The Dust Lounge

Tag: books

  • Flash fiction prompt: The things we grow from

    Flash fiction prompt: The things we grow from

    The start of this year has been undeniably hectic. Three months of work being crazy busy and life bringing its own little hurdles, not to mention the general state of the world. So I’ve neglected to post as much as I was hoping to, already slipping on the promises I made to myself to carve out more time. 

    So here’s to a bit of a reset. There’s a glimmer of calmness on the horizon, with a long overdue holiday at the end of April to look forward to (the first since before the pandemic, to give you an idea of just how ready I am for this). And there’s been a lot going on meaning I’ve not made enough time for writing, but I had the greatest ‘pick me up’ news last weekend that one of my favourite short stories is going to be published by the wonderful Necessary Fiction this September. I can’t wait to share that with you, and it’s reinvigorated me at a time I was doubting myself. 

    On top of this, I’ve been busy thinking hard about work and life and enrolled on a Counselling Skills course. I’ve only just started and it’s already made me remember what it is that made me study Psychology in the first place, and refocussed me on what I find interesting and rewarding both personally, and potentially from a career. I don’t know exactly where this particular journey is going to lead, but I’m embracing the learning and the start of potentially some new adventures. 

    But with all that said, and with Spring well and truly kicking in, we’re well overdue a fresh flash fiction prompt to play with. And what better topic to go with than ‘growth’? In this neck of the woods the flowers have started to show their faces, the birds have kicked into gear and the longer evenings bring with them a sense of relief and latent potential. So with that in mind, this flash fiction challenge is looking for 500 words inspired by the title ‘The things we grow from’. Maybe it’ll be part memoir, something you’ve personally learned along the way. Maybe it’ll be an ode to a garden. Maybe it’ll be an origin story for the birth of a new and vicious alien species come to drown us in their acid blood and use our chests as incubators. Go wherever the title leads you.  

    Word count: 500 words 

    Title: The things we grow from 

    Go ahead and carve out those words and share a link in the comments below. If you like a deadline let’s go with 26th April giving you two weeks and the whole of the Easter bank holiday weekend to get the word crafting going.

    I hope the year is treating you well, and happy writing! 🖤

  • Something Olde, Something New: Favourite reads of 2024 via an old English rhyme

    Something Olde, Something New: Favourite reads of 2024 via an old English rhyme

    After what has not been the best of years, I’m getting the palate cleanser this year needed by finishing it out with a wedding. After a registry office wedding many years ago, my brother is having the church wedding that him and his wife had always wanted, and it’s a lovely thing that fills my heart with warmth to see them do it 🖤

     So, in the spirit of the wedding theme, my 2024 reading roundup is brought to you by the old wedding rhyme:

    Something Olde,

    Something New,

    Something Borrowed,

    Something Blue,

    A Sixpence in your Shoe

    One favourite read from this year for each line of the rhyme.

    Something Olde

    I who have never known men by Jacqueline Harpman

    So here I’m picking a book from 1995, yeah maybe not ancient but old enough—and this book has the feel of an all-time science fiction classic. It was an absolute joy reading I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman, which is slightly strange to say when it was arguably a particularly heavy book emotionally about loneliness and survival, in a strange and empty world.

    Something New

    The Echoes by Evie Wyld

    I feel like I’m hitting this one on two counts with Evie Wyld. She was a new to me author this year, and I devoured some of her back catalogue as well as The Echoes which came out this year. If I remember rightly I stumbled on her books after seeing a recommendation from James Smythe (another phenomenal author you should absolutely check out if you like smart, beautifully crafted science fiction). Her books are simply wonderfully written, with beautifully crafted characters with faults and scars and traumas. Wyld without exception delivers emotional reads, both tender and unflinching.

    Something borrowed

    Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb

    Robin Hobb’s Farseer Trilogy had a full re-read this year. These books remind me of diving into fantasy books, fully escaping into them when I was younger, and reading them again puts me right back in that frame of mind. They’re coming in for ‘something borrowed’ as I think it’s fair to say I borrowed just a part of my love of reading and writing from these books

    Something Blue

    Ok so I’m going to cheat on this one and give you two. Blue(ish) covers, and blue from the sea and the sky.

    Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield
    How High We go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagmatsu

    The first is Julia Armfield’s Our Wives Under the Sea. A wonderful meditation on love, grief and loss. A modern day fable, Armfield’s novel is both surreal and thoughtful, and touchingly real in its weirdness.

    The second is How High We Go In The Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu. I can’t say enough about how wonderful this book is. Covering a wide cast of characters over a huge span of years, each window into their world is carefully linked to carve out personal moments that give insight into a wider whole. An undercurrent of hope makes this one of the most beautiful books I’ve read this year.

    A Sixpence in your Shoe

    I never even knew this was a line in the rhyme—it sounds kinda uncomfortable, especially if those shoes are the kind of pinching stilettoes so often seen down the aisle. And my link here is, I’ll admit a little tenuous, but if we follow the thread through from sixpence to money to crime spree then I think it’s appropriate to drop in Donald Ray Pollock’s The Heavenly Table here. I love Pollock’s work—dark, gritty, but with a bleak sense of humour that carries you through—and The Heavenly Table does not disappoint as you follow the hapless brothers Cane, Cob and Chimney fall into a life of crime where you can’t help but root for them.

    I hope you’ve all had a wonderful reading year, and here’s to more great books in 2025 🖤

  • Twenty books

    Twenty books

    I’ve been enjoying my time over on Bluesky. It’s been a (relative) breath of fresh air and it’s nice to have been able to reconnect and stay connected with some of my online friends from other parts of the internet. It’s also felt like such a good way to connect with creative folks again, a little more like the heyday of Twitter.

    So this post is inspired by the ‘Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you’ threads. I went ahead and put together my choices, posting (nearly) every day, and it was a fun exercise in remembering some great reads, both new and old—and not only with a view as to whether I’d necessarily still love them now, but also about whether they stayed with me, perhaps spoke to my age and the time of my life I was at. (Way to make myself sound old 😅)

    I’ll freely admit, I had a hard time narrowing it down, and there’s a fair few in the list that are just ‘hey, guys, just read everything by this author’.

    So I thought I’d collate the list here; the covers and a little comment on twenty books that stayed with me or influenced me. Any in there that you’ve read, or are on your to-read list? I’d love to know what books have influenced you over the years, and of course any ‘oh you liked that, try this’ book recommendations! 🖤

    • The Chrysalids by John Wyndham – I read this when I was young and it spoke to me deeply. It still does.
    • Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro – The first novel I read by him, it delivers such sadness written in a beautiful style.
    • Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica – One of my all time favourite reads. Not pleasant, not happy, but fundamentally brilliant.
    • The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa – this book is just too beautiful for words, it’s probably what got me into a quieter style of writing, a step away from western narratives.
    • Moxyland by Lauren Beukes – such a great, fun, punchy book, I’m always gonna love anything that Beukes gives us.
    • The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell – wonderful and thoughtful science fiction, on my ‘one to re-read’ list.
    • The Devil all the Time by Donald Ray Pollock – difficult to pick one of Pollock’s books over the other, but his sense of place and grit in all his work is wonderful, if bleak.
    • Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb – one full of nostalgia for me, brings me the escapism I found in books when I was younger.
    • The Animals in That Country by Laura Jean McKay – such an unusual book with great style and interesting characters.
    • I who have never known men by Jacqueline Harpman – classic science fiction I only recently read and it’s quietness daunts me and lingers in the back of my brain.
    • Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood – beautifully rendered writing in a strange but believable world. Highly recommend this trilogy.
    • Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk
      Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk – possibly the first Palahniuk novel I read and the punch and zest of his writing is riveting.
    • Carrie Hepple’s Garden by Ruth Craft and Irene Haas – memories of my Mom reading this to me will be with me forever.
    • Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin – there are still passages from this novel that suddenly come to mind whenever I see the latest advances in modern toys, AI and how we engage with technology.
    • Metropolitan Dreams by Mark A. King – so honoured to consider King one of my online friends and to have been trusted with the cover for his outstanding first novel. A book epic in its reach and touching with its characters, it’s fantasy but with the feel of real life.
    • How high we go in the dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu – wonderfully rendered stories knit together in such a beautiful way so as to leave you with a sense of satisfaction at experiencing something so brilliantly crafted.
    • The Echoes by Evie Wyld – Wyld is new to me this year and I devoured her back catalogue. Beautiful prose, carefully rendered characters. There may have been tears involved.
    • Deathtrap Dungeon by Ian Livingstone – I mean, come on, who doesn’t have a choose your own adventure book on their all time favourites list?
    • I Still Dream by James Smythe – I love Smythe’s science fiction and I think this one of the best novels I’ve read depicting the nature of AI and our relationship with it.
    • Consider This by Chuck Palahniuk – full of excellent anecdotes and writing advice. I keep this on my desk.
  • Re-reading Robin Hobb’s Farseer Trilogy feels like coming home

