Day: September 10, 2016
Shirley 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. […]
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E.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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Halloween Book Bingo 2016: Fourth Update — BINGO!!
The Books: Read by Candlelight or Flashlight – E.T.A. Hoffmann: Das Fräulein von Scuderi (Mademoiselle de Scuderi) (read by flashlight, in bed) 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 […]
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Dashiell Hammett: The Dain Curse
Hammett’s second novel; one of his “Continental Op” stories, concerning the (alleged) curse besetting a young San Francisco heiress who sees all persons close to her die a violent death within a very short space of time. A classic noir tale, though the damsel in distress is actually not so much “damsel” as in genuine […]
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Henry James: The Turn of the Screw
A perfectly-timed, profoundly unnerving fireside tale of a young governess’s experiences on her very first job, guarding two children – a boy of ten and a girl of eight – who appear charming and innocent initially, but are slowly and bit by bit revealed to be possessed by the evils spirits of their former governess […]
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Agatha Christie: Hallowe’en Party
One of Christie’s final Poirot novels, and one of the few books that stand out favorably among her final books overall. There is the odd passage here and there where Christie reveals that she really was not – nor did she seem to want to be – in touch with the England of the 1960s, […]
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