Book Recommendations

[orwell84]

Cormac Mccarthy Blood Meridian. Ramsey Campbell. The Darkest Part Of The Woods.

[ChildofOldLeech]

- Snakes is the only book of Crews I've read, and while I certainly liked it, all things considered I think I enjoyed Eric Higgs' similarly-themed but lesser-known novel The Happy Man more.

[orwell84]

Ramsey Campbell's 'Alone with the Horror's' contain some of the best short stories I've ever read within the genre. Standout stories for me would be The Chimney, The Voice of the Beach, Again, Mackintosh Willy, In the Bag, Down There, The Scar and The Companion.

My all time favourite novel would be George Orwell's 1984. It's set in a world where truth no longer exists, and the only freedom one has is total obedience to the political party in charge.

"War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength". Another memorable quote from the novel is "Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past." I find the implications of this book to be genuinely terrifying.

[R.P.Dwyer]

I recommend four novellas in the weird genre.

Fengriffin by David Case. Gothic fiction. The narrator is a doctor, specializing in the then new science of psychology. He is asked by Fengriffin to treat his pregnant wife Catherine. Catherine is in what we nowadays call "depression", but Catherine says that a supernatural curse is the cause of her problems. Fengriffin, and the narrator, do no believe in the supernatural. But it turns out that Catherine was right. This novella is excellently constructed and has marvelous writing.
Copies of the novella are expensive. The novella is reprinted in _The Mammoth Book of Short Horror Novels_, edited by Mike Ashley, which I got from the public library.

Sardonicus by Ray Russell. In this Gothic novella, a man has risus sardonicus, that is, a lock jaw smile. We learn how this man got this condition. The narrator, who is a doctor, is requested to cure this condition. Written in a highly readable style, the story has a twist ending. This novella can be found in _Haunted Castles_ by Ray Russell, published by Penguin.

The Events At Poroth Farm by T.E.D. Kline . A college lecturer, isolated in the countryside and reading horror literature for teaching in the next semester, gradually realizes that genuine supernatural horror is taking place around him. Copies of this novella, too, are expensive. It can be found, though, in _American Supernatural Tales_ S.T. Joshi.

Monte Verita by Daphne DuMaurier. Daphne DuMaurier is known for her novel _Rebecca_, and her stories "The Birds" and "Don't Look Now" which were adapted into movies. But it seems that her Monte Verita is not as well known. I've enjoyed many stories, but only a few have enthralled me. Monte Verita is one of them. The narrator is friends with a married couple, named Victor and Anna. They are all excellent mountain climbers. The narrator is asked by Victor and Anna to join them mountain climbing, but the narrator declines. Later, the narrator learns that Anna went up Monte Verita by herself and joined a secluded community, where it is rumored, no one ages, they have telepathy, and worship and derive their powers from the moon. Those who have been mystically called to Monte Verita never left. The narrator and Victor tries to deal with this, with the narrator making the climb up the mountain. A wonderful novella with elements of romance, horror, suspense and the supernatural.

[vapidleopard]

