Review by: R. L. Jones

Published by Strange Books (UK)

Mike Russell’s Nothing Is Strange is a series of 20 one-shots of varying degrees of eeriness, but all with a distinct surreal feel. The book’s tone, and some of the stories, reminded me of episodes of Dark Mirror, though not as dark or disturbing. It’s a quick read and can be comfortably read at night without worry of fright. No, these stories left me more pensive than disturbed or scared. I enjoyed some of the subtle and clever twists the stories took, presenting themes on humanity, society, and the individual, one utilizing a giant flesh-and-bone creature in the sky known as the Living Crown.

Russell’s writing is simple and effective; he’s not weighed down with extraneous detail or description of the characters or places. The characters are named, the setting stated, and the story commences, sometimes the reader is…

The landscape painter and augmenter, Paul Nash, had a momentary, glimpsed relationship with the Wiltshire town of Avebury.  The landscape, which brims with a sense of ancientness and magic, evidently enraptured the painter for a brief spell of creative yield not simply in painting but in photography as a sideline as well.  Caught in the trace images and memories of its Neolithic stone circles, its village’s self-containment, and the feeling of being surrounded by many other ancient burial forms, Nash channeled these elements in the most dialectic of fashions; an old world reaching out for a fresh conversation.  This is uncannily present in a handful of his paintings, including some of his most respected abstract landscape work but, since Tate uploaded scans of his negative black and white photography onto their website over recent years, the effect of the place upon the artist seems to have manifested most viscerally and…