The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas

I have certain rituals that I carry out every year around this time. It's how I survive the winter. There are certain television shows I re-watch for comfort in the cold. For instance, December doesn't feel right unless I sit through Christmas With The Joker, my favourite episode of Batman: The Animated Series and The…

Sooner Or Later by Peter Milligan & Brendan McCarthy

1986. THATCHER'S BRITAIN. THE FINANCIAL 'BIG BANG' SAW THE RICH GET RICHER. RIOTS ERRUPT IN PRISONS ACROSS THE COUNTRY. AND MICKY SWIFT IS STILL ON THE DOLE! Sooner or Later is something of a lost masterpiece, occupying the back page of 2000AD. But while most writers and artists would struggle to do anything interesting in…

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

I can't quite imagine how Ottessa pitched this novel to her agent. The main character goes unnamed and the story follows her efforts to sleep for a full year. How? Through pills, pills, and more pills. She should have asked my brother. He can take up to twenty-five Valium and remain somewhat awake. We've even…

The Arthur Nersesian Fan Club

Some authors are so good that I'll literally drop whatever I'm doing to rush off to a bookshop so I can get their latest novel. However, it isn't always that easy, if only because not all bookshops stock the authors I stalk. One example is Arthur Nersesian. I love his fiction ardently. His writing style…

Sale! Sale! Sale!

Hello. My weirdo YA masterpiece GLOWGLASS is currently £2.99 for anyone with a Kindle. Lucky sods! Think of it as a fucked-up evil version of Sweet Valley High with lesbian drama, murder, videotape, and porridge. Basically, this is the book the teen version of me would go nuts for, because it has everything I ever…

Looking Back At Batman #1

Batman and Robin swung into action (literally) in Detective Comics. Soon enough, they were starring in their own comic. It was 1940. A different, distant time. Yet the basics of The Bat were already firmly fixed in the canon. Batman #1 didn’t disappoint. Not only did it mark the return of the nefarious Dr. Hugo…

The Ryu Murakami Fan Club

Ryu Murakami is not Haruki Murakami. Not even close. Their books are filed together in bookshops, but that’s about as close as they’ll ever be in any way whatsoever. Ryu Murakami’s bleak tales of destructive youth in dystopian Japan are unlike any other books I’ve ever read. I’ve read a lot of books. His writing…