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Dec 21, 2016

Seven days in the book world with Peter Swanson

This week: an early Christmas present. 

Peter Swanson is the author of three novels, The Girl with A Clock for a Heart, The Kind Worth Killing and coming early in 2017, Her Every Fear.

A graduate of Trinity College, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Emerson College; his writing and poetry has been featured in Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Atlantic Monthly, Measure, The Guardian and The Strand Magazine. Swanson’s books have won him the New England Society book award and finalist for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger which is appropriate because the first adult novel he read was Goldfinger. 

He thinks that ‘Being lost in a book, totally removed from your own life, is one of the greatest feelings in the world.’ Peter lives with his wife and cat in Massachusetts.

Here is Peter's week in his own words.

While I normally only read one book from start to finish at a time, this past week has been an odd one. I have a deadline coming up for a Top Ten List of Best Books With Voyeurs for The Guardian, so I have been reading like a maniac. These are the books I’ve dipped into during the last seven days.

The Cry of the Owl by Patricia Highsmith (1962). It starts off with a harmless voyeur who gets his kicks spying on a lone woman. Not one of Highsmith’s best but still very good.

Sliver by Ira Levin (1991). It was a fast read, like all of Levin’s books, about a rich man who buys an apartment building so he can spy on all of his tenants. Sick and twisted, and with a nice suspenseful conclusion.

The Collector by John Fowles (1963). A very creepy  and well-written novel (Fowles’ debut!) in which a butterfly collector turns his eye to a pretty girl he sees on his street. You can imagine that it doesn’t end well.

Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted life by Ruth Franklin (2016). I needed a little break from voyeurs so started this one. I love biographies of writers, and am partial to the mid-twentieth century, so this book was very appealing to me.

The Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang (2010). This is a science fiction short story that I read because it was the basis of Arrival, one of my favorite films from this past year. The story was actually better than the film, testament to what a writer can accomplish in the short story form. Emotionally devastating. 

Peter's week in a nutshell

The Cry of the Owl (2016)
Sliver (1991)
The Collector (1963)
Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life (2016)
The Story of Your Life (2010)

The Kind Worth Killing is out in paperback 9780062267535
Her Every Fear is out in Hardcover January 10th, 2017 9780062427021



Dec 20, 2016

Hollow Men, Rob McCarthy

Start of a new series featuring Dr. Harry Kent. Harry is tenacious, flawed, a former army medic who now works at John Ruskin university hospital and moonlights as a police surgeon for the Metropolitan police. He gets called in during a siege of a London fast food restaurant where teenager Solomon Idris is holding a gun on staff and customers and demanding medical attention, a lawyer and a BBC reporter.

Harry assesses that Solomon is gravely ill and in no condition to fire the gun he’s holding. It doesn’t stop the boy being shot by a police marksman. Harry rushes him to the Ruskin where a second attempt is made on Solomon’s life. Harry, now determined to protect his patient at all costs starts digging into the backgrounds of his colleagues; including Dr. James Lahiri, the man who saved Harry’s life in Afghanistan and whom Harry repaid with the worst kind of betrayal.

As Harry gets closer to the truth, his and Lahiri’s past comes back to bite him and Harry is pulled in for questioning. Can he clear himself and stop Solomon from being silenced forever?

Dec 9, 2016

Why?

Blog feedback is important to me and quite often it comes in the form of conversations at the store and the most common one in the last week has been. Why aren't you reading anything at the moment?

Oh I'm reading alright, and blurbing and ohhing and ahhing at books like 'Atlas Obscura' and 'StarTalk' and classics such as 'The Lost Garden' and 'Lying Awake'. The blurbs are for 2017 but here's a few to look out for.

January

Beautiful Dead, Belinda Bauer
Behind Her Eyes, Sarah Pinborough
The Dry, Jane Harper
Her Every Fear, Peter Swanson

Feb

Winterlong, Mason Cross
Spook Street, Mick Herron
The Last Night At Tremore Beach, Mikel Santiago

March

Mister Memory, Marcus Sedgwick
The Cutaway, Christina Kovac