Folk Hardcover – 8 Feb. 2018

One of the most wonderful books I've read in a long time (and I read a lot). This is a collection of linked shorter pieces but it doesn't read like a short story collection: it does have the feel of a longer work to it, perhaps because every story is so beautifully told, and so dense with feeling. I loved every word.

This is a highly original collection of short stories. There is more than a hint of the fantastical about most of them but what they tell of human nature is universal. None of that would of course be any use if they also weren't well written, absorbing and entertaining (there's nothing worse than literature which is terribly worthy but dead boring). Culturally the stories are very British cum Celtic so it would be interesting to know what people from other countries make of them. If you're the sort of person who can't quite rule out the possibility of the magical being outside your window on a dark, rainy night then this book is perhaps for you.

Beautiful writing, but I'd hardly call it a novel. As another reviewer said, more a collection of slightly interwoven stores, meaning that they take place in the same setting, over a number of years. It is almost as though the characters didn't merit our attention for more than one chapter, which I felt led to a lack of continuity. I was unable, therefore, to invest in the characters as I would have liked.

Short stories or novel? Let’s call it fiction. Let’s call it Folk. It’s the details that mesmerise in this debut from a very competent writer: from the rich descriptive passages to the intricately-drawn illustrations. Each tale stands alone and yet fully immerses the reader into a dark new world. Bloomsbury have certainly delivered on the cover front too - delightful in its foreshadowing of what lurks within.

What a lovely, haunting book. Reading this is like rummaging through your mother’s jewellery box as a child, finding one precious gem after another, all entangled to form a glorious treasure. Beautifully written and looks gorgeous too. I have bought more copies of this to give as Christmas gifts.

Loved this book, not really read anything like it. A very isolated village where folk go about their lives, but their experiences are experienced and become folk tales. The first story sets the tone. It made me think of books like 'Mythago Wood', 'Wizard of Earth Sea', 'Little, Big' - though none of these are like Folk.

I loved this book for the characterisation, setting and intertwining storylines. Highly recommended.

I wanted this book for ages.I’ve just started it and I can’t put it down. Not to be missed

This collection by Zoe Gilbert is set in the island village of Neverness and consists of 15 short stories. All the stories are interlinked by virtue of being set in the same village and dealing with the various residents who form the main characters in some stories and part of the background in others. There is a map (always an added bonus) at the beginning of the book that shows the layout of the entire village and helps to figure out where these quickly familiar characters live in relation to each other and the major landmarks around them.Neverness is a village where magic is inherently woven into the fabric of life and is thus considered a normal everyday thing. For example, there is a boy born with a wing instead of an arm and everyone else in this village treats it as an irksome handicap rather than fainting with the shock of witnessing a bird-human hybrid. As if continuing the connection of the Russian backdrop from the cover, there is an element of Russian folktale-like underlying current of tragedy in almost every story. Also, it feels as if winter is always just around the corner in this isolated little island. As a sort of counter-point to the atmosphere and their isolation, the people come across as stalwart and a little devoid of humour, with a well-spring of patience and burning passions lurking underneath the surface. Even their celebrations, like the one at every New Year’s Eve, are more along the lines of a blood-thirsty sport with the promise of some form of sexual gratification at the end. When you realize that the sport is being played by teenagers, it takes on another layer of unreality and other-worldliness.The stories are dark and solemn, talking about the lives lived and lost in a small community. The stories are filled with heartbreak, aching loss, nostalgia, loneliness and a kernel of uplifting hope. These are stories about families – sisters and mothers and fathers and sons. It’s a story of friends who help another when they get in over their heads. It is about superstitions coming to life. There are stories about coming of age in different ways. There are stories of sheer brutality and even murder. There are stories about how a small community will turn its face away from an ugly truth rather than rock the boat.In short, these stories are not for the faint hearted, or ones who would like a conventional fairytale. As the stories progress, many passing references unwind into full-fledged stories of their own, opening up the lives of the villagers as if to a stranger newly settled come to town. One story, where a stranger does come to town, was darkly funny with a nod to the oft-repeated and very truthful adage ‘be careful what you wish for’.The first and last stories are like bookends, as they complete a cycle. The characters who began as teenagers in the first are now adults with young ones of their own in the last tale. Some of them have survived the transition, both physically and spiritually better than others, while some are still struggling. By the end of the book, the reader knows them as well as the author knows them. There are hidden depths to each tale that are not too difficult to discern and as such are a pleasure to read again and again.The author’s prose is interlaced with metaphors that combine nature and everyday life into a sentence that is almost poetic in its essence. For instance, ‘The door of the day is nearly shut, but it is the hinge of the year itself’ when describing the evening at the turn of the year. Her imagination has a uniqueness that is as refreshing as it is disturbing. Even the title of the book, ‘Folk’, is understated in its simplicity and elegance. It manages to convey just the right amount of information and intrigue to the reader.For lovers of the fantasy and short story genre, this first time offering by Zoe Gilbert is a gift that will be enjoyed for years to come.

