Thoughts for Thursday - Cool link

This is my final post before my two-week vacation...so I'll leave you with a cool link provided to me by an anonymous friend. Here is a description of what you'll find:

Welcome to the ArcaMax Book Club. We offer the largest collection of free classic books by email. Sign up to as many classic books as you want. For each subscription, you'll receive the full text free by e-mail -- one chapter per day. You'll also get weekly updates of the newest books.

Personally, I am not sure I could read Dracula by email! But for plays, poetry, and short stories, this seems like a viable format. It also is a way to check out classics you're unfamiliar with.

The site has some fun features, too -- forums and quizzes. Take this one to test your knowledge of poetry! (I'm pretty sure I will stink; I've never been good at pulling quotes out of my arse.)

Happy reading in the meantime! See you soon!

Happy Halloween from The Literate Kitten

Today I went to work dressed as a middle-aged disgruntled employee.

Have a boo-tiful day!

Suggestions for Spain reading?

Next week I'll be Spain and Morocco. Not a moment too soon. I feel like a marathon runner on her last lap.

I'm so frazzled I can't even focus on which book I'll take with me for travel reading. So, I thought I'd ask you, my industrious blog readers, for suggestions.

The thing is, the book must be light to carry. (Not light to read necessarily!) I will be packing as little as possible, as I will be taking at least 4 flights during my visit, plus a train ride or car drive.

I ordered Beau Geste, in hopes of it being delivered before I leave. Don't you think that would be an interesting book to read?

Any other ideas? Many thanks! I look forward to posting pix and info about my trip.

Thoughts for Thursday: What's in the news

Hi, everyone, and thanks for hanging in with me. I've experienced a steep learning curve with my new job (which I started Aug. 1), and the fall is when I tend to feel more sluggish. Just to explain the relative paucity of posts.

Today, I'm focusing on tying the news to books.

And, of course, we've all heard about the Southern California wildfires. I know several people who have been affected by the fires, and my sympathies are extended to the thousands who are suffering loss.

For the rest of us who are only experiencing fire primarily through TV, a book that gives you the experience from a smoke-jumper's point of view is Norman MacLean's Young Men and Fire. This is a gem: thoughtful, well-researched (if loosely edited; MacLean died before it was finished), and unforgettable. From Publisher's Weekly:

On Aug. 5, 1949, 16 Forest Service smoke jumpers landed at a fire in remote Mann Gulch, Mont. Within an hour, 13 were dead or irrevocably burned, caught in a "blowup"--a rare explosion of wind and flame. The late Maclean, author of the acclaimed A River Runs Through It , grew up in western Montana and worked for the Forest Service in his youth. He visited the site of the blowup; for the next quarter century, the tragedy haunted him. In 1976 he began a serious study of the fire, one that occupied the last 14 years of his life.

Other books I've read concerning fire:

Fire and Fog, Dianne Day. A detective novel featuring a heroine who surives the 1906 earthquake and fire. I'm not a genre reader, but this one gives a good feel for what it must have been like to have experienced the quake and fire. And a pretty decent story, decently written.

San Francisco is Burning: The Untold Story of the 1906 Earthquake and Fires, Dennis Smith. Firefighter-turned-writer Smith gives some interesting accounts of the famous disaster, though Smith isn't the best writer in the whole world. (Report from Ground Zero was...not a favorite. I'm sure Simon Winchester's Crack in the Edge of the World is equally good if not better -- I haven't read it yet, though.) Still, it's an amazing story no matter how many ways it's told.

Odds & Ends

Hello, just thought I'd take a quick moment to point out some interesting posts I've read:


1. LK got a mention on Austenblog.com! (See Weekend Bookblogging, Oct. 14, 2007.) This is a really great website for all things JANE.

2. Danielle has posted some wonderful observations about The Horla, one of my horror short picks and this month's selection over at A Curious Singularity.

3. I didn't like I Am Legend, but here's an objective, interesting take on the novel from Biblioaddict. (Plus an interview with Matheson!) I guess this novel got under my skin, despite the fact that I personally had issues with it. Can't give up on Matheson yet.

