Bookanista

— 1. E.B. White: Charlotte’s Web ‘Where’s Papa going with that axe?’ Isn’t this everyone’s favourite? I put it at number one, and all the others are joint second. You have to find out what crime that man with the axe is off to commit. From the first time she opens her mouth, Fern has hero written all over her. 2. Peter Carey: Bliss Harry Joy was to die three times…

That uneasy feeling you get when, after three hours on your hands and knees, you finish assembling the furniture and notice a leftover nail – that same sensation can strike after just two lines from one of Leo’s plays. Only then, what you realise is wobbly is not a wardrobe, but the status quo of the world. Leo Butler’s work circles the fractures of contemporary life – power,...

WILF KELLY WAS RICH IN TIME. After the sudden death of his young mum thirty years ago, he lost his job. He’d swept bottles of wine onto the supermarket floor and stood in its mess, silent and swaying. The store fired him. He never found work again – and never tried. Time became his personal wealth. Now he lived alone and clung to comforting routines, like his Metro round.

CHANCING UPON THE WORK of an obscure writer in your genre or field – one before overlooked – triggers joy with a twinge of embarrassment. After all, most authors are proud to know literary predecessors and ‘the competition’. The surprise discovery feels a bit like snatching an Easter egg while competing in the hunt with amped-up four-year-olds. One such find for me has been t...