The Stepford Wives needs no introduction. Thanks to not one, but two movie adaptations, it has a plot so famous as to have entered cultural discourse – everyone knows what a Stepford Wife is now, but the novel upon which the films are based is a much more interesting and ambiguous affair. It is in…
In 1999, riding the wave of interest in Korean horror movies, Takashi Miike’s Audition hit our cinemas and subsequently appeared on every ‘Best Horror Films of All Time’ list with remarkable regularity. The source material for the film was written by Ryu Murakami in 1997 and its horror is of a much more insidious kind.…
Read more No 469 Audition by Ryu Murakami, translated by Ralph McCarthy
In ‘Cellists’, the final, and the best story in Nocturnes, an American woman pretends to be a world-famous cellist and tutors a talented young Hungarian in her hotel room in an unnamed Italian city. Under her tutelage, his playing soars – both technically and emotionally – but he soon realises that she cannot play the…
I have a few Laura Lippman books in the 746 but hadn’t read any before trying her most recent book, Sunburn, last year. I loved Sunburn and thought it was stylish and well-written, so decided to have a look and see if her back catalogue contained any other gems. What the Dead Know is a…
Read more No 484 What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman – Book 1 of #20booksofsummer20
Once again I am taking part in Ali’s Daphne Du Maurier Reading Week – a celebration of the work of Cornwall’s finest. I am really grateful to Ali for hosting this event, as I don’t think I would have pushed myself to read so much of her work. The cold walls of Jamaica Inn smelt…
Read more No 486 Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier for #DDMReadingWeek
