Month: September 2016
Halloween Book Bingo 2016: Eighth Update – TRIPLE BINGO (Nos. 3-5)!
The Books: Bingo No. 3: Witches – Terry Pratchett / Neil Gaiman: Good Omens Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s hilarious end-of-the-world spoof: Armageddon as foretold in the nice and accurate predictions of one Agnes Nutter, witch. (Time of Armageddon: Next Saturday. Place: Tadfield, Oxfordshire.) Starring one demon named CrawlyCrowley (who’s got just about enough […]
Read MoreDaphne Du Maurier: Jamaica Inn
17 year old Mary has made a deathbed-side promise to her mother to go and live with her aunt and uncle Patience and Joss after her mother has died. So she exchanges the friendly South Cornwall farming town where she has grown up for Uncle Joss’s Jamaica Inn on the Bodmin Moor, which couldn’t possibly […]
Read MoreAgatha Christie: And Then There Were None
Ten people are invited to an island off the Devon coast by a Mr. and Mrs. U.N. Owen, who however never make an appearance themselves. One by one, the invitees meet their death; not before, however, it is revealed that they themselves all have someone else’s death on their hands in turn and have gotten […]
Read MoreGaston Leroux: Le mystère de la chambre jaune (The Mystery of the Yellow Room)
This book is billed as the first-ever locked room mystery, which isn’t entirely correct, as by the time it was published (1907), there already were several very well-known mysteries relying on the same feature (Edgar Allan Poe’s Murders in the Rue Morgue, as well as Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sign of Four and The Speckled Band), […]
Read MoreFrances & Richard Lockridge: The Norths Meet Murder
A murder investigation occurring in New York City’s martini- and cocktail-guzzling Greenwich Village “beautiful people” set, wherein a black cat named Pete (the titular Mr. and Mrs. North’s pet, who seems to be modelled on the authors’ own cat) is a witness to the murder and is ultimately also (unwittingly) instrumental in bringing the murderer […]
Read MoreOscar Wilde: The Canterville Ghost
One of the stories that Oscar Wilde wrote for his own children; a haunted castle story as only he could have devised it – or on second thought, in light of some of my other Halloween Bingo reads, actually as Oscar Wilde, Terry Pratchett or Neil Gaiman could have devised it: the sense of humor […]
Read MoreTerry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman: Good Omens
Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s hilarious end-of-the-world spoof: Armageddon as foretold in the nice and accurate predictions of one Agnes Nutter, witch. (Time of Armageddon: Next Saturday. Place: Tadfield, Oxfordshire.) Starring one demon named CrawlyCrowley (who’s got just about enough of a spark of goodness inside him to be congenial company to one particular angel), one […]
Read MoreSalvador Dali’s Surreal Illustrations of Alice in Wonderland
Reblogged from: learn by going Source: flavorwire.com/589586/salvador-dalis-surreal-illustrations-of-alice-in-wonderland Amazing. 150th anniversary edition cover The Pool of Tears The Caucus Race and a Long Tale Advice from a Caterpillar The Lobster’s Quadrille Mad Tea Party The Queen’s Croquet Ground Down the Rabbit Hole Alice’s Evidence Original post: ThemisAthena.booklikes.com/post/1469419/salvador-dali-s-surreal-illustrations-of-alice-in-wonderland
Read MoreLove the smell of old books? Kristen Twardowski can tell you why.
Reblogged from: Audio Book Junkie Take a look at “Subliminally Stoking A Hunger : The Scent Of A Boook” from Kristen Twardowski on WordPress if you want to know the chemistry behind the smell of books and why it reminds you of good things. Original post: ThemisAthena.booklikes.com/post/1469387/love-the-smell-of-old-books-kristen-twardowski-can-tell-you-why
Read MoreWashington Irving: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
The classic Halloween (and pumpkin) story … need I say anything about it at all?! This was a reread (albeit a bit unseasonable, in what was officially declared the warmest September of record hereabouts), and just as enjoyable as ever! Poor Ichabold Crane …
Read MoreHalloween Book Bingo 2016: Seventh Update — BINGO No. 2!
The Books: Vampires vs. Werewolves – Terry Pratchett: Feet of Clay (Discworld #19) Part of the Night Watch subseries and officially now one of my favorite non-Witches Pratchett novels. And I also have a new favorite non-Witches Discworld character: the Night Watch’s resident female werewolf Constable Angua, who seriously kicks a$$ (or, um, prods […]
Read MoreE.T.A. Hoffmann: Der Sandmann (The Sandman)
The first of three Tales of Hoffmann that were (partially) used in the libretto of Jacques Offenbach’s opera of that name; one of the works that cemented Hoffmann’s rank among the progenitors of the horror genre and also one of the (pseudo-)scientific narratives that, over 100 years later, would inspire the steampunk genre: The story […]
Read MoreArthur Conan Doyle: The Sussex Vampire
Sherlock Holmes receives an urgent request for help and advice from a former acquaintance of Dr. Watson’s, who, having recently returned from an extended business-related stay in Peru (from where he has also imported his new wife) has recently been shocked into believing he has married a vampire, upon finding his wife sucking the neck […]
Read MoreTerry Pratchett: Feet of Clay
Part of the Night Watch subseries and officially now one of my favorite non-Witches Pratchett novels. And I also have a new favorite non-Witches Discworld character: the Night Watch’s resident female werewolf Constable Angua, who seriously kicks a$$ (or, um, prods bottom, as Sam Vimes would have it). The members of the Watch have their […]
Read MoreNew Agatha Christie stamps deliver hidden clues | Books | The Guardian
Source: New Agatha Christie stamps deliver hidden clues | Books | The Guardian Photographs: Royal Mail/PA Alison Flood Thu 15 Sep 2016 13.19 BST Little grey cells are set to be exercised up and down the country after the Royal Mail announced it would be releasing a series of Agatha Christie stamps packed with “hidden secrets” […]
Read MoreHalloween Book Bingo 2016: Sixth Update
Finished – Update 6: Locked Room Mystery – Gaston Leroux: Le mystère de la chambre jaune (The Mystery of the Yellow Room) Currently Reading: Magical Realism – Isabel Allende: La casa de los espíritus (The House of the Spirits) Vampires vs. Werewolves – Terry Pratchett: Feet of Clay (Night Watch novel; female […]
Read MoreHalloween Book Bingo 2016: Fifth Update
Finished – Update 5: Scary Women (Authors) – Daphne Du Maurier: Jamaica Inn Classic Horror – E.T.A. Hoffmann: Der Sandmann (The Sandman) Currently Reading: Locked Room Mystery – Gaston Leroux: Le mystère de la chambre jaune (The Mystery of the Yellow Room) Magical Realism – Isabel Allende: La casa de los espíritus […]
Read MoreShirley Jackson: The Lottery
One of Jackson’s greatest masterpieces, the terrifying story of an annual lottery (by Jackson’s own account, set in her Vermont hometown, though the location is not actually named), which seems to begin as just another small town event, but is slowly and inexorably revealed to be a drawing for the victim of a ritualistic stoning. […]
Read MoreE.T.A. Hoffmann: Das Fräulein von Scuderi (Mademoiselle de Scuderi)
A spooky mystery set in the 1680s, in the Paris of Louis XIV. Mlle. de Scuderi – an elderly gentlewoman who is in the confidence of the king and his maitresse, Madame de Maintenon – gets involved, very much against her own will, in the efforts to clear up a string of brutal robbery-murders, as […]
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