Paperback Picnic
a newsletter about weird old books

Latest

Dec
09
Grainy photograph of an eerie stone sculpture sitting among leaf litter on the ground

Dark Flowers of the Pulp Age

reviewing every Clark Ashton Smith story, part 1
7 min read
Nov
24
book cover depicting a flimsy, bone-like castle in a cold and swampy land

The Women and the Warlords (1987)

the second half of a feminist epic
8 min read
Nov
16

Read my new short story "Another Tide"

A story of resistance, radicalism and sea anemones
1 min read
Oct
14
book cover depicting a dragon perched on a crumbling stone arch that overlooks a distant city.

The Wordsmiths and the Warguild (1987)

teenage fantasy protagonist but make him act like an actual teenage boy
7 min read
Aug
02
book cover depicting a silver needle-shaped spaceship on a verdant alien landscape

Paradise and Hell: “The Gardens of Delight” by Ian Watson

with some thoughts on the value of modesty in fiction
6 min read
May
31
book covers of "Rogomelec" and "The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington"

Two Books by Surrealist Women

Leonor Fini, Leonora Carrington, and the ocean of literature
6 min read
Apr
30
dinosaurs and humans marching beneath a huge wooden crucifix with a pocketwatch hanging off it.

Discovering the True Nature of Time with Brian Aldiss’ “Cryptozoic!”

time travel, psychedelia and Freud
7 min read
Apr
09
Title page of a very old book with a stamped image of a fish coiling around an anchor.

Phantasmion: The First Fantasy Novel

Love and grief at the dawn of fantasy literature
7 min read
Mar
25
Cover depicting an Aboriginal figure reaching from the sky to a white silhouette or shadow on a desert landscape

Rage and Revenge in Aboriginal Australia’s First Fantasy Novel

"The Kadaitcha Sung" asks whether the crimes of colonisation can ever be set right
11 min read
Mar
10
book cover depicting a stone bust of a human head surrounded by animal heads

"The Zen Gun" (1983)

cosmic decadence and unionised robots
6 min read