-
Access Our
Most Anticipated
Books of 2025!
Only nine people have ever been chosen by renowned children's author Laura White to join "The Rabbit Back Literature Society," an elite group of writers in the small town of Rabbit Back. Now a tenth member has been selected: Ella, a young literature teacher. Soon Ella discovers that the Society is not what it seems. What is its mysterious ritual known as "The Game"? What explains the strange disappearance that occurs at Laura White's winter party? Why are the words inside books starting to rearrange themselves? Was there once another tenth member, before her? Slowly, as Ella explores the Society and its history, disturbing secrets that had been buried start to come to light...
In Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen's chilling, witty novel, The Rabbit Back Literature Society, the uncanny brushes up against the everyday in the most beguiling and unexpected of ways.
"Sometimes, Jääskeläinen hits the right creepy note to make the hairs on the neck stand up, but sometimes the story crosses the line into just too weird." - Kirkus
"Has some Twin Peaks moments even if it tries a little too hard. Still, read with all the lights on!"Twin Peaks meets the Brothers Grimm." - The Telegraph (UK)
"Mixes the small-town surrealism of Twin Peaks with the clandestine-society theme of Donna Tartt's The Secret History." - The List (UK)
"Unnerving, enigmatic….Hints of Let the Right One In and Haruki Murakami's elliptical early science fiction novels flavor a creepy tale about mutating books, buried secrets and ghostly encounters." - Financial Times (UK)
"An exquisite balance of suspense, precision-engineered structure and darkly playful humour… fascinating. And fun" - SFX (UK)
"Charming and intriguing, switching from playful to creepy to heartfelt and back again...good fun." - Bookbag (UK)
"A novel about big questions...wonderful characters...Amazing." - TQR Stories (UK)
"Sly wit also characterizes The Rabbit Back Literature Society, a genre-defying Finnish novel." - Metro (UK)
"Charming, chilling and gripping from its very first page." - Bizarre (UK)
"Were you hooked onTwin Peaks? A secret fan of Northern Exposure? Obsessed with Fargo (the movie, not the TV series, naturally)? Then The Rabbit Back Literature Society has got your name written all over it."- Harper's Bazaar
"Jääskeläinen has created a puzzle box of a book that touches on the seeds of creativity, the corrosive qualities of convenient lies, and the fictions that our own memories construct and present as fact. It doesn't answer every question it poses or every mystery it presents, but that's half the point. The Rabbit Back Literature Society is an easy enough read, but a rather more difficult think. The reader will find themselves wandering the byways of the little town of Rabbit Back for a long while afterward." - Jonathan L. Howard, author of the Johannes Cabal series
"Enchanting, mysterious, and beguiling, The Rabbit Back Literature Society blurs the boundary between reality and mythology until it vanishes like the skyline in a snow-storm." - Mike Shevdon, author of Sixty-One Nails
"Fiendishly clever and great fun! The Rabbit Back Literature Society mixes the cruelty, humor and wonder of a classic fairy tale with the challenges, competition and mundane needs of modern life — especially the creative ambitions and need for approval that drive us from childhood on. A must for writers of any genre!" - Karen Engelmann, author of The Stockholm Octavo
This information about The Rabbit Back Literature Society was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen is well known in his native Finland for his fantasy and sci-fi narratives and has twice won the Kuvastaja Fantasy Prize given by Finland's Tolkien Society and four times won the Atorax Award for Fantasy. He is the author of The Rabbit Back Literature Society, teaches Finnish language and literature and is the father of three sons.
There are two kinds of light - the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures.
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
