Joan Aiken most recent novel, The Shadow Ghosts, was published in February.
Little Orphant Annie says, when the blaze is blue An’ the lampwick sputters, an’ the wind goes woo-oo, An’ you hear the crickets quit, an’ the moon is gray, An’ the lightning-bugs in dew is all squenched away – You better mind yer parents and yer teachers fond and dear An’ cherish them ’at loves you, an’ dry the orphant’s tear,...
Jane Austen’s work seems, at first, hospitable to that literary parasite, pastiche: there isn’t much of it, so ersatz continuations or alternative narratives must satisfy the hunger...
What do the lives and thoughts of other people feel like? We’ll never really know, but fiction offers as good an approximation of knowing as we’re likely to come across. That...
The epigraphs of P.D. James (now that she has taken to using them) are important. ‘There’s this to say for blood and breath,’ runs the latest one, from A.E. Housman: ‘They...
Read anywhere with the London Review of Books app, available now from the App Store for Apple devices, Google Play for Android devices and Amazon for your Kindle Fire.
For highlights from the latest issue, our archive and the blog, as well as news, events and exclusive promotions.