★★★★
I’m going to be completely honest. I bought The Night Circus for its cover: a whimsical gallery of swirling black-and-white silhouettes, enlivened with splashes of scarlet. Call me superficial: but, in this case, judging a book by its cover was a very good idea. This is Morgenstern’s first novel, but her writing style is already deft and economic, and she creates a series of vivid scenes that unfurl one after the other like flowers within flowers.
★★★★
Beauty and the Beast has always been my favourite fairy tale. I remember going to see the Disney film at the cinema for a schoolmate’s seventh birthday. As a bookish only child, I took that version deeply to heart and still love it to bits; but for pure cinematic fantasy and elegance, Jean Cocteau’s 1946 version is hard to beat. Rich, sumptuous and stylised, it’s a feast for the eyes (and is best watched with a glass of wine and some chocolate truffles). Cocteau begins by writing out the credits on a blackboard, followed by a handwritten text in which he makes it clear that we must suspend our disbelief and enjoy the story as children would. He signs off with the words ‘Il était une fois [Once upon a time]...’
★★★★
This is the sixth book I’ve read by Guy Gavriel Kay and it is once again set in his distinctive parallel world with its single sun and twin moons – white and blue – though the names of the countries and the gods aren’t the same as in his other books. Like the vast majority of his novels, A Song for Arbonne takes place in a context closely mirroring a historical period from our own world: in this case, Southern France in the age of the troubadours.
The Idle Woman 