A densely layered postmodern fairytale where fairyland is reimagined as a factory and the factory is reimagined as a critique of consumerism. Dahl exhausts the possibility of the moral tale through excess, rebuking sentimentality about childhood and parents while still celebrating children.

"She's going where all the other bad nuts go," said Mr. Willy Wonka. "Down the garbage chute."

To quote William Gibson "the future is already here-it's just not evenly distributed." The apocalyptic world of the Handmaid is at once allegorical and far off but also recognisably familiar and not just from ISIS and FLDS. A visceral thoughtful thriller with lots of sex and religion.

I briefly envisioned the horrific prospect of eating the whole ice cream just to please him. It was only a thimbleful, the tiniest kiddie size cup, but at that moment it might as well have been a ton.

Catching up on a classic you missed is always a risk. What if that book everyone else likes is a boring drag? Then again it could be an amazing gut punch of awesome. I'm 70 pages in and am loving it.

Some books hit you so hard you end up buying copies just to give as random gifts.

The most accessible Bolano is also a weird off-putting joke without a punchline. By creating a fictional history of Nazi poets and authors he puts the reader in the position of defending modernism against an unmade charge - a reverse Godwin's law situation. File next to Invisible Cities.

A murder mystery where the key witness exists in a parallel dimension. A thoughtful thriller where meditations on technology, time travel, nostalgia and the ethics of inter-dimensional colonialism are cut with action and violence. A fun fast paced read that covers a lot of ground with little slack.