One of the best books I've ever read in my life. Ball has changed the way I approach writing. Affected me so profoundly there's not enough space here for me to properly address it.

3.5+ Least favorite JB so far and yet I still want to read it again.

An interesting compendium of ephemera and juvenalia from Ball's early career. I wasn't wild about his verse and his early prose collections are more scattershot than anything: pieces are interesting, but never cohering into a whole. That said, the two novellas included here are fantastic and worth the price of admission. And there are definitely moments in the rest of the work that sparkle, too -- but it's not quite the collection I'd hoped it would be. Worth it for the completists, though.