, and some deeply flawed men, and which offers commentary on capitalist oppression and historical conflicts between Liberals and Conservatives in Latin America. However, Allende was already putting her own spin on this formula and went on to develop an even more distinctive voice. It is hard to believe that this was her first published novel. Even if I prefer some of her later books, this one is still

       This short Brazilian novel, published in 1881, is exactly what it says on the tin – memoirs narrated by a dead man. Specifically, a humorously pretentious and narcissistic aristocrat who never really accomplished anything and yet still sounds weirdly pleased with himself! The quirky style feels quite  modern 1 . For instance, there is one “chapter” that is nothing but a few rows of ellipses (…) because the whole point is that nothing happened!   1. Apart from some references that are no longer part of every educated person’s vocabulary. Thank goodness for footnotes!   Why is it that terrible people can be so fascinating to read about? I suppose this is technically a romance, since a large portion of the book is taken up with Brás’ affair with a woman named Virgília. But the narrator is so self-involved that it doesn’t really feel like a love story – more like the characters are going through the motions of how a forbidden love st

                 I read Oyeyemi’s ‘Gingerbread’ last year and loved it, so I was excited to hear about a new book of hers featuring the adventures of a pair of “not-honeymoon honeymooners” and their pet mongoose on a mysterious train. I soon discovered that, while ‘Gingerbread’ is quirky magical realism with a bisexual protagonist, this book is full-on surreal with zero confirmed-straight characters…except possibly the mongoose, who does acquire a girlfriend by the end.   I’m still processing this novel. I’m not sure if I like it more or less than its predecessor - the plot is much harder to follow, though it might actually have a clearer message. Either way, it was a hell of a ride!               Our narrator, Otto Shin (neé Montague) has recently taken the last name of his partner Francis Xavier Shin – an act they decided was much more meaningful than merely getting married – and still can’t quite believe his  luck 1 .

This 1993 book is set in a 2020s California facing climate change and social breakdown and features a teenage female protagonist who responds to these challenges by founding a new community and religion. It has been widely praised as a prescient classic, and there was even a book clubs of ecologists who set up to read it this summer. The timing wasn’t right for me to join, but I vowed to read it on my own when I had the chance. Unfortunately, I found it a bit overhyped. It isn’t a bad book at all, and I certainly respect what Butler was trying to do with it. But I have some issues both with the depictions of climate change and society and with the characters.             When discussing this book and its sequel, ‘The Parable of the Talents’, Butler said she had two main goals. One was to extrapolate on current social and environmental issues: “I considered drugs…I looked at the growing rich/poor gap, at throwaway labor, at our willingness to build and fill prisons,

  This is the first in a series of urban fantasy police procedural novels featuring probationary constable and apprentice wizard Peter Grant. Peter is about to have his career with London’s Metropolitan Police diverted into permanent paperwork when he gets an unexpected break: a witness testimony to a murder. Inconveniently, the witness is a ghost! This brings him to the attention of Detective Chief Inspector Nightingale, who is to the Met as Fox Mulder is to the FBI in ‘X-Files’. The murderer they are tracking is a some kind of spirit who can possess people’s bodies and force them to act out scenes from ‘Punch and Judy’ – a puppet act with probably the highest on-screen bodycount of any children’s media! Along the way, they also get involved in a dispute between two families of water deities who both claim the Thames. The tone of this book gives me strong Pratchett vibes, especially Discworld’s Watch .   For instance, the first page reads like this: It started a