Ever started reading a book, and then realised that it was so good that you wanted to put it down there and then, barely begun, because you knew that if you read any more you'd read and read and read and then it would be over?
I'm talking about Ray Bradbury's From the Dust Returned. It's a slim compendium of stories about the Elliott clan and their house - some seen before in other places, some new - and it is superbly, deliciously artful in the way that only Bradbury can really pull off without apparent effort. I know that he's not to everyone's taste - and, I'll admit, sometimes not to mine - but this is a gem.
I won't give away things about the Elliotts, for those of you who haven't had the delight to meet them before, but I hope I won't spoil things too much by saying that I think writing like this should make Anne Rice choke on her ersatz gravedust.
rejuvenated