Tove Jansson and other bits and pieces

I stumbled across some exciting book news yesterday.
As you might know, I love the works of Tove Jansson – and I’ve reviewed The Summer Book, A Winter Book, and Fair Play in various places on Stuck-in-a-Book. And now I find that, in October, they’ll be publishing another Jansson novel – The True Deceiver. Sounds a little different from the others – this from the Amazon website:

In the deep winter snows of a Swedish hamlet, a strange young woman fakes a break-in at the house of an elderly artist in order to persuade her that she needs companionship. But what does she hope to gain by doing this? And who ultimately is deceiving whom? In this portrayal of two women grappling with truth and lies, nothing can be taken for granted. By the time the snow thaws, both their lives will have changed irrevocably.

Can’t wait! The Sort Of Books publications are always such beautiful objects, and I’m delighted that Thomas Teal is translating more and more Jansson books. If you’ve not read any before, start with either the Summer or Winter books, not Fair Play – that’s more of an acquired taste, I think.

Other bits and pieces which I’ve seen or had emailed to me lately…

Colin (aka The Carbon Copy) has written a witty and, to my mind, entirely accurate review of The Catcher in the Rye. Read it here, if you scroll down to the March 15th entry, especially if – like me – you’ve never understood why people like Holden. I quote Col’s review: ‘whiny, hypocritical, deadbeat loser’.

Natasha Mostert won ‘The Book to Talk About 2009’ from Spread the Word – more info here. This is the award Stuck-in-a-Book favourite Speaking of Love (by Angela Young) was shortlisted for last year.

Soizick Meister emailed me about her website showing her humorous, surreal and generally beautiful paintings, with some nice book influences (see pic) – do go and have a look. I’m always interested to hear about artists websites, either from the artist themselves or just a fan, so keep ’em coming!

www.lowlylizards.com – Peter Pnin emailed me about this innovative and unique poetry website