4. Punctuality Rules! Great site, courtesy of Pages Turned.

5. In preparation for my upcoming trip to Spain (less than 3 weeks!!!), I'm reading Barcelona by Robert Hughes. I am planning to write a travel article on my visit, but it seems Hughes has covered just about everything! A little hard going, but great resource for anyone who may be traveling to Barcelona.

Readers Choice Horror Short Stories

Thanks for the great response on horror short stories! Here is the list I have compiled. If I’ve missed anyone, please leave a link or your story choices in the comments. I haven’t decided on which one(s) I will be reading – there are so many good ones…probably The Body Snatcher, plus something by M.R. James, which Eloise from By the Book Piles highly recommends.

Lots of good stuff for next year, too.

Deborah at Book Rage
Don't Look Now, Daphne DuMaurier (Deborah says this story and The Blue Lenses, which was one of my picks, is in the anthology Echoes from the Macabre)
An Unlocked Window, Ethel Lina White
The Jolly Corner, Henry James
The Turn of the Screw (novella), Henry James

Eva at A Striped Armchair, with her comments
The Cask of Amontillado. Edgar Allen Poe. I found this incredibly creepy, and I'm pretty sure it gave me nightmares for quite awhile.
The Birds, Daphne du Maurier. You can tell I didn't read a lot of horror short stories before the R.I.P. II challenge!
The Lovely House, Shirley Jackson. (see above)
Riding the Bullet, Stephen King. I think King is scarier in short story form than novel form, and a lot of the stories in Everything's Eventual were creepy. This one has stayed with me, though.
Snow, Glass, Apples, Neil Gaiman. Oh my gosh-this is easily one of the creepiest stories I've ever read. It actually made the hair on my arms stand up.
The Thing in the Wood, A.S. Byatt. Also a very spooky tale, one that I still remember vividly after six years.

Kailana at The Written World
The Body Snatcher, Robert Louis Stevenson

Kate at Kate’s Book Blog
The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman (Kate also mentioned a novel called The Victorian Chaise-Lounge)

Ex Libris
The Jar, Ray Bradbury

Orange Blossom Goddess at Library Ladder
The Water Ghost of Harrow Hall, John Kendrick Bangs

Snacky Wombat at Minus the Spine
Condemned door or The Bestiary, Julio Cortazar

Eloise by the Book Piles, with her comments
Number 13, MR James. My absolute, number one, favourite ghost story. A hotel guest in room number 12 finds he has a bizarre next door neighbour.
Carmilla, J Sheridan Le Fanu. Seminal vampire story, quite long though for a short story.
The Judge's House, Bram Stoker. A young man rents a house to get some work done but is annoyed by a rat. Scary with a shocking ending. Brilliant.
The Picture in the House, HP Lovecraft. I think this scared me more than any other story has ever done. A young man shelters in a run down house where he finds a valuable book open at a certain picture.
The Strange Case of M Valdemar, Edgar Allen Poe. This is a truly ghastly story, and thought-provoking, as the best Poe stories always are.
The Kit Bag, Algernon Blackwood. Very very creepy. A real hairs-rising-on-the-back-of-the-neck story.
To be Taken with a Grain of Salt, Charles Dickens. A classic tale of retribution from beyond the grave.
The Grey Woman, Elizabeth Gaskell. This is a terrific piece of nail-biting gothic horror as a young woman makes a bad marriage.
The Open Door, Charlotte Riddell. The tale of a young man who decides to solve the mystery of a house where a door just won't stay closed. I enjoyed it immensely. This is in the Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories (as is the Blackwood) which is a very good collection.
The Canterville Ghost, Oscar Wilde. Very funny and quite poignant, as a ghost comes face to face with the modern world.

A Civilized Book Site

Hello, and thanks for your good wishes. I had a chance to sleep off the worst of whatever on Friday.

Just wanted to share this cool site with fellow aficionados of literary travel guides and such: The Little Bookroom.

How can anyone resist a title like the Civilized Shopper's Guide to Florence?

Or notecards fashioned after old romance book jackets?
(Just HAD to include the one to the right!)


Lots of fun, check it out.

