I Just Finished Reading...

[Evans]

Quote Originally Posted by nomis

For those interested in Reggie Oliver's work, there are podcast readings he did for Ash Tree (though I'll be damned if I can find the links at the moment -- I'll look around).

Ahh yes I found a few of those yesterday. They allso have a tale by Wakefiled who I haven't read much of either.

A Donkey at the Mysteries
The Ghost Story Society

Puss-Cat
The Ghost Story Society

In regards to Mark Samuels stuff I'm going to go for The White Hands. I really enjoyed Vrolyck and this seems the best way forward.

[Evans]

It is late at night where I live so by all laws of perverse logic I feel hideously wide awake and chatty.

I have just finished reading The Overnight by Ramsey Campbell. As usual for his novels Campbell turned out a interesting story. At first I was slightly worried about the book being narrated in the third person present tense but it didn't cause a problem at all. The novel has a very slightly similar flavour to Hungry Moon in that it features a great deal more characters than normal for Campbell. However I think it far exceeds Moon in terms of execution and characterisation. The only note of warning is that it does start rather slow and the reader should be prepared to have to learn quite a bit about each characters personality (though that does have an important baring later)

My copy of Ritual and Other Stories arrived this afternoon from Tartarus Press. Its a beautifully turned out book and I look hope to be able to buy more of their Machen collections should my sourceless funds permit (I would have went for Tales of Horror and the Supernatural this month and been damned with the flagging account if it had contained all of the stories from The Three Imposters)

I'll set about ordering Mr Samuels The White Hands and Other Weird Tales in a day or so. These books are costing so much I probably ought to get one of those job things.

[bendk]

The Conspiracy Against the Human Race by Thomas Ligotti. A great book! I have looked forward to reading this book for years and it has been worth the wait. Wonderfully written, full of interesting ideas, and at times absolutely hilarious. Ligotti's caustic humor is at full strength. I bet I had to put it down half a dozen times because I was laughing so hard. That Freaks of Salvation chapter is a classic. Nietzsche and his "sackload of unrealities". LOL.


The Memorandum by Vaclav Havel. A play in the Kafkaesque mold. I enjoyed this one. Very funny and sadly accurate. It won the Obie Award for Best Foreign Play in 1967-8. It is about the introduction of a new "office language" into a government organization. Like most fiction based in bureaucracies, I found it both funny and exasperating.


The Shell Collector by Christopher Golden and with art by Glenn Chadbourne. This book is one of the Cemetery Dance novella series. An entertaining story of about 100 pages and with a pretty cool monster. Just what I was in the mood for at the time.

[Freyasfire]

I just finished reading Gustav Meyrink's The Golem. I absolutely adored it and found it quite spellbinding. Taken in the context of its time, it is really quite a powerful social commentary, along with being a wondrous tapestry of mysticism, myth, alchemy and the supernatural. Last week I finished Meyrink's The Green Face, which I also enjoyed, although I found it much more inaccessible. From what I gather, as his writing career progressed, his novels did get more and more inaccessible, but that shall not stop me from working my way through them all. I feel that I need to do this before tackling Cinnabar's Gnosis, so that I can fully appreciate the tales therein.

Currently I am reading Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human. I have mixed feelings about this work. I was somehow expecting to relate to it more than I do. I suppose if I take into account where and when and by who it was written, this should not really surprise me. Anyhow, I shall reserve my final judgment of the book until I get through the whole thing.

[Ascrobius]

Finishing Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves for the second time, and it's amazing how much I feel like I missed on the first reading. But then again, the book is ridiculously dense and almost laborious to read, but I mean that as a compliment. It is certainly one of the more unique and original tomes I've read, and a reading experience that made me understand why it has a cult following that seems to continue to grow. Essentially a haunted house story at its core, and a story, within a story, within a story, but yet so much more. The book is truly like a labyrinth of literature, loaded with esoteric literary references and endless footnotes, some real, some fabrications, but part of what makes it infinitely interesting. Certainly not for the faint of heart or for those that require a linear story line. It's a novel that requires ones undivided attention and a high frustration tolerance, especially considering the unconventional layout of the book, which has to be seen to be believed.

[Nemonymous]

HOUSE OF LEAVES is major classic fiction. Essential reading for Ligottians. No Mistake.

[Ascrobius]

I agree, Des. I edited my post above to reflect the "proper" presentation of the word in house in HoL.

[starrysothoth]

I had to chime in and say that Danielewski's book is excellent. It's a rare and successful matchup of weird elements in an experimental format with incredible signs of how well read the author is (and that's part of the treat too, for those who've read widely in literature).

The book definitely takes a little work to get through--almost a favor, though, because it forces you to slow down and take in most of its nuances. I experimented a few times with different ways to read it. In my experience, I had a different reading experience when I read the main text and the "inner story" mostly told in the footnotes separately, and then when I read them in the order they're meant to be read.

House of Leaves also has something of a cult following online. The last time I looked a couple years ago, there were two or three entire messageboards devoted to trying to decode its many oddities.

I hesitate to call House (or should I say house?) weird fiction because there's so much overlap with many other genres. Plus I'm not that familiar with Danielewski's biggest influences. However, it's a masterpiece of psychological horror. The house's contorted, shifting spaces described in the Navidson Record is the best example I've seen yet of a novel that severely plays on one's fears of space and changes in environment.

[waffles]

Reading these posts makes me want to reread House of Leaves. I enjoyed it the first time, but I admit that by the end I felt a little let down. It sounds like a second reading would do me much good.

[Stu]

Been reading James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux series. I tried them back in the '90s but couldn't get on with them but decided to give them another go and this time round I'm enjoying the hell out of them. Tore through the first seven titles in just over a fortnight and am just taking a quick breather before plunging into number eight.

Fore those of you who haven't read any of the books Robicheaux's an ex-alcoholic Louisiana cop who writhes in Catholic guilt while his DT's conjure up conversations with dead loved ones as he tries to track down various murderers, drug dealers and rogue CIA hitmen. The books also contain lyrical descriptions of Louisiana and New Orleans, meditations on morality and redemption, reminiscences of Robicheaux's tour of duty in Vietnam and the occasional burst of violent action. Cool titles too -- Black Cherry Blues, Dixie City Jam, Cadillac Jukebox etc. Right now he's my favourite new author.

Even if I did first read him over 10 years ago.