Book Review - Care of Wooden Floors by Will Wiles

This book is about friendship and alienation. It is about small daily happenings that spiral into life changing decisions. It is hard to describe without betraying the surprises in the story. It is full of black humour. It is full of simple but evocative language. At one stage, the hero is traversing a post-industrial wasteland in the Eastern European city that is his temporary home. The thoroughfare is impeded by lots of rubbish piled up against buildings and spilling out over the street. The sense of accusatory menace in this episode is brilliantly portrayed by sentences like "An office swivel chair, its fabric and padding ripped off by someone or something, stood in my path like a Dalek rape victim. " This book won't be for everyone but I found it compelling.

Wendy

The Witch's Trinity

This rather bleak book by Erika Mailman takes quotations from the Malleus Maleficarum which was basically the witch-hunters guide book to start each chapter. This book was widely available because of the development of Gutenberg's press some 30 years earlier. The Salem witch trials are famous but Europe also had it's witch hunts and trials. This is set in a small village facing famine and looking for scape goats. The writing is spare and elegant. The desperation and the humanity of the characters is delineated hauntingly and in spite of the quite horrible things that happen, it manages to be uplifting because of that humanity. The author was interested in this subject because of the experience of her ancestor whose story is briefly explained at the end of the book.
Wendy