I like the Atwood covers. Heh.
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
The Necronomicon made me laugh and laugh.
As did, of course, A Confederacy of Dunces.
Sad to hear about Tony Hillerman.
Confederacy of Dunces got a huge snort out of me.
Quick Poll:
What's your favorite Ray Bradbury for Halloween?
What's your favorite Ray Bradbury for Halloween?
His short story "Homecoming". And Something Wicked This Way Comes, and From Dust Returned.
I always had a soft spot for The Halloween Tree, but it's been ages since I read it.
I'm reading Something Wicked This Way Comes on my commute and it's reminding me how evocative Bradbury's language is, but also how distinctive his style is. He takes some big chances with the figurative language, pulling odd but apt comparisons into his similes and metaphors. He also has a lot of storyteller phrasings, as if he's telling it to you aloud.
Jilli, remember when I did an LJ post at the proto-goth early sixties? I should've added this to the list. It came out in 1962. Same year as We Have Always Lived In the Castle, as well as the American release of Eyes Without a Face. The movie version of The Haunting came out in 1963.
There's a new book out about the golden age of publishing in America (roughly post-war to early eighties) with chapters on all the main publishing houses and their style and their editors.
They have a sidebar on the guy who single handedly created the Gothic Romance sub-genre. He basically asked his mother-in-law why she kept re-reading Rebecca. She said they don't write them like that anymore and he decided that people should write them like that some more. So he used Rebecca and Jane Eyre as his models, and he worked out all the cover tropes and they were a big hit through the early sixties.
Jilli, remember when I did an LJ post at the proto-goth early sixties? I should've added this to the list. It came out in 1962. Same year as We Have Always Lived In the Castle, as well as the American release of Eyes Without a Face. The movie version of The Haunting came out in 1963.
Oh, SWTWC totally belongs on a Goth influences list. I wish someone would do a really good audiobook version of it. (I know there is one, but the snippets I've heard from it don't impress me.)
They have a sidebar on the guy who single handedly created the Gothic Romance sub-genre. He basically asked his mother-in-law why she kept re-reading Rebecca. She said they don't write them like that anymore and he decided that people should write them like that some more. So he used Rebecca and Jane Eyre as his models, and he worked out all the cover tropes and they were a big hit through the early sixties.
That's so cool! I've been getting into Gothic Romances as brain candy fluff books.
screeches into thread: Yearlong Poe Celebration, 2009
also? one of the toll booth operators I passed the other day was reading a book - I asked which one (slow toll) and she said "Twilight!" So me: "twinkly vampires?" Her: Yes! Isn't it wonderful?
I don't think downshifting them from sparkly to twinkly is destructive, per se. But it can't help. And I'll do that all I can.