Friday Buzz - Neil Gaiman story

Oh, it's Friday and I'm fighting a cold and the week has been stressful. So, what is the best cure? A good story of course!

This is a Neil Gaiman story A Study in Emerald.

What I like is the presentation and how it matches the language. Clever, funny. Yay.

Thanks from BiblioAddict, where I purloined the link.

Everybody have a great weekend!

LK’s Horror Short Story Short Challenge

Welcome!

The goal of this challenge is to give eager readers an easy way to discover new authors, new genres, and the delights of the short story.

Here’s how it works: Below are my picks for Top 10 Horror Short Stories (in no particular order). I use the term “horror” broadly: This list actually encompasses not only true horror stories, but also classics, gothic, science-fiction, and the macabre. Simply pick one that you vow to read sometime during October. (Some even have links to full online text.) This was a difficult list to compile, and by no means is it complete! These are some ones that jolted me enough to leave their mark, even after many years.

Let me know which pick you choose by leaving a comment. Also, let me and other readers know which stories you like that don’t appear on my list. Or leave me a link to a post of your own Top 10. I will post the list of Readers’ Choice mid-October.

I’d also like to know what you thought of any story. You can email comments to me at writerlylife at yahoo dot com.

Happy reading, everybody!

LK’s Horror Short Story List

(Some stories are available as podcasts at Classic Tales. Thanks, Verbivore!)

1. W.W. Jacobs, The Monkey’s Paw. Straightforward but unforgettable horror classic. Be careful what you wish for…


2. Edgar Allen Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher. I was torn between this story and The Cask of Almontillado, which actually is (to me) scarier. But The Fall of the House of Usher is perhaps the first short gothic tale and one of Poe’s great works of craft, characterized by many as a story wherein each and every detail is relevant.

3. Nathaniel Hawthorne, Rappacini’s Daughter. This story is the stewpot of horror tales: smatterings of fantasy mixed with dashes of gothic, simmering with sexual undertones. Toss in a Faustian father and season with plenty of symbology. (Hey, what about a Rappacini's Daughter Bed & Breakfast?) Bon appetit!

4. Shirley Jackson, The Lottery. Often anthologized, this story is considered a masterpiece of the literary short story genre. And it happens to be authentically creepy.

5. Jerome Bixby, It’s a Good Life! I read this in one of Alfred Hitchcock’s anthologies when I was a kid, and I never forgot it. (Too bad Haley Joel Osment is all grown up. He would have made a perfect Anthony!)

6. Philip K. Dick, We Can Remember It for You Wholesale. This tale gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “Is it live, or is it Memorex?” (The film Total Recall was based on this work.) I’m not a sci-fi buff, but Philip K. Dick is a master storyteller, particularly in the difficult arena of short science fiction. This particular story is sometimes categorized as a novella, rather than a short story – I’m including it here nevertheless because Dick simply must be read.

7. Guy de Maupassant, The Horla. For the truly twisted, check out this author, who has written a whole slew of fantastic and often macabre tales. This one happens to be a psychological tour-de-force about madness.

8. Isak Dinesen, The Monkey. This peculiar yet brilliant story of a prioress matchmaker is a study on the nature of change. From the collection Seven Gothic Tales. Here's a quote from the story: "beware … of people who have in the course of their lives neither taken part in an orgy nor gone through the experience of childbirth, for they are dangerous people..." Now, how can you NOT read this?

9. Daphne du Maurier, The Blue Lenses. I read this as a child, and it really got to me. Simple, well-crafted, utterly terrifying and quite satisfying story about the recuperation of a woman who has had eye surgery. This story is included in a 1959 paperback called The Breaking Point (republished in 1970). I couldn’t find text online, so I will mention another du Maurier story that you might be able to find more easily. It’s called Don’t Look Now, and although I haven’t read it, Danielle of A Work in Progress raved over it, so I’m sure by her recommendation, it’s a fine example of du Maurier’s work.

10. Washington Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I confess, I have a weakness for this descriptive, atmospheric story and its beleaguered hero, Ichabod Crane. More folktale than horror story, this really captures the essence of early America, with its tug-o-war between civilization and wilderness.