    Re-reading Robin Hobb’s Farseer Trilogy feels like coming home

    I’m not normally much of one for re-reading books. There’s so many books teetering on my to-be-read pile that there’s always something new waiting in the wings to delve into. And yet, over the last few weeks I’ve found myself immersed once again in Robin Hobb’s fantasy series The Farseer Trilogy, devouring them back-to-back and losing myself in Fitz’s story. They follow his journey from boyhood to becoming an adult, with a healthy dose of political intrigue, murders, magic and beasts (of all sorts including dogs, horses, dragons, and probably the star of the series, a wolf).

    It’s been a long time since I’d read them, so long the details had escaped my mind although I remembered absolutely loving them when I was younger. And I wasn’t disappointed the second time around. It turns out they’re still the sort of books I’ll go to bed early to start reading. The sort of books that keep me reading long after I should have fallen asleep at night. The sort of books that infect my dreams with a world so vivid it’s nearly real.

    But what surprised me was how comforting they were to read. They connected me with my memories from when I was younger, spoke to a part of my mind from all those years ago that did not have the cares of age and the passing years to concern it. It felt like the comfort of hot soup and heavy blankets after a family outing on bonfire night. It felt, in a strange way, like coming home.

    So absolutely, there’s no doubt that I’d recommend Hobb’s Farseer Trilogy to anyone who enjoys fantasy, as they’re skilfully crafted and hugely engaging (and if you’re new to Hobb’s work and enjoy them then you’re in for a real treat because she has an extensive range of other fantasy novels for you to dig your teeth into). But what I really came here to say was; if you need a cosy pick-me-up then I highly recommend digging out a book you loved as a child, because for me perhaps it’s the closest thing to time travel that I’ve found. Because for the hours my head was lost in those books, it was lost there with the child I was when I read them the first time around. And sometimes that is just what you need.

  • Breaking the reading funk

    It’s rare I get into a reading funk, but the last month or so I’ve really struggled to get into the groove with a book.

    I was on a good run this year, enjoying some great reads. I still think about the vivid landscapes of Zhang’s How much of these hills is gold, Ishiguro’s thoughtful sci-fi Klara and the Sun, the bloody (fantastic) upcoming My Heart is a Chainsaw from Jones, and Schweblin’s unsettling foray into voyeuristic digital lives in Little Eyes.

    And then.

    Stop.

    I just stalled.

    Flat out turning-the-key-and-sounding-like-a-horse-coughing-up-a-packet-of-Bensons stalled.

    And I’m talking stalled as in I felt like whatever I picked up I couldn’t get in to. I was scared to pick up books I was excited to read in case my mood ruined the whole thing.

    I can, apparently, be a bit of a moody reader. I always used to force myself to finish a book if I’d started it. I’d drag myself through it, not really caring what was on the next page, scanning through paragraphs without really seeing the words, willing myself to get to the end. And it wasn’t really fair on those books, books that I might well enjoy on a different day in a different headspace. So now I don’t worry about finishing a book if it’s not working for me at time, but know that sometimes certain books or genres are gonna work better than others. Because I’m fickle, or changeable, or moody, or all of the above.

