On June 1, 1967, the pop music world was “turned upside-down, its resultant sounds proving to be the shape of all things to come,” with the release of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the author writes. Often... Read More

The mysterious stranger with hypnotic eyes, the spooky, candlelit castle with strange nighttime sounds, the disturbing family secret, and the supernatural threat… all are part of the Gothic, the genre of romantic mystery that sparked... Read More

Alexander is obsessed with air—how to move it, heat it, cool it and clean it. In late twentieth-century South Africa, where millions crumble under weighty issues such as race, colonialism, revolution and AIDS, Alex clings to nothing.... Read More

“My skin crawls even to write about it,” says Malone’s protagonist, Terry Chagford. These words will ring true for all who delve into the mentally unhinging world of small town police chief Chagford in K. Patrick Malone’s... Read More

At its best (Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Salman Rushdie, Angela Carter), magical realism lures in its readers, making the impossible seem merely improbable. Antonio Muñoz Molina’s novella, "In Her Absence", is a supreme example of this... Read More

Travel writer Meg Parker appears to have a dream job living and working in the French countryside, but the reality of having to deal with an inattentive husband, two young children, and incompetent home remodelers is forcing a rude... Read More

The most surprising aspect of Scottish-American cuisine is not the amusing names of dishes such as Inky Pinky, a hash, or Rumbledethumps, a potato-cabbage dish. Nor is it the sometimes exotic ingredients, like the sheep’s lungs which... Read More

“Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull,” this introductory epigraph of "Speechless" is a quotation from Nineteen Eighty-four. What follows is Barry’s assertion that some of Orwell’s predictions... Read More