RIP Challenge #3 - I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

Atmosphere: Riddled with holes
Chill factor: Tepid
I hate to dump on a novel so many sci-fi/horror readers respect. But I didn't much care for this one.

To sum up the plot, a lone survivor of a plague and vampire infestation tries to...well, survive.

On the plus side, that is a somewhat intriguing plot. The character also does some investigative work on what makes vampires tick, and the resulting information is imaginative.

That's about it for the plus side.

On the minus side: Well, where do I begin? First of all, the survivor just happens to be a white adult WASP male, Robert Neville. And he happens not to be incredibly likable, at least for this reader. This is unfortunate, since we are pretty much in his head for the entire journey. Neville is portrayed in two dimensions: he's a prototypical male human and he's intelligent. Oh, and he really hates the smell of garlic. But, does he develop empathy for the vampires he kills (some of whom happen to be acquaintances)? Sort of. Does his character improve with the isolation he endures? Naw. Does he find some sort of redemption in his suffering or that of the vampires? Apparently not.

Supposedly the "grim irony" of the novel is when a new breed of human -- vampires who develop a resistance to the things that ordinarily kill vampires -- decide that he's the outsider and must be annihilated. Which would be a ironic and satsifying if the book had built up to that moment; in other words, if we would have seen Neville's character change from fright to a sort of empathy that is a saving grace of humanity, to a desire to help the poor creatures...But the author doesn't do that. Instead he resorts to keeping his hero trapped in his male sexuality and self-pity. I mean, what does the fool do with all of the solitude and time??? Why was there relatively little soul-searching and philosophical musing (Thoreau he is not)? Why didn't he try building "safehouses" around to extend his perimeter? Why didn't he pursue a cure sooner? And why did the only person with any empathy turn out to be a woman who was one of the new species (and what was her motive, other than what the author implied that Neville was a prototype WASP male, therefore a "good catch")? Okay, that's harsh. But, Neville certainly didn't woo Ruth (a ham-handed Biblical name) with his charm and character. And he supposedly is smart enough to learn about biology and chemistry and how to fix a generator, but he couldn't figure out Ruth was a spy? I mean, I saw that coming from a dozen pages away. Neville even has a few "Why didn't I think of that sooner?" moments to explain plot gaps, which is a really lazy device on Matheson's part.

Perhaps even all of this could have been redeemed if there was a gloriously written sentence or well-turned phrase or two. Alas, not a one.

This is why I tend to stay away from the genre stuff. I simply require something other than plot from my reading. Or, at least, if a plot has to carry the whole shebang, it better not have any damned holes in it.

I'm not giving up on Matheson yet. I will see what his novella Hell House has in store.

RIP Challenge #2 – Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Atmosphere: Austen-tacious

Chill factor: Tickles the funnybone

Possibly this novel is Jane Austen at her worst. Yet, Jane Austen at her worst is quite better than most authors at their peak. Her subtlety, craft and observations are nonpareiled.

Northanger Abbey is a parody on many levels: the touted gentility of British gentry is exposed as greedy and false, living life as a fiction is exposed as ridiculous, attributing our own motives to others is exposed as naïve at best and dangerous at worst. But the parody that concerns the RIP Challenge, of course, is the parody of Gothic literature.

This element didn’t start kicking in until book 2, when Catherine Morland, the novel’s heroine, is invited to Northanger Abbey. Having read Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, Catherine eagerly awaits her visit to what she imagines is a place full of mystery and adventure. At this point, Jane Austen really hits her stride.

During the ride to Northanger Abbey, the owner’s son (and her romantic interest), Henry Tilney plays on Catherine’s romantic notions with a riotous parody of the Gothic novel, virtually a play-by-play account of a heroine’s stay in a Gothic castle. Here is an excerpt:

“Nothing further to alarm perhaps may occur the first night. After surmounting your unconquerable horror of the bed, you will retire to rest, and get a few hours' unquiet slumber. But on the second, or at farthest the third night after your arrival, you will probably have a violent storm. Peals of thunder so loud as to seem to shake the edifice to its foundation will roll round the neighbouring mountains -- and during the frightful gusts of wind which accompany it, you will probably think you discern (for your lamp is not extinguished) one part of the hanging more violently agitated than the rest. Unable of course to repress your curiosity in so favourable a moment for indulging it, you will instantly arise, and throwing your dressing-gown around you, proceed to examine this mystery. After a very short search, you will discover a division in the tapestry so artfully constructed as to defy the minutest inspection, and on opening it, a door will immediately appear -- which door, being only secured by massy bars and a padlock, you will, after a few efforts, succeed in opening -- and, with your lamp in your hand, will pass through it into a small vaulted room."

