(Of interest to nobody but myself, but I ordered this book from the library and went in to collect it on Monday. Just as it was being put on my card, I glanced at the New Arrivals table and saw the latest James Lee Burke and grabbed it. It was only yesterday that I noticed the congruity between the title of this, The Wonder Of The World and the Burke, The Light Of The World. Furthermore, I sat down last night to watch the latest episode of the superb tv show Fargo, titled A Fox, A Rabbit And A Cabbage, and one of the characters posed the timeless riddle of the man with the three objects, no two of which can be left alone together, the river and the small boat. Only a few hours earlier I had found myself reading about three characters discussing the same riddle (with a wolf and a goat - the cabbage is a constant) in the pages of The Wonder Of The World. I'm pretty sure this means something. I'm pretty sure it means I should get out more.)

Another Cecelia Holland novel, another medieval hero winding his way to a crucial turning point in his career or in history itself, or both. Frederic, Emperor of the Holy Roman Emperor sets out to finally sort out the pesky Middle East Problem once and for all. He's pretty sure he can negotiate a treaty granting him the Holy City of Jerusalem without the messy, if more traditional, business of Christians and Infidels slaughtering each other. Quite a lot of Christians think this is unsporting, including the Pope, who appears to have excommunicated Frederick for not going on a crusade and promptly invades Frederick's beloved Sicily while he's off on Crusade, despite the fact that the Pope himself has laid an interdiction against anyone attacking crusader's lands while they're off on Crusade.

Frederick is brilliant, charismatic, mercurial, passionate, lecherous, easily bored and a bit of a thrill-seeker. This is the most Dunnetish of the books so far, though Frederick isn't as enigmatic as Lymond or Niccolo. This isn't a novel of clever, witty, textual games. There are complex themes and deals and political situations all over the place, but Frederick, and Holland, deals with them smoothly in that wonderful, clear, polished prose. There's no battle, either, though there's a nasty street fight. Battles are largely avoided, much to everyone's annoyance, even Frederick's, at the end, as he pursues the Papal forces through Sicily. Climactic conflict eludes him, and us, and then you get to the end, and you realise it was probably just as well.

It's been a long time since I read any LeFanu, but I grew up near his childhood home in Abington, so he featured a lot in the class of a particular teacher who placed a lot of stress on local history. This seemed to lead to her taking an interest in things horror, so the class library featured gloriously garish books on the subject, covering topics like Dracula, Edgar Allan Poe, Hack The Ripper (Hack The Ripper? That's a typo but I don't want to edit it out... ) complete with bloodcurdling illustrations.

Of the stories in this collection, I'm sure I read the first three - Mr Justice Harbottle in particular struck a chord as I think it was the first in a subgenre of ghost stories featuring wicked judges I ever encountered. They're great stories, though they can be a bit involved in terms of getting to the central narrator, with introductions by the guy who found the journals of the guy who wrote the letters to the guy who once met this fellow with a peculiar tale to relate, and so on. Green Tea in particular seems almost archetypal in terms of chilling ghostly encounter.

The Room At The Dragon Volant I don't think I ever read before, though I do remember one of the teacher's books going into detail about Victorian terror of premature burial, so chances are it was discussed. I wonder if there was a whole genre of sensational novels and novellas about callow but good-hearted but headstrong youths going to the continent and being lead elaborately astray by rogues both beautiful and foul, all in league. Certainly it's an entertaining romp and a precursor of certain types of noir, I would think. Our hero is fortunate to escape with his life and a lesson in the excesses of sin - a modern hero might find himself corrupted to the point of destruction. Though maybe they had that sort of instructive fable, too.

Carmilla I definitely never read, though I've certainly heard of it. Deliciously creepy and sinister tale of vampirism in a remote mountain schloss, Carmilla herself is a compelling creation with her naked lust for the young heroine, feeding off her vitality as much as her blood, an emotional parasite as well a a bloodsucking one.

Great to be reminded why LeFanu is regarded as such an influential writer in the gothic/ghost/horror genre. Wonderfully written stories of atmosphere and unease.

Following the life of actor Nikeratos and his various adventures touring the classical world, in particular his friendship with Dion of Syracuse and Plato the philosopher as they try to forge a Republic in Syracuse.

Once again Renault creates and inhabits a character who seems to in turn inhabits and evokes his world perfectly, and more than that who lives and breathes the theatre, which informs every aspect of his life and outlook. It's a breathtaking achievement, seemingly effortless, utterly absorbing the reader and bringing the ancient world to life. It's odd, though that the tone of a book about art and which views art as a mode of worship of he gods, should feel so pragmatic and grounded in the craft of the actor and the mechanisms and logistics of production and touring, in contrast with the Theseus novels, about heroism and kingship, which have an almost dream-like quality to them with the feeling that of the divine ready to manifest around every rock and tree. Niko communes with Apollo via an old mask, and often feels the eyes of the god upon him and receives oracles as he wrestles with issues of conscience and obligation, but Niko makes his offerings to a god, he doesn't feel and act as if he is half a god himself.

Niko is a good and decent man trying to do right by his own talents and maybe contribute something to the larger events he finds himself a small part of. His voice is bold and confident and self-assured and his first and second-hand accounts of the story of Syracuse and Dion and Plato are wonderful. Another brilliant book by Renault.

