All reading, all the time

[cleolinda]

*points to icon* Married to the Sea icon for the taking. Enjoy.

marciamarcia: "Hey Cleo, would you be willing to throw out a brief pimp for someone else's book? I'm writing a little tome for Mental Floss (the Birmingham-based magazine of trivia, random facts, and general awesomeness). It's called "How To" and it'll teach you how to capture a giant squid, run away and join the circus, colonize your very own nation---and about 196 other things. It won't be on store shelves untillate 2007, but starting Tuesday I'll be posting a sneak-peek entry every week on www.mentalfloss.com. I'd love it if you could pass the news on to the rest of the Cleoites. Thanks so much." Ahhh, Mental Floss. Good times.

foresthouse: "I'm looking for suggestions for quality short stories and/or novels from British or Canadian writers, such as her mother could use in teaching her British Literature high school seniors. Please post any suggestions here. My mother would really appreciate it, and also any suggestions you might have. :)"

Did I mention Marie Belloc Lowndes' story "The Lodger" the last time I posted Gothic lit? Because it's one of my favorites. But then, anything involving creepitude at wax museums tends to grab me.

Tonight's spotlighted (spotlit?) author: M.R. James. He has a tendency towards anticlimactic endings, but the imagery he does deliver--usually two or three paragraphs from that ending--is fantastic.

"Lost Hearts": When I was in my teens, I got a giant, oversized (but thin) illustrated book of classic (read: Edwardian) ghost stories called Mostly Ghostly. The stories were generally edited down--not to keep younger readers from the gore, because the gore in this story was front and center in the illustrations, but more so as not to tax their attention spans. And honestly, James does go on about with the antiquarian shop talk in his work as a general rule. I almost think the edited version of the story packs more punch, in part because it doesn't telegraph... well, you'll see.

"The Mezzotint": I can't remember the title of the Stephen King story for the life of me, but I think it has "Road Virus" somewhere in it. Anyway, "The Mezzotint" seems to be a great-great-grandfather to the Stephen King story, in the tradition of Paintings (or in this case, Engravings) That Change in Terrifying Ways. All the fun of the story is in the awful thrill of seeing what the engraving shows next; once you get to the last phase and you find out what it shows, the fun is pretty much over, and this is even before you find out the back story. But the awful thrill part? Fantastic.

"The Ash-Tree." Creepy witches!

"The Treasure of Abbot Thomas." Creepy treasure guardians!

"Count Magnus." Creepy Mini-Mes!

"Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad." Creepy bedsheet monsters!

I'm not sure who I'm going to do next--I have a ton of possibilities. Hmm. Maybe Bernard Capes. Ooo, or maybe Ambrose Bierce.





October: Domestic Violence Awareness Month

Comments

[dives.livejournal.com]

I think Algernon Blackwood's my favorite gothic writer. "The Listener" is the creepiest damn story I have ever read in my life.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

That's why I'm saving him for later in the month. : )

[dives.livejournal.com]

Aaaaaaaaah. I see now. Ineffable plan and all that!

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

Also, how could anyone beat a name like Algernon Blackwood? That's inspired, man.

Hm. I'm trying to think up names that come close. (Some are real, others are my own invention.)

Sarah Caudwell. Addleburg Grimly. Agatha Leechhall. Edward Gorey. Peter Dagwort.

[thegeneralerin.livejournal.com]

I've always been a fan of Edward Gorey's name.

[dives.livejournal.com]

Peter Dagwort's pretty good.

[elbales]

Is the Dionaea House guy doing anything new that you know of?

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I'll have to check--I hadn't thought to look yet.

[sea-of-tethys.livejournal.com]

ZOMG, I love M.R. James. Meddling antiquarians for the win!

[ipomoea.livejournal.com]

Oooh, M.R. James. Good choices, too, "The Mezzotint" and "Lost Hearts" especially. For some reason the ones involving children are just the awfullest. He and Joseph Sheridan LeFanu are my favourites at creepy writing.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I'd never read "The Mezzotint" before, so when I got to the part about "well, the figure on the lawn is a bit grotesque," and he takes the picture back and looks at it and it's SOME GUY CRAWLING ON ALL FOURS, I may have shrieked out loud. Maybe. Just a little bit.

[ratmmjess.livejournal.com]

Yes to Capes. And of course Ralph Adams Cram.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Any recs for Cram? All I've found at LitGothic is "No. 252 Rue M. le Prince." (I do have several for Capes, though.)

[ratmmjess.livejournal.com]

Eh voila:
Horrormasters (http://www.horrormasters.com/Themes/horror_classics.htm).

I love horrormasters.com with the fiery passion of a thousand burning cliches. They were a *huge* help in finding e-texts for Victoriana

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Heh. Yeah, LitGothic ends up pointing me to a lot of links over there. By the way, do you know if anything's wrong with blackmask.com? A lot of LG's pdf download links are from there, and it's like the entire site disappeared or something.

[ratmmjess.livejournal.com]

Yeah--Conde Nast put the site out of business for copyright infringement. There was this, on Boing Boing (http://www.boingboing.net/2006/04/08/conde_nast_sues_over.html), about the to-do.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. Well, there go half LitGothic's links...

[shoiryu.livejournal.com]

Hey, Cleo, can I ask you to pimp this out? helpweep is the coordination center for assisting WEEP of Canada (http://www.weep.ca/), an environmental education program that uses non-releasable birds of prey to raise environmental awareness. The program is in serious danger of closing, and if that's the case, all their birds are going to be euthanized. It seems a good enough cause for some attention! Thanks, babe!

