Today, over at Calmgrove the Witch Week post is a discussion of Joan Aiken’s The Serial Garden, stories in which magic mixes with modern family life in a way that can be hilarious, creepy, or lyrical, or all of these and much more. I hope you’ll enjoy our lengthy but fascinating discussion, which includes my own memories of the first Armitage family story I ever read …
I thought this would be a good place to put in a plug for the e-book story collections recently published by Gateway in honor of Joan Aiken’s centenary. There are four of them, which thematically group a large variety of Aiken’s stories from all parts of her career. At just a buck or two per volume, they are an absolute steal!
Although it seems they might not be available from US retailers … you may need an account based in the UK or Europe. (I just change the billing country on my Kobo account, and use Paypal to pay. It doesn’t seem to matter where I actually am.)
If you can get around that hurdle, between these, The Serial Garden, and The Gift Giving (a recent collection of favorite stories published by Virago, also at an incredibly low price as an e-book) there is hardly any overlap, so with just a few volumes you can have a magnificent collection of stories to keep you entertained, surprised, diverted and charmed for hours. As they did me, when I read through them all not long ago.
US publisher Small Beer Press has produced a version of The Serial Garden, as well as two collections of edgier stories marketed to adults, The Monkey’s Wedding and The People in the Castle. These are priced at a more normal rate, but also well worth it. Note that the stories in The People in the Castle overlap quite a bit with those in the Gateway collections.
Do you have a favorite story, or collection, by Joan Aiken?
The Monkey’s Wedding: And Other Stories is a special favourite for the sheer variety, and it took was published by Small Beer!