Harry is born, lives his life and dies. Then he is born again, remembers his previous life, and goes mad and ultimately kills himself. Then he is born again a third time with two lifetime's worth of memories. Every time he is reborn it is at the same period in time in a largely identical timeline. It's possible, with some effort, to change things, but rarely for the best and when he dies it all resets again. The Chronos Club, consisting of people like him, frowns on that sort of behaviour. It's possible to pass messages up and down the timeline, and nobody want to mess with the lives of future members. But somebody is doing something big, something subtle and dangerous, gradually accelerating the end of the world in life after life. Harry may know who. Harry, filled with the ennui and helplessness of repetitive immortality, can track him down, but if he does will he stop the changes, or help them?

A terrific concept, well executed, that thinks through the consequences of its premise and creates a fully realised and fleshed out character to share them with us. Brilliantly written, evocative, scary, and a strange, intense and odd look at life and mortality and futility and friendship. Excellent.

Pleasingly demented tale as thick as cosmic soup with pulp trappings from the privileged young scions of an elite aristocorporate family in the 1950s and their terrifying family - their mother an Egyptian goddess, their father a supervillain, their grandfather an unspeakable patriarchal monster, at least one uncle prone to hunting killing and eating his nephews and nieces. When they witness their grandfather's deep space probe crash a week before it is due to launch, they find themselves in a horrifying yet hilarious nightmare of vast sleeping gods impinging on anthill Earth. Can they survive corporate rivals, cults, the attention of a being beyond comprehension and their own family? It's a rollicking adventure of blood and violence and the crushing insignificance of humanity in the gaping void of screaming nothingness. A mad blast from beginning to end.

Given the way this book ends, I think I was correct in my assessment, formed as I read it, that the purpose of this book was not to valorise the tribal life it describes, nor to traduce it, but to humanise it. Okonkwo, our protagonist is a man of great achievement whose tragic flaw is a terrible fear of weakness which leads him to repress all feeling as womanly and act only in bullying outbursts to prove his manliness and toughen up his son. His life is full of ritual and socialisation, the reality of spirits and importance of family. There is also misogyny and the brutal treatment of newborn twins and people sick with unclean illnesses - this is a functioning, vibrant, rich society but not a perfect and lovely one. In fact the rural life and the folk tales, beliefs and rituals and defining rhythm of the natural cycle reminded me strongly of life as described in Joe McGowan's Echoes Of A Savage Land. Great and terrible change is coming in the form of white missionaries, with Okonkwo impotent to stop them, no matter how he rages.

A brilliant book, an evocation of a way of life and a worldly outlook supreme in its confidence but utterly vulnerable to the relentless outside forces encroaching. The great final theme is of people who refuse to understand each other's ways, and of people who refuse to allow other people to think their own way. A sad and terrible book that ends with the promise of unspoken and indescribable brutality to come.

About the only fault that I can find with this book is the lack of illustrations. I assume illustrated editions exist, but this isn't one of them, so I had to make do with the meager projections of my brain. 120 entries describing imaginary beasts from all around the world and from different times and even a few sprung straight from the fertile minds of CS Lewis and Franz Kafka. Written with dry wit and effortless erudition, each entry is a polished gem, each being a wonder of shape and marvel of history and odd curate's egg of the culture that produced it. A book to be kept handy for dipping into, I think.

Alif is a grey-hat hacker in an unnamed Middle-Eastern city, providing protective services for anyone willing to challenge the State and pay for his services - so this includes everyone from Islamists to Communists. But the security services are closing in, in particular the Hand, a hacker working for the State. Alif is a callow young man, in love with a rich girl, but when the girl announces that she will have to marry someone else and the Hand launches a devastating attack, Alif's life starts to crumble around him. From this cutting-edge world of cyberpunks in an oppressive state, we are propelled into the realm of djinn and magic and religion via a mysterious book, and Alif will have a lot of growing up to do if he's going to survive, save his city and maybe help launch a revolution.

A great read in a terrifically realised setting, mixing fantasy and techno-thriller and political thriller, gleefully ignoring genre boundaries. Oddly enough, I expected a bit more from Dina, Alif's childhood friend, but mostly she's a rather stalwart and steadying presence and, obvious to the reader from her first appearance, the real love interest in the book. One feels vaguely that she might have made a much more likable protagonists from the get-go, but Alif's growth to some sort of awareness and maturity is still rather satisfying, even as you squint a bit at the idea that she's been waiting patiently for him to cop on to himself.

Cracking read, though: Neil Gaiman meets Bruce Sterling. Top stuff.

Extraordinary novel of lives lived in the run-up to and during the Nigerian Civil War. An intelligent, privileged young woman, a house-boy and an English expatriate all become part of the struggle for Biafra, a hopeful and idealistic movement for independence and its protracted and horrible demise in violence and starvation are seen through the experiences of Olanna, Ugwa and Richard as they struggle to live, love and survive thought loss and grief and privation. It's a harrowing tale, though full of life, romance, humour and rich complexity, all told in a tone that is unsentimental but throbbing with emotion, intelligence, irony, compassion and ultimately a kind of shattering poignancy.

The lives of four Nova Scotia sisters in the early years of the 20th century on the isolated island of Cape Breton. Gifted, bright and beautiful, their lives are blighted by the heavy hand of their father and the mental dissolution of their mother. Tragedy and horror strike, but sisterly love, sometimes twisted and destructive, survives. Told in bold, beautiful language, jaunty and almost musical, their lives are brilliantly, emotionally rendered with exquisite empathy and pathos. A beautiful book, that looks unflinchingly at things that are difficult to read, it is nonetheless always impossible to put down.