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Aww, sure thing!

[shoiryu.livejournal.com]

Thank you! &hearts

[riadsala.livejournal.com]

Man, my little brother had a copy of "Mostly Ghostly" and those illustrations scared the bejeezus out of me. Him having that book on his bookshelf by the door kept me out of his room more than any threat/sign/booby trap of his doing. There was one about a knight and a church and a stone lady that still gives me the shivers.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Was it "Man-Size in Marble"? (I'm too lazy to walk ten feet and get the book.)

[riadsala.livejournal.com]

It very well could have been. I just remember the end, when whoever finds him dead and in his hand he's clutching a broken-off stone finger.

[sorchar.livejournal.com]

Last night I watched the movie based on that Belloc story. It has Jack Palance as the lodger, whose name was changed to Slade for the film. *G*

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I'm so dumb that it never occurred to me that the movie (which I haven't seen, which may be why) would be based on that story.

[sorchar.livejournal.com]

WEll, the movie I watched was called "The Man in the Attic" but it was attributed as having been based on this story, so the connection isn't immediately obvious.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Ah--there is an older movie called "The Lodger," although, come to think of it, it probably wouldn't have Jack Palance in it. I mean, he's not quite *that* old.

[sorchar.livejournal.com]

http://imdb.com/title/tt0047209/ - there's the info on the film.

[silk-noir.livejournal.com]

I think it was "Sun Dog."

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

That one too, actually. But the one I'm thinking of was in his last collection and was about a painting of a man in a car that kept coming closer--as opposed to the dog in the camera.

[allova.livejournal.com]

I once bought a book of M.R. James short stories to read on a very long plane trip. Those stories combined with the eerie twilight they put on in the plane when they think it's time for you to go to sleep result in a very trapped, very creeped out reader...

His stories are the creepiest ghost stories I've ever read. Especially "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad." I had nightmares about that one.

[foresthouse.livejournal.com]

thanks for posting that. :)

[pygmymetal.livejournal.com]

Forgive me if you've already weighed in on this but have you seen the trailer for 300 (http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/300/trailer1/)? It looks awesome.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I haven't watched it yet, but I hear it's sort of like Troy meets Sin City--historical subject matter, Frank Miller comic and SC movie style. I guess I've heard so very much about it from GB fans that I almost want to put off actually seeing anything from it as long as possible, to ward off total saturation.

[pygmymetal.livejournal.com]

I found it through a NIN bulletin board, a track from 'The Fragile' is on the trailer.

I think the music was awesome. The trailer kicked ass too. :p

[lilgoala.livejournal.com]

"The Road Virus Heads North". Fabulously creepy. :)

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

That's the one!

[vintagevenus.livejournal.com]

I had a book called Mostly Monsters by that same author. I discovered it in my house when I was about nine, I guess, and the illustrations were deliciously grotesque. I remember being a little creeped by a suspicious greasy spot on the page where Beowulf rips off Grendel's arm.

(I delurked just out of appreciation for bringing up that childhood memory. Thanks.)

[fuchsoid.livejournal.com]

In the 1970s-80s, the BBC did excellent filmed versions of several M R James stories that were shown on Christmas Eve, and responsible for a lot of my childhood nightmares. Some are available on DVD, and they ware well worth watching if you can get hold of them, especially "Whistle And I'll Come To You" and "Lost Hearts".

[phoebesmum.livejournal.com]

I read "Oh Whistle and I'll Come to You my Lad" when I was about 12, and was too scared to sleep in a room with twin beds for ... um. Ever afterward, actually.

[soberloki.livejournal.com]

Canuck author: CAroline Adderson. She's got a couple of books out now, and she's AWESOME. Also, I used to babysit her son.

[reynardine.livejournal.com]

I've been reading some scary short stories myself from A Treasury of American Horror Stories (http://www.amazon.com/Treasury-American-Horror-Stories-Mcsherry/dp/0517480751/sr=8-1/qid=1160127930/ref=sr_1_1/104-9703900-0461559?ie=UTF8&s=books). One of the creepiest has been Pickman's Model (http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/pickmansmodel.htm) by H.P. Lovecraft. The prose isn't quite as overwrought as some of his other works (and no Cthulu), but this is a very well-crafted horror story. Twilla (http://www.scifi.com/scifiction/classics/classics_archive/reamy3/reamy31.html) by Tom Reamy was also very good, as was Desiree's Baby (http://www.pbs.org/katechopin/library/desireesbaby.html) by Kate Chopin.

[ex-hellodoll259.livejournal.com]

Question: In Mostly Ghostly, was there the story of the girl with the yellow ribbon around her neck?

I remember reading that when I was reallllly little, and I haven't been able to find it since!

[obigrrl.livejournal.com]

Tonight's spotlighted (spotlit?) author: M.R. James. He has a tendency towards anticlimactic endings, but the imagery he does deliver--usually two or three paragraphs from that ending--is fantastic.

i have "Casting the Runes and Other Stories" on my amazon wish list....i LOVE the story Casting the Runes and when i was little i loved watching the movie Night of the Demon

so very 1960's cheesy, yet so very creepy : )

[promise19.livejournal.com]

Cleo, I was checking ImDB for upcoming opening dates and saw that they had Stormbreaker (http://www.stormbreaker.com) listed as "Limited Release." Checked the message board, found a link to the Weinstein Company's site, and sure enough it has a wide release date of October 13th. Anybody seen any ads?

[kpachayagolobka.livejournal.com]

ambrose bierce! ambrose!