This build-up is followed by a disappointing first glimpse of Northanger Abbey:

As they drew near the end of their journey, her impatience for a sight of the abbey--for some time suspended by his conversation on subjects very different--returned in full force, and every bend in the road was expected with solemn awe to afford a glimpse of its massy walls of grey stone, rising amidst a grove of ancient oaks, with the last beams of the sun playing in beautiful splendour on its high Gothic windows. But so low did the building stand, that she found herself passing through the great gates of the lodge into the very grounds of Northanger, without having discerned even an antique chimney.

This is funny stuff. Austen goes on and on with the anticipation and disappointment, the ideals and the stripping of those ideals for the remainder of the novel. I was startled at the denouement of this novel – which I won’t spoil for you here – but it really was an Austen coup, a perfect intersection of her main themes of reality versus fiction, gentility versus greed.

Of course, it ends in typical Austen fashion, rather abruptly and neatly, with everyone happily married. But, after all, you're on the Jane Train.

Thoughts for Thursday - Chugging

You know, I am pretty brain dead at this point, and all I can say is: Thank GOD once again for RIP Challenge! It's such a fun activity to look forward to this time of year. I'm midway through Northanger Abbey (waiting for the Gothic to kick in), and I'm still looking for my copy of I Am Legend. In between I snuck in Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, which, like Dracula, is so different from many cinematic adaptations I've seen that it was quite a satisfying literary discovery.

Events reminder!

Take the Horror Short Story Short Challenge (see post above) & while you're at it, why not write one? Carl V. is hosting the Tiny Creepy Story contest over at Stainless Steel Droppings.

RIP Challenge - #1: Dracula by Bram Stoker

Atmosphere: Extreme Goth

Chill factor: Sufficiently spine-tingling

I've never been a fan of Dracula; somehow, the image of him, with his Brillantined-hair, cape, and bad manicure, appealed far less than Mary Shelley's creature with its zipperneck, green complexion, and droopy eyes.

But, then, that just goes to show how my ideas of these famous monsters was influenced by Hollywood.

Reading Bram Stoker's version has been a revelation: I get it!

Let's get the mechanics out of the way, and say that old Bram's plot was tight as rigor mortis. His prose goes purple now and again, and the dialog is frequently overwrought and stilted. But you know what? It works!

And I think that is because Stoker had gotten such a handle on this character. Count Dracula is the archetype of all time. And, with Stoker's skillful plotting, he sucks the most out of it (bad pun intended). Let's take a look at a few broad interpretations that can be applied to this story:

1) Count Dracula represents counter forces (Eastern Europe versus Western Europe) that threaten the stability of civilization.

2) Dracula is the "other," the "dark force," symbolic of foreigners, the underclass, the physically or socially repressed.

3) Dracula is a morality tale, good versus evil.

What gripped me throughout was, of course, the subliminal notion of sex. Dracula represents not only the repressed sexuality of the heros in the tale, but also the fear/threat of the sexual female. Here's some insight from Carol A. Senf, 'Dracula: The Unseen Face in the Mirror':

'On the surface the novel appears to be a mythic re-enactment of the opposition between Good and Evil because the narrators attribute their pursuit and ultimate defeat of Dracula to a high moral purpose ... Yet, in spite of the narrators' moral language, Stoker reveals that Dracula is primarily a sexual threat, a missionary of desire whose only true kingdom will be the human body. ... Neither a thief, rapist, nor an overtly political threat, Dracula is dangerous because he expresses his contempt for authority in the most individualistic of ways - through his sexuality. In fact his thirst for blood and the manner in which he satisfies his thirst can be interpreted as sexual desire which fails to observe any of society's attempts to control it - prohibitions against polygamy, promiscuity, and homosexuality.'

