Have you visited The Night Circus?

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. The black sign, painted in white letters that hangs upon the gates, reads:

“Opens at Nightfall
Closes at Dawn”

As the sun disappears beyond the horizon, all over the tents small lights begin to flicker, as though the entirety of the circus is covered in particularly bright fireflies. When the tents are all aglow, sparkling against the night sky, the sign appears.

Le Cirque des Rêves – The Circus of Dreams.

Now the circus is open.
Now you may enter. Continue reading “Have you visited The Night Circus?”

Review: Capital by John Lanchester

capitalThe residents of Pepys Road, London – a banker and his shopaholic wife, an old woman dying of a brain tumour, a family of Pakistani shop owners, the young football star from Senegal and his minder – all receive an anonymous postcard one day with a simple message: “We Want What You Have”. Who is behind it? What do they want?

As the mystery of the postcards deepens, the world around Pepys Road is turned upside down by the financial crash and all of its residents’ lives change beyond recognition over the course of the next year.

Continue reading “Review: Capital by John Lanchester”

An appetite for book clubs

This post originally appeared on magickittenblogs, on Friday 29th March 2013

On Wednesday night, I was very pleased to get along to the Appetite Book Club in Colchester, run by the amazing Jo Coldwell. Seriously, this woman never stops – she does an amazing job organising the busiest book club I’ve ever seen as well as doing wonderful things at Tea and Sympathy, an Aladdin’s cave of lovely things, workshops and master classes in Colchester.

The book club meets monthly at The Old Court in Colchester, opening specially for the evening – there must have twelve full tables all looking forward to catching up with friends and discussing the latest read, The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared, by Jonas Jonasson. Continue reading “An appetite for book clubs”