Books in 2012

[Sand]

A thread for general, not genre, books of interest.

Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters edited by Michael Hofmann (Granta). The correspondence of the author of The Radetzky March and The Holy Drinker, a master of interwar Middle European fiction. His letters reveal a man who never had a home, lived often in exile, was haunted by his young wife’s mental illness, and was always under pressure to write just to survive. Bleak but compelling reading. Out now.

Grist to Whose Mill?, A Novel of Nemesis by Kenneth Grant (Starfire). The esotericist’s first, unpublished novel, written in 1952-3, and once thought lost. “It is a few years after the death of the notorious English occultist, Ruthven Seeley. Now in charge of the British branch of his magical Order, Seeley’s erstwhile disciple Marcus Maybourne becomes aware that something nefarious is gathering momentum.”. Kenneth Grant’s occult stories, influenced by Machen and Rohmer, are stylish, and redolent of the golden age of supernatural fiction. Due out soon.

Europe in the Looking Glass by Robert Byron (Hesperus). A reprint of the first travel book, typically satirical, of the author of the classic The Road to Oxiana. Very hard to find in its original edition, this youthful work shows Byron already developing the persona that would transform travel writing. Out this month.

Night Thoughts: the Surreal Life of the poet David Gascoyne by Robert Fraser (OUP). England’s earliest surrealist. A catalogue of his book collection, Every Printed Page a Swinging Door, came out last year, revealing a remarkable array of interests. Books included those of Victor Segalen (signed by his son) and Jacques Lacarriere, author of The Gnostics. This biography promises to be as rich and rare. Just out.

[MagnusTC]

The Collected Works of Eric, Count Stenbock (ed. David Tibet). Due out soon, hopefully.

[Evans]

Strange Epiphanies by Peter Bell

The Swan River Press

To judge from the few of Bell's stories available in anthologies he is head and shoulders above Reggie Oliver and the rest of that 'new ghost story' crowd. His contribution to Cinnabar's Gnosis is a perfectly pitched work of supernal awe, a reminder that there is worth in the Anglo-Saxon literary tradition.

[Nigromontanus]

An Ermine in Czernopol
Gregor von Rezzori

After countless delays, it is finally here. Rezzori, the last Imperial writer, certainly one of the very last literary links with both the Eastern and Middle European world. Czernopol, a fictitious place somewhere at the fictitious borders of Czernowitz, Austria, Romania and Ukraine. A great, daunting novel of memory and remembrance. A homage to the death of the longing. And to the death of the trumpet. There is a bit of Bruno Schulz here, and of Musil too, yes, of Gunther Grass, even shades of Leo Perutz. Also recommended for those enjoying the Mark Valentine post-The Connoisseur era.

[Draugen]

Quote Originally Posted by Sand

Europe in the Looking Glass by Robert Byron (Hesperus). A reprint of the first travel book, typically satirical, of the author of the classic The Road to Oxiana. Very hard to find in its original edition, this youthful work shows Byron already developing the persona that would transform travel writing. Out this month.

Now there's a name from the past. I read Road to Oxiana when I was about 21, and it was one of many influences (history, architecture) that ended up in me travelling to Iran myself about a year or so later. I remember Byron being at times laugh out loud funny, I think I will look this up.

One recent book (tail end of last year, so not sure it counts for this thread) I'm interested in reading is The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco.

[Draugen]

Quote Originally Posted by Evans

Strange Epiphanies by Peter Bell The Swan River Press To judge from the few of Bell's stories available in anthologies he is head and shoulders above Reggie Oliver and the rest of that 'new ghost story' crowd. His contribution to Cinnabar's Gnosis is aperfectly pitched work of supernal awe, a reminder that there is worth in the Anglo-Saxon literary tradition.

I pre-ordered this collection a couple of weeks ago. I too was extremely impressed with his contribution to Cinnabar's Gnosis, which is the only thing by Peter Bell I've read - but have ordered off the strength of that alone.

[Sand]

Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky's The Letter Killers Club. I was impressed by his Memories of the Future, which came out in English translation a year or so ago - a lively mix of Kafka and Leo Perutz, a real revelation of an author I just did not know before. Now the excellent Literary Saloon blog reminds me that another title has been translated. The Letter Killers Club is about a mysterious group of storytellers who, though possessed of great powers of invention and imagination, refuse to put their tales into writing - but our narrator has started to betray their secrets.

[The New Nonsense]

Veneficium: Magic, Witchcraft and the Poison Path by Daniel Schulke. Veneficium concerns the intersection of magic and poison, originating in remotest antiquity and reaching into the present day. Beyond their functions as agents of bodily harm, poisons have also served as gateways of religious ecstasy, occult knowledge, and sensorial aberration, as well as the basis of cures. Veneficium will be of interest to students of magic, witchcraft, alchemy, botanical folklore, medicine, and occult pharmacology.


From the Bodies of the Gods: Psychoactive Plants and the Cults of the Dead by Earl Lee. Long before the beginnings of civilization, humans have been sacrificed and their flesh used to produce sacred foods and oils for use in religious rites. Originating with the sacred harvest of hallucinogenic mushrooms from the corpses of shamans and other holy men, these acts of ritual cannibalism and visionary intoxication are part of the history of all cultures, including Judeo-Christian ones, and provided a way to commune with the dead. These practices continued openly into the Dark Ages, when they were suppressed and adapted into the worship of saintly bones--or continued in secret by a few “heretical” sects, such as the Cathars and the Knights Templar. While little known today, these rites remain deeply embedded in the symbolism, theology, and sacraments of modern religion and bring a much more literal meaning to the church’s “Holy Communion” or symbolic consumption of the body and blood of Christ.

[Derek]

I'm very much enjoying the recent Tartarus Press selection/translation from the works of Marcel Schwob: The King in the Golden Mask.
The King in the Golden Mask by Marcel Schwob, published by Tartarus Press
Ecstatic, macabre, satirical, are the adjectives that spring to mind. 'Decadent' undoubtedly, but Schwob's Vies Imaginaires are also supposed by many to be the inspiration for Borges' Universal History of Infamy.

[MadsPLP]

Quote Originally Posted by Derek John

I'm very much enjoying the recent Tartarus Press selection/translation from the works of Marcel Schwob: The King in the Golden Mask. The King in the Golden Mask by Marcel Schwob, published by Tartarus Press Ecstatic, macabre, satirical, are the adjectives that spring to mind. 'Decadent' undoubtedly, but Schwob's Vies Imaginaires are also supposed by many to be the inspiration for Borges' Universal History of Infamy.

I agree. That is a superb volume. Extraordinary. It feels like the perfect cross between Poe, Stevenson, and Borges, to give a short mapping of a unique and idiosyncratic and highly interesting man and writer. A definite highlight of 2012 so far.