Definitely a story that transcends mores of any particular time. I'm very very glad I read it, and now I'm interested to read how other authors handle this tale -- and which interpretations they choose to emphasize. I may swap out my choice of Lisey's Story with King's Salems' Lot or maybe an Anne Rice novel. I will be checking out Carl V.'s recommendations, as well as what people are reading over at RIP-ing Yarns.

Reminder: October 1 is the start of the Horror Short Story Short Challenge! I'll list my Top 10 picks on this site. Just choose one from my list that you vow to read. Leave the name(s) of horror short stories you like that weren't on the list, or post your own top 10 and leave me a link. I'll compile all the readers' lists and post the reader choices mid-October. Hope you'll join in!

What Knopf editors had to say

Nice essay on the publishing biz in the NY Times. Check out what Knopf editors had to say about some works that passed through their hands:

The rejection files, which run from the 1940s through the 1970s, include dismissive verdicts on the likes of Jorge Luis Borges (“utterly untranslatable”), Isaac Bashevis Singer (“It’s Poland and the rich Jews again”), Anaïs Nin (“There is no commercial advantage in acquiring her, and, in my opinion, no artistic”), Sylvia Plath (“There certainly isn’t enough genuine talent for us to take notice”) and Jack Kerouac (“His frenetic and scrambling prose perfectly express the feverish travels of the Beat Generation. But is that enough? I don’t think so”). In a two-year stretch beginning in 1955, Knopf turned down manuscripts by Jean-Paul Sartre, Mordecai Richler, and the historians A. J. P. Taylor and Barbara Tuchman, not to mention Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita” (too racy) and James Baldwin’s “Giovanni’s Room” (“hopelessly bad”).

But, before all you writers get too excited, the essayist also had this to say:

Actually, darts like these turned up less frequently than I expected. Even in the rejection files, where negativity reigned, the great bulk of the reader’s reports seemed fair-minded and persuasive. Put simply, a rejected manuscript usually appeared to deserve its fate.

What is most telling, I think, is that the publisher's eye is so buggedly fixed on the current market, which is a fickle, ever-changing beast.

Dracula & Frankenstein: Puritan nightmares?

I'm slowly making my way through Bram Stoker's Dracula. Two things occurred to me:

First: Aren't Dracula and Frankenstein the absolutely perfect monsters for the Puritans -- and by extension, the American psyche? I mean, monsters representing sex and technology. I suppose the Victorians could be said to be struggling with these mighty issues as well. I don't think it's coincidence that the two emerged in literature at about the same time.

Here's something interesting I found about the Dracula/Frankenstein link:

In the summer of 1816, Lord Byron and his doctor, John Polidori, were residing at the Villa Diodati where they were visited by Percy Shelley, Mary Godwin (who would soon become Mary Shelley) and Claire Claremont. One evening, after a collective reading of ghost stories, Byron suggested that each member of the party write a story of their own. Two tales that changed the face of Gothic fiction were inspired by this challenge. Mary Shelley began Frankenstein, while Byron wrote a fragment about a nobleman named Augustus Darvell who contrives to return from the dead. Later that year, Polidori used his employer’s unfinished work as the basis of a novella: Lord Ruthven -- who bears an intentional resemblance to the notorious Lord Byron -- is a jaded, charismatic nobleman who must feed upon the blood of the living in order to continue his unnatural existence. Polidori’s creation became the prototype for most subsequent literary vampires, ranging from Count Dracula to Lestat.

Here's another interesting tidbit:
In the meantime, another English author had taken the vampire theme to a new height--or length, at least--in his 800-page novel entitled Varney the Vampire or The Feast of Blood (1847), published anonymously but now reliably attributed to James Malcolm Rhymer (1814-1881), a prolific writer of horror and adventure fiction. But a more serious predecessor of Stoker was the Irish author, J. Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873), whose 1872 Carmilla focused with great insight on the psychology and shifting emotions of his characters, and used familiar settings as well as the devices of gothic fiction. Stoker, who reviewed drama for the Le Fanu's Dublin Evening Mail, is quite likely to have encountered Carmilla. A scholar who has written extensively on Dracula and related horror fiction places Le Fanu in a pivotal position in the evolution of a whole genre: "Le Fanu's interest in the processes of the mind opened the way for the scary psychological fiction that came after him: Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), Stoker's Dracula (1897), and Henry James's The Turn of the Screw (1898)" (Leonard Wolf, Dracula: The Connoisseurs' Guide, New York, 1997, p.111).