    But I was worried about my funk.

    Worried because I felt, for a few weeks, like I might not break it. I might not find the right match.

    Sometimes when this happens I’ll switch it up from fiction to non-fiction, and this time I delved a little into hauntology which was interesting but didn’t give me the desired reading bug back.

    Things were getting serious.

    I needed a book to break my funk, and after considering the options, I picked up a book by an author who I’d hugely enjoyed in the past for their zombie series, thrillingly dark and darkly humorous. If you’ve not read them before, Mira Grant’s Newsflesh series is brilliantly entertaining, the sort of books you can’t wait to get back to reading when you’re forced to take a break for food or bodily functions and other such distractions.

    So, I’m pleased to say that Grant’s Parasite has been just the funk breaker I was hoping for. Who’d have thought a book with, well, rather a lot of pandemic vibes, would be the book to get my reading back on track. But it absolutely has. Body-snatching, parasitic pandemic ambience is the perfect antidote.

    But am I the only moody reader? Do you get stuck in similar reading black holes?

    What breaks your reading funk? Do you read to different moods? Do you have an ‘old faithful’ you return to whenever you’re lost with the TBR pile? Share your reading funk-breakers in the comments, and hopefully y’all enjoying your current reads as much as I am.

  • On reading: Coyote Songs by Gabino Iglesias

    On reading: Coyote Songs by Gabino Iglesias

    Title: Coyote Songs

    Author: Gabino Iglesias

    From the back: In Gabino Iglesias’ second novel, ghosts and old gods guide the hands of those caught up in a violent struggle to save the soul of the American southwest. A man tasked with shuttling children over the border believes the Virgin Mary is guiding him towards final justice. A woman offers colonizer blood to the Mother of Chaos. A boy joins corpse destroyers to seek vengeance for the death of his father. These stories intertwine with those of a vengeful spirit and a hungry creature to paint a timely, compelling, pulpy portrait of revenge, family, and hope. 

    The gist: This powerful, emotional book grabs you by your (eye)balls, rips into your heart and takes absolutely no prisoners. It’s a raw book, angry, sad, brutal, but cut through with heart. The images feel like folklore, the stories like violent fables, carrying you along and transporting you into a place where land and borders are as much characters as the people that walk across them. 

    Iglesias weaves Spanish into the words, and my limited vocabulary didn’t stop me from being pulled along, the rhythm giving it meaning regardless of the words themselves. 

    And this book also seems important, culturally and politically. It feels like the sort of stories that need to be told in the strange world we live in at the moment. 

    It’s a book that needs to be read, that screams at you from the bookshelf. It demands to be devoured, digested and understood. It’s violent and beautiful, and all the things in between, and it will demand your attention long after you finish turning the pages. 

    Favourite line: “Yeah, when nothing makes sense, I close my eyes and listen to my blood.”

    Read if: You want a brutal yet folkloresque insight into life on the border

    Read with: Some ice for your bruises because this book don’t pull no punches

    Get it: Coyote Songs by Gabino Iglesias

  • 2019 – a year of reading and the Dust Lounge Awards

    My round up of books I’ve read in 2019, another year of reading fiction and non-fiction wordage, this time with some hard-hitting book awards thrown in for good measure.

    This year’s reading was a splendid tapas of fiction and non-fiction dishes. I finished studying in September which freed up time for recreational reading (so much of the year before then had been taken up with text books and journal articles). Here’s a quick round up of some of my favourites, but if you can’t take the suspense then head to the end of the post for my Dust Lounge Book Awards of 2019.

    Just some of this year’s reads

    Stand out fiction books for me came from the likes of Paul Tremblay, Gareth Powell, William Gibson, Sarah Lotz and Max Barry. Top marks have to go to Tremblay’s “The Little Sleep”, possibly the weirdest detective book I have ever read.

    Gibson’s “The Peripheral” was probably the smartest book I read this year – the sort of book that you wish you could have written – although Tchaikovsky’s “Children of Time” had the smartest spiders.

