If you're stuck for a present for a book lover, then I suggest you look no further than A C Tillyer's An A-Z of Possible Worlds.
It's a box set of twenty six separately bound booklets, each a well crafted vignette of a world imagined by Anne Tillyer as she sat writing on the train. Within a few sentences, I found myself drawn into the created environments. The prose and situation would stir up questions in my head ... some of which would still be left floating in the realm of imagination long after the short stories come to an end.
C is for Casino takes place in a beautifully crafted sinister principality where the growing population is precisely controlled by a scheme dreamt up by the consensual Founders’ Society. Only “the occasional screesh of an approaching siren” and the presence of an ambulance “threatens to disturb its peace”.
Twenty six short booklets, but not too fast to read. Great glimpses into the human psyche, and our ability to enjoy and destroy, to open up and to control. And Amazon can still get the boxset to you in time for Christmas!
(Disclosure: I accepted a free review copy. And reading one every couple of nights, it’s taken a long time to get them off the bedside table and beside the computer to be reviewed!)
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