Best of the Millennium

#18: Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link

By Arthur Phillips posted at 10:21 am on September 21, 2009 2

coverI fell in love with Kelly Link’s writing from the first page of the first story in Stranger Things Happen. That was some years ago, but I go back to the book often, and often I find I’ve misremembered something, even as I fall in love with the stories again. I have even had the just-for-a-second delusion, faster than reason, that Link has snuck into my home and rewritten stories to dazzle me differently this time, because that’s just the sort of thing she’d do. She’s funny and bookish, charming and ghoulish, original even when she’s referential. She’s one of those writers I always tell people about, but worry how to describe her: yes, she writes ghost stories and fantasy, but not really. But, really, she does: aficionados of both should love her, but so should people who never stray from the strictest lit-fic. I admire imagination and craft, in equal measure. Link is one of the very few who have both in seemingly limitless quantity.

Read an excerpt from Stranger Things Happen.
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2 Responses to “#18: Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link”

  1. Kati
    at 1:57 pm on September 21, 2009

    Excellent choice. Dazzling book that deserves more fame, glory, et cetera.

  2. Peter
    at 11:42 pm on September 21, 2009

    I got this book for free online (legally, Creative Commons).

    I must read it.

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