Quote Originally Posted by R.P.Dwyer

I recommend four novellas in the weird genre. Fengriffin by David Case. Gothic fiction. The narrator is a doctor, specializing in the then new science of psychology. He is asked by Fengriffin to treat his pregnant wife Catherine. Catherine is in what we nowadays call "depression", but Catherine says that a supernatural curse is the cause of her problems. Fengriffin, and the narrator, do no believe in the supernatural. But it turns out that Catherine was right. This novella is excellently constructed and has marvelous writing. Copies of the novella are expensive. The novella is reprinted in _The Mammoth Book of Short Horror Novels_, edited by Mike Ashley, which I got from the public library. Sardonicus by Ray Russell. In this Gothic novella, a man has risus sardonicus, that is, a lock jaw smile. We learn how this man got this condition. The narrator, who is a doctor, is requested to cure this condition. Written in a highly readable style, the story has a twist ending. This novella can be found in _Haunted Castles_ by Ray Russell, published by Penguin. The Events At Poroth Farm by T.E.D. Kline . A college lecturer, isolated in the countryside and reading horror literature for teaching in the next semester, gradually realizes that genuine supernatural horror is taking place around him. Copies of this novella, too, are expensive. It can be found, though, in _American Supernatural Tales_ S.T. Joshi. Monte Verita by Daphne DuMaurier. Daphne DuMaurier is known for her novel _Rebecca_, and her stories "The Birds" and "Don't Look Now" which were adapted into movies. But it seems that her Monte Verita is not as well known. I've enjoyed many stories, but only a few have enthralled me. Monte Verita is one of them. The narrator is friends with a married couple, named Victor and Anna. They are all excellent mountain climbers. The narrator is asked by Victor and Anna to join them mountain climbing, but the narrator declines. Later, the narrator learns that Anna went up Monte Verita by herself and joined a secluded community, where it is rumored, no one ages, they have telepathy, and worship and derive their powers from the moon. Those who have been mystically called to Monte Verita never left. The narrator and Victor tries to deal with this, with the narrator making the climb up the mountain. A wonderful novella with elements of romance, horror, suspense and the supernatural.

According to this link, Valancourt Books intend to reissue Fengriffen at some point in 2015.
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show...ural---part-ii

Also, for those looking for Sardonicus. Instead of buying the now expensive Sardonicus and Other Stories Collection itself, you can find the title story in The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales.

[Murony_Pyre]

Quote Originally Posted by Biely Králik

Thomas Bernhard Walking: A Novella, Translated by Kenneth J. Northcott University of Chicago Press, 112p 15 October 2015, 14 € Walking: A Novella, translated by Kenneth J. Northcott, Bernhard, Northcott, Evenson

Isn't this already available in Three Novellas (along with "Amras" and "Playing Watten" (sorry if I am misrembering the exact titles)? Also by Northcott with an introduction by Evenson?

[gveranon]

Quote Originally Posted by Murony_Pyre

Quote Originally Posted by Biely Králik Thomas Bernhard Walking: A Novella, Translated by Kenneth J. Northcott University of Chicago Press, 112p 15 October 2015, 14 € Walking: A Novella, translated by Kenneth J. Northcott, Bernhard, Northcott, Evenson Isn't this already available in Three Novellas (along with "Amras" and "Playing Watten" (sorry if I am misrembering the exact titles)? Also by Northcott with an introduction by Evenson?

Yes and yes and yes. And it looks like Three Novellas is still in print from the same publisher! I think "Walking" is the best of those novellas -- it does deserve to be a volume unto itself -- but Three Novellas is obviously the better purchase for anyone interested in Bernhard.

Here is a review of "Walking." I like Bernhard, and "Walking," much better than this reviewer does, but it is a very perceptive review.

[qcrisp]

