Cirrus@Austlit

'Dachshund droids, sinister crones, shapeshifting children, a plethora of witches, dragonstalkers, familiars, slithering eels and, of course, bats, flit and fly through these pages, aided and abetted by Kathleen Jennings’s inspired pencil drawings. Stray Bats is a madcap miscellany consisting of fifty vignettes based on poems by Australian women. Lanagan delights in playing with language, rhyme, and rhythm.

'This could be the perfect gift for that slightly otherworldly person in your life—or for yourself, when you need a moment of magic, a dip into darkness, a spark of light.

'For the reader who would like to explore further, there are a list of poems that inspired the author and notes on where those poems might be found.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Ghosts, deformed fairy tales, animal transformations, dystopic futures and twisted histories-these are the stuff of a Lanagan story.

'An adolescent Hansel is enslaved by wicked tramp Grinnan during the Black Plague; a middle aged woman in country Australia has a last chance to save her swan-winged brother; Hans Christian Andersen's tinderbox shows up as a battered Bic cigarette lighter in a world of blasted cities and morals; gangs of sheela-na-gigs ride the city train system, unnerving the populace with their strange singing.

'Phantom Limbs collects fourteen stories published in anthologies, magazines and small collections throughout the past decade, and adds one brand new story, 'The Tin Wife', to deliver an extended tour of the country of the weird.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'In wild times and in wartime,

in times of fear and illness, I go

to Tintinnabula, where soft rains fall.

'Tintinnabula is a story about moving from discomfort to peace, from violence and uncertainty to a still, sure place. It reminds us that our best friend in hard times can often be ourselves.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.