My recent reading has been less spooky than
I expected it to be. I took out all of those old ghost anthologies and I read a
bunch of stories… but I don’t think I’m in the mood for horror, overall. I want
something brighter and more optimistic, even if it is Halloween this week…
Over the weekend I read two wonderful
volumes – both new out.
The first is a new Virago reprint of the
first novel Joan Aiken wrote, when she was just seventeen. (Virago have been
picking out some good additions to their Modern Library in recent times – I’ve
enjoyed Stella Gibbons, Angela Thirkell and PL Travers this year, all in fancy
new covers.) ‘The Kingdom and the Cave’ is a kind of fairy tale involving young
prince Michael, who learns to speak several animal languages and goes off to
save his kingdom from the terrible folk who live Underneath… It’s a book that
takes a little while to get going, I think, but there are lots of thoroughly
charming incidents and characters – earthworms and eels, a friendly horse and a
rather feckless wizard - and the cats, in particular, are very funny.
It seems like an essential book, to me, for
any real Joan Aiken enthusiast (it was first and last published in 1960.) Now
I’m really looking forward to ‘The Serial Garden’ – a single volume collecting
up the linked stories about the Armitage family. I’ve read several of these,
sprinkled through anthologies over more years than I can even count – so I’m
looking forward to reading them all together.
The other book I enjoyed this weekend –
almost more than any other this year – I’ll wait to tell you about next time.
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