Eithne farry biography definition

OF THE FLESH: 18 STORIES OF MODERN HORROR (Borough Press £, pp)

The evenings are getting darker, autumn is in the air and Halloween is on the horizon, so it’s pretty much the perfect time for a little seasonal scariness.

The 18 tales gathered here – ranging from the gruesomely visceral to the supernaturally sinister – are a mixed bag, some more successfully unnerving than others.

The best include the terrifying opener by Susan Barker where a work affair invites in a vengeful apparition (Fight, Flight, Freeze); the uncanny Apples by Emilia Hart, in which a garden fruit tree reveals some terrible home truths; and The Fruiting Body by Bridget Collins, which delivers a frisson of fear courtesy of a horrifying house and an abusive relationship.

THE WOOD AT MIDWINTER By Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury £, 64pp)

CLARKE, author of the prizewinning Piranesi and the darkly magical Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, heads into an equally enchanting sphere in this wintry short story.

There’s snow on the ground, a wood where thousands of trees think the same thoughts and a year-old heroine, Merowdis Scott, a singular girl, alive to the spirituality of the natural world and misunderstood by her family. Accompanied by a self-possessed pig called Apple, she heads for the forest and encounters a blackbird, a fox and a spectral figure.

Victoria Sawdon provides winsome black and white illustrations to this elegant story, which has the quiet hush of snowy weather but comes with a bite of frosty other-worldliness that is disquietingly shivery.

THE AMERICAN NO By Rupert Everett (Abacus Books £20, pp)

The characters here are filled with ‘wild longings’ – for sex, drugs and fame – but they also yearn for new beginnings and a love that lasts.

Some of the stories are burnished with the kind of detail only a Holl

What&#;s going on in the North?

January has been a very busy month for us at North Kensington Library with planning and launching the Six Book Challenge which is taking place in all our libraries. The challenge is aimed at anyone who wishing to improve their reading or would like to read more. There&#;s more information about the Six Book Challenge on The Reading Agency&#;s website.

If you wish to take part in the Six Book Challenge you can register at any of our libraries in Kensington and Chelsea. You complete six reads and record your reading in a diary which we provide. There are incentives along the way to encourage you to keep reading, after two reads a free CD loan and three reads a free DVD loan. If you complete by 28 June you can enter the national prize draw for a trip to London (I know, we are there already) with a friend to see a show and £ spending money. We also have a local draw for completers at the end of the summer for two Sony e-readers.

You can read anything (e.g. a book, poem, graphic novel or magazine article including e Books) but we have books in our Quick Reads and Skills for Life collections which are particularly suitable.

On 24 January Eithne Farry, author of &#;Yeah! I made it myself&#; and &#;Lovely things to make for girls of slender means&#; led a workshop at North Kensington Library. She demonstrated how to make decorative hair bands and ‘Fascinations’ using cheap and recycled materials. If you are interested in crafts and recycling/ remodling old clothes we have books, including Eithne’s, in all our libraries.

Eithne will be running a workshop for young people (aged ) in our children’s library at North Kensington Library Wednesday 20 February 2pm to 4pm- do come along if you can!

Gaynor Lynch

Lending Librarian, North Kensington Library

Improved stock display at Kensal Library

‘Small is beautiful’ and ‘less is more’ are phrases we often use when talking about things on a reduced scale. Small can al

Bridging the Divide: Translation & the Art of Empathy, a new BookBlast® Podcast series

Thursday 30 July, 5 pm: A ground-breaking weekly podcast series kicks off, championing independent publishers committed to publishing writing in translation; their authors and translators; including a guest interview with the publisher behind Nordic Noir.

The podcast line-up features award-winning, bestselling authors from across Europe, including Lars Mytting, J.S. Margot, Tommy Wieringa and Tahar Ben Jelloun.

Meet the Authors & Translators

J.S. Margot, Flemish author of Mazel Tov translated by Jane Hedley-Prole, (Pushkin Press), discusses navigating clashing cultures.
Followed by an interview with her publisher, Adam Freudenheim

Mazel Tov is a heart-warming, funny and provocative memoir of a young woman navigating clashing cultures during her decades-long friendship with an Orthodox Jewish family. While offering a fascinating and unique insight into the customs and traditions of the modern traditional Orthodox community, it is also a tale of humorous misunderstandings, unexpected friendships, and the power children possess to bring everyone together.

“In our hyper-partisan times there is hope to be found in the friendship between J.S. Margot and the Schneiders [. . .] So much of Mazel Tov is about a quest for understanding, an acknowledgment that empathy has its limits, and the admirable determination to forge relationships with people from vastly different cultures anyway. These days, that seems like an almost quixotic mission, but it’s rewarding to read about a time when it did happen, and the pleasures it bought to lives of the people on both sides of the ideological divide.” – Chloe Walker,

BUY Mazel Tov

Robyn Marsack (translator) & Rose Rogerson (Eland Books), discuss the late Swiss author, Nicolas Bouvier&#;s So It Goes& his traveller&#;s tales

The first book in over twenty-five years by Switzerland