Part morality tale, part metaphor and part poetic fable, The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly is a short novella that was a bestseller in the author’s native Korea. It tells the story of the short but hard fought life of a small hen and her struggle to find her place and purpose in the world. Naming herself Sprout, she has one goal initially – to break free from her battery cage and raise an egg of her own. She is left for dead by […]
A nostalgic meditation on friendship, drifting apart, and what drives people to create video games.
YOU is a contemplative and finely crafted novel where every page bleeds with love for the medium and old acquaintances. Russell and his childhood friends Darren, Lisa and Simon were four very different kids brought together by a love of roleplaying games and programming. While his friends went on to form one of the most successful gaming companies in the industry, Russell instead spent his post-degree life drifting through various unfulfilling jobs. 1994 rolls along, and he finds himself winding up with a job at […]
A charming and enjoyable romp through the world of books and Google (oddly enough.)
Mr Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is a rare thing – a book with one foot in the past and one in the future. It manages to toe the line between a call-to-arms for an open and free digital archive of books, and a celebration of more traditional bookshops and authentic crinkly tomes. It’s the tale of a young designer called Clay who accepts a job at a small bookshop and slowly ends up falling headfirst into a strange conspiracy replete with black-robed acolytes, a mysterious code […]
An evocative road-trip through 1800’s India.
The Strangler Vine is an interesting novel – part road-trip, part examination of British-Indian relations in the 1800’s and part detective story starring an opium addicted poet, a by-the-book soldier, a shady mercenary and a bloodthirsty cult. If all that sounds like a bit much to take in, it’s not as Tarantino as described! It’s a carefully plotted novel, slowly dropping plot-points like breadcrumbs along the road at regular intervals. The story follows the mismatched duo of William Avery, a self-important junior officer in the East […]
A strange novel filled with creeping visions and woozy memories – a purgatory on earth filled with nightmares.
The story is narrated in journal form by a biologist sent as part of a team to a contaminated coastal zone known as Area X, a mysterious location seemingly unbridled by the rules of the natural world. We are not introduced to the members of the party by name, each character is instead clinically referred to only by their role. Eleven previous teams were sent, all of which never returned, died shortly after or came back different. This theme of transmutation permeates through the whole […]
An uplifting and poetic ode to literature.
Set in a Japanese prison during the Second World War, The Investigation is the story of two prison guards and their separate dealings with a young prisoner – a fictionalised version of the well-respected Korean poet Yun Dong-ju. The novel is inspired by his life, works and death, placing his wistful and hopeful poems within the text for both us and the characters to discover. The novel begins with a well-educated young guard called Watanabe taking up the role of censor in the prison, as well as […]