Literally Weird
For some time now, I've felt I ought to read a book entitled Behind the Scenes at the Museum, which had been very well received, but whenever I spotted it in a store, I'd always read the blurb and be put off. Perhaps it was because I like museums, but none seemed to occur in the book, or perhaps it sounded too much like a generic woman trapped in unhappy marriage tale.
A month or two back, I needed a third book for a 3-for-2, and so bought Not the End of the World, which was a collection of wonderfully surreal short stories and which had an appealing blurb. A week or so later, I spotted another book by the same author (Kate Atkinson) which was set in Cambridge and looked like a mystery - it sounded terrific, and was. Having read that, I proceeded to devour the rest of her oeuvre, including some really splendid story telling. I finally finished Behind the Scenes at the weekend (one of her best, I think, no wonder everyone raved about it) and Emotionally Weird yesterday (a surreal comic novel, and a nice complement to the other campus novels I've been working my way through lately). How on earth did I miss out on Kate Atkinson for so long?
She's now on my elite "I'll even buy in hardback" authors list, joining Margaret Atwood, William Gibson, John Le Carre, Neal Stephenson and Bruce Sterling. A rather SF/cyberpunk weighted list, hmm. With my recent foray through campus novels I've also found I like David Lodge, so perhaps he is moving onto my hardback list too. This is in spite of the fact that my time as a PhD student involved rather less sex and excitement than most of the characters in Lodge's academic departments manage. Sigh.
A month or two back, I needed a third book for a 3-for-2, and so bought Not the End of the World, which was a collection of wonderfully surreal short stories and which had an appealing blurb. A week or so later, I spotted another book by the same author (Kate Atkinson) which was set in Cambridge and looked like a mystery - it sounded terrific, and was. Having read that, I proceeded to devour the rest of her oeuvre, including some really splendid story telling. I finally finished Behind the Scenes at the weekend (one of her best, I think, no wonder everyone raved about it) and Emotionally Weird yesterday (a surreal comic novel, and a nice complement to the other campus novels I've been working my way through lately). How on earth did I miss out on Kate Atkinson for so long?
She's now on my elite "I'll even buy in hardback" authors list, joining Margaret Atwood, William Gibson, John Le Carre, Neal Stephenson and Bruce Sterling. A rather SF/cyberpunk weighted list, hmm. With my recent foray through campus novels I've also found I like David Lodge, so perhaps he is moving onto my hardback list too. This is in spite of the fact that my time as a PhD student involved rather less sex and excitement than most of the characters in Lodge's academic departments manage. Sigh.