This story begins in a land across the sea …
When I first learned about Katherine Rundell’s “Impossible Creatures” (after critic Ron Charles praised it in the Washington Post), the U.K. fantasy novel wasn’t yet available here in the States.
Thankfully, the book, about two young people facing a murderous threat, a mysterious landscape and a host of magical creatures, is in stores now. (And the audiobook is too; its narrator Samuel West will be known to readerly moviegoers as book-beset Leonard Bast in 1992’s “Howard’s End” and as a boorish Boris Johnson-type on Apple TV+’s adaptation of Mick Herron’s “Slow Horses.”)
Rundell is coming to Southern California for an event this month; scroll on to find out all about it in the Book Pages Q&A with the author below.
But back before its U.S. publication, I needed my own preciousss copy and wasn’t about to let time or an ocean get in the way of my obtaining it.
I went book shopping in the U.K. … online. Sure, using the internet to buy things is not exactly cutting-edge, but there is still a kind of thrill finding books you can’t obtain here. (OK, it’s thrilling for me.)
Maybe you’ve ordered books from U.K. bookstores, but if not, here’s a few things to consider. First, be forewarned that not every U.K. bookshop ships overseas and some outlets can charge steep overseas shipping rates (so check the shipping cost before you get your heart set on something). Still, if you’re curious, take a look at the offerings at Foyles, Daunt, Waterstones and Mr. B’s Emporium. There are also independent publishers like Unbound (founded by Backlisted podcast host John Mitchinson) and Little Toller, as well as independent and second-hand book purveyors and (though you probably would have more fun going in person) there’s that town full of bookshops in Wales.
Pro tip? Blackwell’s, which, like Foyles, is owned by Waterstones, currently includes U.S. delivery in the price so you don’t pay extra for shipping.
And all-star pro tip? Check to see if you can get the book from your local library or through the global library search engine Worldcat – or ask if your local independent bookstore can order it for you. (There are so many ways to win.)
Some recent books not yet published here that I’ve aimed to get my hands on include “Rare Singles” by novelist Benjamin Myers, the author of “The Gallows Pole” and “The Perfect Golden Circle,” both of which I loved. (And I got one.)
Andrew Hunter Murray, who is a host of one of my favorite podcasts, the funny and smart “No Such Thing as a Fish,” has a new novel, “A Beginner’s Guide to Breaking and Entering.” Unlike his novels “The Sanctuary” and “The Last Day,” this one is not out in the U.S. yet. Murray shared the first chapter of the audiobook, which is read by Phil Dunster (Jamie Tartt on “Ted Lasso”), and it sounds like complete page-turning fun.
Books about music and nature often have me seeking U.K. copies of, most recently, books such as Timothy O’Grady and Steve Pyke’s “I Could Read the Sky”; Harry Sword’s study of drone in music, “Monolithic Undertow: In Search of Sonic Oblivion”; John Higgs’ “The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band That Burned a Million Pounds”; and Pete Paphides’s “Broken Greek: A Story of Chip Shops and Pop Songs,” a book I plan to share with my music-loving Greek friend and former colleague Vanessa Franko (but don’t tell her, OK?).
So this week I reached out to some U.K. bookstores for suggestions that might interest U.S. readers. As of deadline, I heard back from the folks at Mr. B’s Emporium, who thoughtfully assembled a list (with at least one name you might have heard of already in this column) and notes about the books.
Some titles are available in the U.S., but Mr. B’s bookseller Soffi says she hoped this provides “a useful list of U.K. books that we think are quintessentially British reads!”
Here’s what she sent:
“Winter Love” by Han Suyin (republished by Mr. B’s own publishing arm, Fox, Finch & Tepper)
“The Offing” by Benjamin Myers (A shop favourite author)
“Fortune Men” by Nadifa Mohamed (A Booker Prize-shortlisted crime novel set in Cardiff)
“Square of Sevens” by Laura Shepherd-Robinson (A fantastic historical fiction set in the Georgian splendour of Bath)
“Late Light” by Michael Malay (Just won the Wainwright prize and our lovely bookseller Katrina was on the judging board)
“Murder at Snowfall” by Fleur Hitchcock (So British it even includes a scene at Mr B’s!)
“Greenwild” by Pari Thompson (Wonderful magical middle-grade fantasy set in Kew Gardens)
She continued: “I’d also add that often international customers come to us for nice editions of books that are available in the US but we have editions that are only published in the UK, such as our hardback Terry Pratchett collection which is hugely popular for our overseas customers.”
That Soffi and the folks at Mr. B’s jumped into action so quickly didn’t surprise me; my experience with the shop has been great. They offer a Reading Spa – a service of coffee or tea, a big slice of cake and a conversation with a bookseller who will offer up a range of suggestions based on what you like. I witnessed someone enjoying the service when I was there and it looked … magical. But even as a regular nerd off the street who spent hours in there, they were endlessly kind and helpful: talking books, serving tea, letting a child nap in a cozy chair and answering questions until I left with a gigantic tower of books. (Fortunately, I traveled with an empty pack I could fill with all my new friends.)