    “Body Farm Z” by Deborah Sheldon gave me my fix of zombie action, filling the disappointing hole that The Walking Dead keeps digging with kangaroo shaped undead.

    In the interests of returning to my own writing this year, I started reading more short fiction, with inspiration coming from King’s “The Bazaar of Bad Dreams”, Ellis’s “Asylum of Shadows” and Beukes’s “Ungirls“.

    When it came to non -fiction, true crime and cyberpsychology were the dominant themes. Britton’s “Picking up the Pieces” was a riveting read – I had the pleasure of seeing him doing a lecture a few years back and could listen to that man talk for hours. Aiken’s “The Cyber Effect” was equally interesting – and incidentally was my first full audio-book experience – although as with any book about ‘popular’ science I’d encourage reading with a critical eye. These aren’t research projects or journal articles. These are books designed to present a particular viewpoint and to make the author some money. They are not, necessarily, giving you the full picture. If the topic interests you, read around.

    The Dust Lounge book awards of 2019

    But what is a 2019 round-up if it doesn’t have an awards list, right? So without further ado, I present to you the Dust Lounge’s Book Awards of 2019 – sure to be a fixture at all red carpet events in the near future.

    I’m sure you’ll join me in congratulating all books that were written or read in 2019, and here’s to a 2020 filled with more damn fine wordage.

    AND CHEESE.

  • On reading: The Death House by Sarah Pinborough

    the_death_house_sarah_pinborough_gollancz_cover

    Title: The Death House

    Author: Sarah Pinborough

    From the back: Toby’s life was perfectly normal . . . until it was unravelled by something as simple as a blood test.

    Taken from his family, Toby now lives in the Death House; an out-of-time existence far from the modern world, where he, and the others who live there, are studied by Matron and her team of nurses. They’re looking for any sign of sickness. Any sign of their wards changing. Any sign that it’s time to take them to the sanatorium.

    No one returns from the sanatorium.

    Withdrawn from his house-mates and living in his memories of the past, Toby spends his days fighting his fear. But then a new arrival in the house shatters the fragile peace, and everything changes.

    Because everybody dies. It’s how you choose to live that counts.

    The gist: I should probably be writing about the twisty, turny, bloody-hell-are-you-serious-dude Behind Her Eyes, and I mostly likely will. Spoiler – it’s brilliant – it’s that good that it nearly made me miss my train stop.

    But first, I want to talk about The Death House. Because if I’m going to talk about Pinborough’s books, it feels wrong not to start there.

    Oh my God this book made me cry. And it wasn’t the pretty sort of crying, it was the where’s-the-tissues-I-didn’t-know-I-had-this-much-snot-in-me sort of crying.

    So, the tears were ugly, but the book was beautiful.

    It was my first foray into Pinborough’s work and it made me want to eat up everything else she has going. It reminded me of old favourites like Wyndham’s The Chrysalids – young people living through something that they don’t have control of, that will no doubt end in something you’re not quite sure of but ain’t gonna be good. It’s about people finding love when there’s none being nurtured, and at the same time having all of the faults and the flaws that all people have. If there’s not a character in here that you haven’t met or haven’t been at some point in time then I’m gonna say right now that I’d be surprised.

    It’s like a coming of age story, when there ain’t no coming of age to be had.

    Make no mistake, it’s a beautiful book. It’s a grim book. And in the darkness, there is a happiness.

    Cling on to that when you’re eyes are leaking the sea.

    One of my favourite reads of 2016.

    More than likely going to be one of my favourite re-reads of 2017.

    Favourite line: “If you thought about it hard enough, you could be scared of everything.”

    Read if: You want a book that captures that fine balance between sad and uplifting. I consider it a modern classic.

    Read with: Tissues, and someone to give you a hug afterwards.

    Get it: The Death House by Sarah Pinborough

  • On reading: Metropolitan Dreams by Mark A King

    On reading: Metropolitan Dreams by Mark A King

    Title: Metropolitan Dreams

    Author: Mark A King

    From the back: This is a tale of two cities.

