Joining my TBR pile...

I hadn't come across this collection of Carter's short stories before, though I have read quite a few of her other novels.

I liked this book a great deal. The stories are short, strange and sensual. Some are set in South America and other in Japan (where Carter lived for a while) and, for me at any rate, have a hint of Borges to them.

I can't resist quoting one paragraph from "The Smile of Winter". As one who is given to collecting flotsam and jetsam from winter beaches, this spoke to me.

"The beach is full of the garbage of the ocean. The waves leave torn, translucent furls of polythene wrapping too tough for even this sea's stomach; chipped jugs that once held rice wine; single sea boots freighted with sand; broken beer bottles and, once, a brown dog stiff and dead washed up as far as the pine trees which, subtlty warped by the weather, squat on their hunkers at the end of my garden, where the dry soil transforms itself to sand."

RELEASE NOTES:

Picked it up at the London mini-meet at the Clarence Pub. Thanks UrbanSpaceman