So as I was calculating the financial hit I’d take to fly over just to eat cake and talk about books, Soffi reminded me of a service available to readers here:
“We also provide our Reading Subscriptions service for many U.S. customers, which is not unlike the Reading Spa where we match a bookseller with a subscriber and send them a bespoke pick each month in the post, meaning we can send U.K. authors not only to the U.S. but across the globe!” she added.
There’s probably no cake, but you can’t have everything.
Katherine Rundell reveals a secret inspiration of ‘Impossible Creatures’
Katherine Rundell is the author a number of books for young people, most recently of the just-published “Impossible Creatures.” She’s also the author of “Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne” and the upcoming “Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures.”
Q. Please tell readers about your new book, “Impossible Creatures.”
“Impossible Creatures” is the story of a cluster of islands in the North Atlantic ocean where all the creatures of myth that mankind has ever invented still live and thrive. That’s all the creatures we’re familiar with – dragons and unicorns – but also creatures we invented and have since half-forgotten, like kankos and kluddes and karkadanns. Into those islands comes a boy, Christopher, from our world; he meets Mal, a girl with a coat that allows her to fly, a baby griffin in her arms, and a murderer trying to find her. They discover that the creatures are in peril, and they will need to rise to the call to save them.
Q. You also wrote “Super-Infinite,” a book about the 17th century metaphysical poet John Donne. What do you wish people knew about him and his work?
He was so wildly original: so funny, so sharp, and so insistent on the power of new, vivid language to cut through your interlocutor’s complacent inattention and leave them gasping. He is a great antidote to exhaustion or boredom – if other books begin to feel flat, he can defibrillate you back into belief in language’s power to galvanise: his writing has electricity in it.
Q. Is there a book or books you always recommend to other readers?
For children, I often recommend the books of Diana Wynne Jones, a brilliant writer of wryly wise fantasy; Ursula K. Le Guin; and, of course, The Chronicles of Narnia.
Q. What are you reading now?
Virginia Woolf‘s diaries, which has recently been re-released: one of the most magnificent reading experiences of my last few years.
Q. What’s something – a fact, a bit of dialogue or something else – that has stayed with you from a recent reading?
I was re-reading “A Room with a View,” because it’s my partner’s favourite novel – and loved this: ”Life,” wrote a friend of mine, “is a public performance on the violin, in which you must learn the instrument as you go along.” That, and, from the same book: “Mistrust all enterprises that require new clothes.”
Q. Do you have any favorite book covers?
Am I allowed to say my own? I love the “Impossible Creatures” covers, both the American and British ones. I also adore the original “Jaws” book cover.
Q. Do you listen to audiobooks? If so, are there any titles or narrators you’d recommend?
I love Timothy West’s reading of the Anthony Trollope’s Barchester novels – he’s just superb. So rich and varied, and a gift to the ear.
Q. Do you have a favorite book or books?
I think my favourite adult novel is “Emma,” by Jane Austen. But I also love, wildly, Hilary Mantel’s “Wolf Hall,” Marilynne Robinson’s “Gilead,” Vladimir Nabokov’s “Pale Fire,” James Baldwin’s “Go Tell It on the Mountain.”
I love murder mysteries: Dorothy L. Sayers and Josephine Tey, especially. And for children, there’s such a wealth of glories: J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, Philip Pullman, Tove Jansson, E.B. White, and now B.B. Alston and Katherine Applegate and Kate DiCamillo. Such wonders await them if we can get the books into children’s hands.
Q. Which books are you planning to read next?
There’s a newish Tana French out called “The Hunter,” and I love her work. It has such addictive propulsion to it. But I have to be cautious about when to start it, because once I start, I won’t do anything until it’s finished. And I’m going to re-read Malory’s “Le Morte d’Arthur.” It was written in around 1470, and it’s a book of such strangeness and precision, such yearning and violence, and such beauty.
Q. Do you have a favorite character or quote from a book?
I love this in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s notebook from 1802: “A Principle of Criticism: Never to lose an opportunity of reasoning against the head-dimming, heart-damping principle of judging a work by its defects, not its beauties. Every work must have the former—we know it a priori—but every work has not the latter, and he, therefore, who discovers them, tells you something that you could not with certainty, or even with probability, have anticipated.”
Q. What’s something about your book that no one knows?
One of the scenes in “Impossible Creatures” is stolen from a moment when, as research for a book, I took lessons in the flying trapeze. I saw a very talented acrobat land badly, and bend her little finger all the way back to the wrist. She was absolutely fine later, and cheerfully casual about it in the way that trapeze artists are. But I stole that fleeting moment for my book, when Mal is learning how to fly with her flying coat; she bends her little finger all the way back to the wrist. Novelists are alarmingly like magpies: always stealing snippets, pieces that shine, from the world around them.
Q. If you could tell your readers something, what would it be?
I would say, thank you. I’m so grateful for the way readers have embraced the book – it’s been a real colossal delight. My favourite thing has been when children come up to me and say, “I know it’s not real. Obviously, it’s not real: it’s just a book. But … just to check … is it real?”
For more about the author, check out the “Impossible Creatures” website.
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