The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

In celebration of Poe’s 200th birthday and of course, Hallowe’en The Raven is such a cultural icon that it’s worthy of revisiting from time to time. But upon reading it, one is left wondering how much of it is real & how much is from Poe’s drug & alcohol fueled imagination. He was like the [...]

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Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe

In his introduction to Bloomsbury’s striking new edition of Tales of Mystery and Imagination Neil Gaiman says: Poe’s stories – even his humorous tales, even his detective stories – are populated by amnesiacs and obsessives, by people doomed to remember what they desire only to forget, and are told be madmen and liars and lovers [...]

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Still She Wished For Company, by Margaret Irwin

I am not a great one for Halloween. My personal taste does not run to ‘ghoulies and ghosties and things that go bump in the night’. I hate the idea of being terrified or revolted for fun. Still She Wished For Company however is my sort of ghost story. It has an atmosphere that steals [...]

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Sternschnupperkurs, by Jill Mansell (originally published as Good at Games)

I used to be tolerably good at German, about ten years ago. Needless to say, I am not any more.  However, I need to return to that blessed state of being tolerably good at German, and the last German reading I did in any depth (for my eighteenth century German exam, back in 2001) was [...]

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Author, Author by David Lodge

Review by Audrey Chaix. I’d known about David Lodge’s Author, Author for a long time. I’d spotted it at my local library, in between all the David Lodge novels that I had read already. I was never sure about it though. I knew it had to do with Henry James – and Henry James has [...]

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Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb

Assassin’s Apprentice is Robin Hobb’s first published novel. It is also the first in her Farseer Trilogy and has since been followed up by the subsequent two novels, several more series and some stand-alone novels. Those who like Robin Hobb’s work may be interested to know that she also writes as Megan Lindholm. Assassin’s Apprentice [...]

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Coming Up on Vulpes Libris

The leaves are changing, pumpkins are perched on porches and the nights are chilly; that can only mean one thing-it’s fall in Fox Land! And this week it’s Hallowe’en. So while our week begins with some fantasy and literature, we end it with some suitably eerie selections and a nod to the 200th birthday of [...]

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Vulpes Controversial: What Makes a Good Review?

On the week of the site’s 2 year anniversary, RosyB revisits a few past Vulpes’ controversies to answer the question…What Makes a Good Review? Back in the dim and distant past, I used to write theatre reviews for magazines and newspapers. There was a set format and idea about how to go about it. The [...]

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Interview with M J Hyland

Today we are delighted to bring you an interview with MJ Hyland, author of three novels including Booker prize shortlisted Carry Me Down and the glorious This Is How, an engrossing study of a young murderer, which I reviewed here. Lisa Glass: I read somewhere that you write in bed. MJ Hyland: That’s true. I [...]

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Crazy Like a Fox.

The following is an abridged version of a talk given at the Annual Conference of the Romantic Novelists’ Assocation by Yours Truly on the 11th of July 2009.  The original talk was 50 minutes long;  I’ve managed to scythe about 15 to 20 minutes out of it, but you might like to equip yourselves with [...]

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