Name of the book -FOLKWritten by -Zoe GilbertAbsolutely stunning...there is a room for magic and mystery world is sensuous and dangerous folk is to find oneself rapt

And so, us readers are taken to the island village of Neverness, which is somewhat like rural medieval Northern Europe; horses and sheep, fishing, the baking of bread and the eating of eggs. Zoe Gilbert opens with a thundering scene. A young lad is running, thudding, through a hillside of gorse with other lads. She tells us that there is sweat. That there is stink of leather. For the young lad it is his first time at the gorse game. He fights the thorns of the gorse. He runs headlong deeper into the gorse, seeking the Gorse Mother. What is this annual event of the folk of Neverness?Folk is a story of the folk of Neverness. It is not in any way a 'traditional' novel of a 'story' with core characters. The whole cast of the folk of Neverness are the characters. Characters have a story to tell, and then other characters are told. Werrity Prowd, in her bloom. The ox-men and what they do. May who grows into the supreme fiddler. And the places of Neverness too have their stories told; the Bard House, the seashore caves that are scoured into different shapes, the places where the sheep are tended and the kites fly. Characters and places are re-introduced and re-woven across the two generations of the span of Folk.Folk is spun with truly dazzling writing. Zoe Gilbert is both gifted and inspired in her words and the architectures that they build. Her sentences paint the world of Neverness both subtly and with a thumping pulse. Folk is kinda sorta magical realism, but it is far more than just that genre. Zoe Gilbert's words thump and beat viscerally, and tell of scents and temperatures and storms and winds. The folk of Neverness live a raw life, but a life that is full of their engrained traditions and ways.There is really nothing much comparable to what Zoe Gilbert has written. A small number of stories from a small number of contemporary writers spring to mind, but she has written something unique.There is a map of Neverness; I like maps that show the geography of the place where the storyteller is beguiling us. Just so you know. And, is there anything that is hard work, or does not quite work, in Folk, you might (you should really) ask? Yes is my answer. Because each of the folk of Neverness is written into the story I had to sometimes remind myself of who was who. And towards the end a couple of chapters feel like filler, non-essential, just in there to get them in. But still a masterpiece.The last chapter of Folk begins exactly as the first chapter. The Gorse Game. Two generations after the first chapter. Folk have died and folk have been born, married, lived. Neverness endures as the folk fade in and then are gone. And what endures for this reader is the visceral magic of this author and her craft.

A haunting series of interrelated short stories tells the reader the history of the small village of Neverness and its inhabitants who experience superstition, magic, love, and sorrow. The book begins and closes with a village tradition that is their own version of Beltane, a gorse-maze, and girls who shoot arrows into the maze for the young men of the village to find and be matched for a kiss or more. As the book opens, we meet the ill-fated Crab Skerry and at its close see the fate of the girl he had wanted to kiss, Madden, whose soul is woven by a spell with that of a soaring kite.These are folktales about island folk, mixing classic British Isle fae entities like the water bull, similar to a kelpie, luring young women to a watery death, and simple people with their everyday lives on their farms and in a fishing community. Beyond the elements of familiar folklore, Gilbert has given us truly poignant characters with heartbreaking stories. Ervet and her beloved mawkins, Verlyn, a man with a wing, and his unrequited love for a girl named after a bird, Linnet. There are also images of memorable power like that of a boy named Finch, arms outstretched, covered in bees, green sap emerging from a scratch on his neck.This is a rich an beautiful series of stories that read like a novel. Blending folklore and magical realism, it's a unique book to be savored.

Paul Kingsnorth recommended this to his followers. He was right, it was wonderful. Full of beautiful imagery, fully realized characters, and with magical, but realistic settings, the stories felt very homely. I loved the people and I think I'd love this gorse-scented Isle.

Love this book. If you love folklore this is a must have. Join us on twitter for #FolkloreThursday.