“…there is no reason for anything to be real.” #angelacarter #blackvenus

I am nothing if not a very easily influenced reader; mention an interesting sounding book, and I’m off to see if I have it in the stacks or if I can pick up a reasonably priced copy somewhere. And recently, Chris over at Calmgrove Books happened to write about a couple of the stories in the “Black Venus” collection by Angela Carter – “Overture and Incidental Music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Peter and the Wolf”. His excellent post set me thinking, as it’s a little while since I’d picked up any of Carter, and I wondered if I had this book? Well, it turns out I do – twice! I have an original Picador paperback first edition from 1986 (which is starting to fox rather badly, but the binding is holding up); and the stories are also included in a complete short story collection of hers which I own. Reader, I could not resist… I’ve recorded conflicting reactions to Carter here on the blog; some of her books I’ve found just a bit too graphic for me, and yet others I’ve found the prose…