Whiteland, David -- The Knot-Shop Man

This is the one you haven't heard of (unless I commented on your blog about it). It's a self-published quartet of fairy tales about a city where you can go to tie down your fate -- to a person, to a goal. Is this a good idea? The answer is ambiguous, as four different people undertake four journeys, each under the tutelage of the proprietor of a shop that sells knots. (Not rope, mind you.) The stories vary from a sort of tragedy to a sort of triumph, and how you take the whole will depend on what order you read them in -- the books quite overtly leave this up to you. It's an interesting experiment, but the experiment is less important than the author's deft, wry, and eminently readable narration. Ordering this will cost you some cash (shipping costs to the US particularly bite) but I recommend it anyhow. Get together with three friends and you can all read it at the same time.


Books I have acquired recently
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