I've been dipping cautiously into St. Lucy's Home For Girls Raised By Wolves by Karen Russell, and it's a slog. The stories often wind up being quite memorable and even moving, but the writing style is a bit of a pain. I suppose it's just too jumpy, modern and perhaps too American for my more sedate Old World tastes and pedantic ways. I suspect that I might have embraced this book quite enthusiastically about a decade back, but one's arteries do begin to harden with time.

Far more in keeping with my emerging taste for sedateness, pedantry and a touch of well-applied pomposity is Thomas Mann's Dr. Faustus, which I am already halfway through.