Brice Stratford

It is not hyperbole to call Stephen King the most influential horror writer alive. Across page and screen alike, nobody else can claim to have had such an expansive and lasting impact on popular culture. King’s name has become so commonplace that it’s easy to take it and him for granted, and to forget that behind the ultrafamiliar and now-ubiquitous branding there lies, in fact, a wild and strikingly original mind and a beating, bloody, passionate heart. You Like It Darker, King’s latest offering, is a highly accomplished and masterful collection of twelve short (and not so short) stories, all blistering examples of King’s powers. Though some have seen the light of day elsewhere, most are published here for the first time. All are worth the purchase.

I started reading Suleika Dawson’s The Secret Heart at a London bar, intending simply to skim through as I finished my beer. Six hours and many more beers later I was still at the bar, and still reading. The book, an erotically charged, no-punches-pulled account of her multiple affairs with the author John le Carré (or David Cornwell, as she knew him), is also a fascinating and important portrait of the man himself. The pseudonymous author, with her winking nod at Max Beerbohm’s femme fatale, offers a degree of insight and honesty which le Carré’s official biography (let alone his own memoir) and recently released collection of letters do not, and a character study of a London long since lost.