Fee

I loved every single page of this fucking massive book and its heartfelt embracing of all things occult and strange. Mariana Enriquez approaches magical realism in the same way that Toni Morrison does: with a completely straight face. No winking from the sidelines, no nudging reminders that we're experiencing the ‘other', or that everything may not be as it seems. This is quite simply reality: blood soaked, ceremonial, and dark, dark, dark, not quite separate from our own but just a little out of step, like viewing a Magic Eye picture of the exact moment of your death. Her spiralling narrative is unbelievably deft, and requires your trust in a way that I've never encountered in fiction before, almost as if you're required to give something of yourself over to Enriquez in exchange for prose. If you're lucky you'll get it back.

Reminiscent of the visceral horror of Poppy Z. Brite, with the scope and scale of Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing. Keeping everything crossed that more of her work is translated into English sooner rather than later.

I put off reading Ursula K. LeGuin's pioneering sci-fi classic for a very long time as I'm really not a fan of the genre, but when I finally did pick up this wee novella it blew me away, and I was left kicking myself for not reading it sooner.

Set in the far future on the ice planet of Gethen, against a backdrop of the intricacies of interplanetary diplomatic relations, Le Guin explores what a society might look like in which gender is no longer a defining characteristic, and writes with remarkable prescience considering this novel is fifty-four years old this year.

“Because of our lifelong social conditioning, it is hard for us to see clearly what, besides purely physiological form and function, truly differentiates men and women. I eliminated gender, to find out what was left. Whatever was left would be, presumably, simply human. It would define the area that is shared by men and women alike.” —UKLG

The novel unfolds into further complex, layered narratives reflecting on the importance of community and collaboration, the dangers of xenophobia, and our deeply rooted and enduring need for connection in both the microcosm and the macrocosm, as well as treating us to snippets of the folklore of Gethen, all in Le Guin's engaging, beautiful prose. Genly Ai and Estraven's journey across the hinterland of the Gobrin Ice will stay with me until the end of my days. Can't recommend highly enough.

A thoroughly strange little book, The Body Artist clocks in at only 128pp but it fair packs a punch. Don DeLillo's writing conveys a pervasive sense of stillness and silence throughout as he explores the profundity and bizarreness of grief, the necessity of art and performance, and the inescapable consequences of cause and effect. My first DeLillo, but definitely not my last.

I just did not get on with this book. All the good bits about the validity and examination of self and the musings on existence were cancelled out by too much chat about the technicalities of warfare, and the unbelievably badly written female characters. Praying hard that this is a one-off blip in Calvino's work.

Another gloriously bizarre mythical tale from Italo Calvino, and my favourite of the three that make up his Our Ancestors triptych (along with The Baron in the Trees, and the Non-Existent Knight). Perhaps unsurprisingly in a tale about a man blown into two functioning halves by a cannonball, this is a story about the duality of self, and the importance of making peace with every facet of our selves - good and bad, virtuous and shameful - but more than that, this story also cautions us against assuming that the grass is always greener and reminds us to always be grateful for what we have now, regardless of how little our lot might seem at the time. A hugely thought-provoking and often very dark book but, in keeping with the theme, laugh out loud funny in places.

+1 star for a goat in a little suit and a duck in a wedding dress, and for said animals having a lovely time on a swing