    Darkness and light.

    Sinners and angels.

    In the daylight, London sparkles, beckoning tourists, optimists and dreamers from across the globe. The sunlit city weaves together the lives of repentant crime-lords, altruistic nightclub bouncers and resolute detectives.

    In the darkness, London festers, drools, tempts and corrupts. It is a world where the desperate are lured, the weak are exploited, and good men wrap themselves in the blanket of criminal rewards. In the seething streets, the hissing underground stations and lost subterranean rivers, the metropolitan dreams of ethical hackers, desperate criminals and traumatized Tube-drivers unfold.

    Maria, a vulnerable twelve-year-old from Kerala, India, has travelled half the world in search of her past and hopes for the future. Within hours, violent chaos engulfs her. Maria is tracked, hunted and pursued—she can rescue the city, but first she must save herself.

    The gist: The debut novel from talented flash-fictioneer Mark A King packs an urban fantasy punch that leaves you wanting more (thankfully, this is a BOOK 1 so signs are looking good). A host of likeable and unlikeable characters prowl the streets of London, mingling with the criminal underworld, the spiritual world, and the downright gritty-side-of-life-bits of world.

    There’s many types of London, and Kings’ London is gritty, with a dark and a light side – full of ghosts who aren’t seen because they’re ghosts, and people who aren’t seen because they’re the sort of people crowds ignore.

    And even though King covers some pretty heavy topics, there’s humour in the darkness, witty edges to characters that make the book deeper and the characters more real.

    Half urban fantasy, half London-noir, with strains of Neil Gaiman thrown in for good measure, Metropolitan Dreams is a page turner that you’ll wish didn’t run out of pages.

    This book deserves to be made into a film, or be the next grit-fantasy (that’s a genre, promise) TV box set we’re all talking about. And when we’re finished talking about that, hopefully the next one will be out, because we certainly need to hear more from King.

    Favourite line: “you’re thicker than an Eighties mobile phone.”

    Read if: You want a bit of urban fantastical London-noir in your life (which you do)

    Read with: An underground map, and a soundtrack of tube trains.

    Get it: Metropolitan Dreams by Mark A King

  • On reading: The Last Days of Jack Sparks by Jason Arnopp

    On reading: The Last Days of Jack Sparks by Jason Arnopp

    Title: The Last Days of Jack Sparks

    Author: Jason Arnopp

    From the back: It was no secret that journalist Jack Sparks had been researching the occult for his new book. No stranger to controversy, he’d already triggered a furious Twitter storm by mocking an exorcism he witnessed.

    Then there was that video: forty seconds of chilling footage that Jack repeatedly claimed was not of his making, yet was posted from his own YouTube account.

    Nobody knew what happened to Jack in the days that followed – until now.

    The gist: I’m just gonna come right out and say that this book is one of the few books to make me laugh out loud and at the same time be too goddamn scared to put the light out. Thanks, Mr Arnopp, for the sleepless nights.

    The docu-style massively suits the novel, and Jack is one cool, unlikeable but entertaining narrator. As is his brother. And all of this you read as if it’s really happened. OH-MY-GOD-TELL-ME-IT-HASN’T-HAPPENED. Has it happened? It hasn’t happened, right?

    This is the sort of book that pushes you into the queue for the fastest, scariest ride, and straps you in without checking if you’re the right height.

    But, for some reason, even as you feel the cart swaying and hear a dodgy clanking sound rattling through the tracks, you ain’t gonna be yelling to get off because you just want to get to that next corner, see what’s over that next dip.

    And it is one, crazy ride.

    Bonus advice; feel free to watch the Exorcist, or perhaps the Blair Witch Project at the same time. But do not, under any circumstances, go into the basement. Or the attic. Or camping.

    Favourite line: “Let me tell you: Theroux would shit himself.”

    Read if: You want a docu-style account of an egotistical sceptic’s attempts to discover the ghost world. With scares and laughs.

    Read with: The lights on.

    Get it: The Last Days of Jack Sparks by Jason Arnopp