Reviews

Such benign vagueness is probably the best policy for someone who lives under threat, not only from former potentially murderous co-religionists but also assorted security agencies (the Swedish included).

These short stories may simply be too frightening – or perhaps unnerving – for some readers.

Khemiri is known for his ironically self- referential approach to writing.

Not only is the main character a girl, but the novel looks at other aspects of Viking life, particularly religion, literacy and social distinctions.

Young children’s books often feature dragons and princesses, and this one is no exception.

There is delightful period detail in food, dress and pop songs on tangle- prone cassette tapes, but older history is ever present in this sea-facing kingdom that is trying to turn its back on time.

Over a century later, only the nationalities have changed.

There’s a lot of Pollyanna in Billie, but also a bit of Pippi Longstocking.

In Latvia, however, many people are constantly told they are Russians – however long they’ve lived there.

Now Masha, Tolstoy’s favourite child, comes into focus, completing the Russian triptych.

‘How grandiose, eccentric, depressive, suicidal, bizarre, queer or sexually affirmative can a woman be before she is labelled insane?’

Doris is a determined little girl who knows her own mind. And what she wants is to finish the civil engineering project she’s working on in her sandpit, not to go out for afternoon tea – particularly when that means putting on a pink flouncy frock rather than her favourite sailor suit.

A secret concealed in the communal laundry: a tub full of pulsating black goo that craves blood and offers in return irresistible mystical transports.

Maria (Mary to her friends), a 23-year-old architecture student, has just discovered that she is expecting a baby.

That magical, belly-flipping fizz of first love.

This is the kind of book likely to elicit the attention of gatekeepers in the world of YA fiction.

Virdborg’s whole book can be read as a descent into hell.

What remains from Ray Bradbury’s story is an existential ambivalence about the end of a life, and of the novel itself in the face of inevitability.