Quote Originally Posted by R.P.Dwyer

I recommend four novellas in the weird genre. Fengriffin by David Case. Gothic fiction. The narrator is a doctor, specializing in the then new science of psychology. He is asked by Fengriffin to treat his pregnant wife Catherine. Catherine is in what we nowadays call "depression", but Catherine says that a supernatural curse is the cause of her problems. Fengriffin, and the narrator, do no believe in the supernatural. But it turns out that Catherine was right. This novella is excellently constructed and has marvelous writing. Copies of the novella are expensive. The novella is reprinted in _The Mammoth Book of Short Horror Novels_, edited by Mike Ashley, which I got from the public library. Sardonicus by Ray Russell. In this Gothic novella, a man has risus sardonicus, that is, a lock jaw smile. We learn how this man got this condition. The narrator, who is a doctor, is requested to cure this condition. Written in a highly readable style, the story has a twist ending. This novella can be found in _Haunted Castles_ by Ray Russell, published by Penguin. The Events At Poroth Farm by T.E.D. Kline . A college lecturer, isolated in the countryside and reading horror literature for teaching in the next semester, gradually realizes that genuine supernatural horror is taking place around him. Copies of this novella, too, are expensive. It can be found, though, in _American Supernatural Tales_ S.T. Joshi. Monte Verita by Daphne DuMaurier. Daphne DuMaurier is known for her novel _Rebecca_, and her stories "The Birds" and "Don't Look Now" which were adapted into movies. But it seems that her Monte Verita is not as well known. I've enjoyed many stories, but only a few have enthralled me. Monte Verita is one of them. The narrator is friends with a married couple, named Victor and Anna. They are all excellent mountain climbers. The narrator is asked by Victor and Anna to join them mountain climbing, but the narrator declines. Later, the narrator learns that Anna went up Monte Verita by herself and joined a secluded community, where it is rumored, no one ages, they have telepathy, and worship and derive their powers from the moon. Those who have been mystically called to Monte Verita never left. The narrator and Victor tries to deal with this, with the narrator making the climb up the mountain. A wonderful novella with elements of romance, horror, suspense and the supernatural.

I read 'Sardonicus' in this, many years ago:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...f_Gothic_Tales

If you scroll down at the following link, you can find the table of contents:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/oxfo...=9780199561537

[Druidic]

R. P. Dwyer's recommendations were all on target.
By coincidence, I've just finished rereading Ray Russell's Haunted Castles with the intro by Del Toro. It contains, among other stories, Sardonicus and Sagittarius, the latter dealing with the son of Mr. Hyde; and is an even better story than the former. I first read these tales in the Sixties; and after recently finishing a rereading of Charles Beaumont's Selected Stories, Russell's work just seemed to call out.

[Frater_Tsalal]

Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction (Ray Brassier)

I don't read all that much in the way of philosophy, so perhaps it's not surprising that probably 90% of this book went completely over my head. I was able to follow the first 3 chapters pretty well, and the final chapter also, but all of part two (and the first chapter of part 3) are a blur to me. My main interest in this book are mainly its connections to the theme of horror: such as the Ligotti quote that serves as an epigraph to the book, a footnote that references Cronenberg's The Fly, a nod to the "blind idiot god" of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. Sometimes the writing comes off as poetic (such as when Brassier mentions "the awakening of an intelligence which is in the process of sloughing off its human mask"), but more often than not it is dry and abstract. If anything, it makes me curious to look into Nietzsche again, and it certainly has exposed me to some new words I've never seen before (such as ipseity, rebarbative, propaedutic, sublation, qualiaphilia, perplication, and so on).

Selfish (Kim Kardashian West)

Kim Kardashian West here provides us with an existential black hole that the transcendental nihilism of a Ray Brassier can only dream of evoking (in fact, I find it interesting that on pages 256-257, somewhere a little past the book's halfway point, we are provided with two pages that have no words or pictures at all, pages that are completely black: it is as if this is symbolic of the black hole at the center of Western society/civilization, with the selfies orbiting it like husks of dead galaxies). The narcissism and self-obsession on display here is almost sublime, and makes this product seem like something dredged up from the darkest recesses of Bret Easton Ellis' imagination: Kardashian is the female Victor Ward. This book collects 477 selfies (including the obligatory celebrity cameos, such as J-Lo, Snookie, Donatella, Madonna, Ellen, and, of course, Kanye), along with some perfunctory commentary that's so vapid it makes Justin Bieber's First Step to Forever look like Being and Time (an example: a trip to Spain is summarized as "Spain was a wild trip.") Running the gamut from the years 2006-2014 (meaning no selfies of Kim rocking the Draco Malfoy look, though I do have to admit that the ushanka she's sporting on pages 206-207 suits her), in some ways I think this book peaks after the Paris Hilton cameos on pages 10-13. Seeing Paris circa 2006 made me kind of nostalgic: in some ways she was the Ur-mother of the modern reality TV celebrity (someone famous for being famous).