The second thought that surfaced in my pea-brain relates to the issue of scariness. Dorothy W. over at Books and Bikes brought this up when she read Dracula, and it stuck with me. Now, I happened to think Stoker's description of Dracula extremely vivid and sufficiently spine-chilling. Much more so than Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. (I really am at a loss to figure out how the book version was translated into the screen version. The two seem so different.)

But, to concur with Dorothy W., Dracula (so far) isn't all that scary. It's fun to read, but it all seems so tame. Which got me to thinking: Not many books these days scare me, except ones about war and Bush. What does it take to scare readers in this 21st century, full of lights and sounds and gadgets that hunt down ghosts in the rafters? When we have the full-gore power of TV and movie images and switch-flipping light and sound..can books really force us enough into our imagination for a good scare? What do you think readers? Are we too jaded and plugged in to be scared of things that go bump in the night?

The mother lode

Since I haven't finished any books to discuss, time for a little navel-gazing.

I have lucked upon the mother lode of books: The Friends of Berkeley Public Library Bookstore.

They have the most fabulous free cart, from which I've filched:
Birds of America, Lorrie Moore
On Beauty, Zadie Smith
Proust, the Early Years, George Painter
Wilderness Tips, Margaret Atwood
George Sand, A Biography, Curtis Cate

And this is what I've found on their shelf of 3-for-$1 books:
Miss Alcott of Concord, Marjorie Alcott Worthington
9/11 Commission Report
Best Short Stories of The New Yorker (1922-1940)
Alfred Hitchock's Stories My Mother Never Told Me

I try not to get too greedy, selecting books I really want to read or ones that are out-of-print or hard to come by. I plan on returning as many of the free books as I can, once I've read them. Otherwise, my apartment floors will start sagging under the weight!

My wish for all you readers out there is that you find your own mother lode nearby!

Books for the 6th anniversary of 9/11

This is borrowed from Dan Froomkin:

New York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani reviews Jack Goldsmith's new book, "The Terror Presidency."

"The portrait of the Bush administration that Mr. Goldsmith -- who resigned from the Office of Legal Counsel in June 2004, only nine months after assuming the post -- draws in this book is a devastating one. It is a portrait of a highly insular White House obsessively focused on expanding presidential power and loathe to consult with Congress, a White House that frequently made up its mind about a course of action before consulting with experts, a White House that sidelined Congress in its policymaking and willfully pursued a 'go-it-alone approach' based on 'minimal deliberation, unilateral action, and legalistic defense.'
"Similar portraits, of course, have been drawn by reporters and other former administration insiders, but Mr. Goldsmith's account stands out by virtue that he was privy to internal White House debates about explosive matters like secret surveillance, coercive interrogation and the detention and trial of enemy combatants. It is also distinguished by Mr. Goldsmith's writing from the point of view of a conservative who shared many of the Bush White House's objectives. . . . But he found himself alarmed by the Bush White House's obsession with expanding presidential power, its arrogant unilateralism and its willingness to use what he regarded as careless and overly expansive legal arguments in an effort to buttress its policies."

In an excerpt from his book on Slate, Goldsmith writes: "Why did the administration so often assert presidential power in ways that seemed unnecessary and politically self-defeating? The answer, I believe, is that the administration's conception of presidential power had a kind of theological significance that often trumped political consequences. . . .
"But the Bush administration's strategy is guaranteed not to work, and is certain to destroy trust altogether. When an administration makes little attempt to work with the other institutions of our government and makes it a public priority to emphasize that its aim is to expand its power, Congress, the courts, and the public listen carefully, and worry."
Or at least they should.

Salon's Rob Patterson talks to Robert Draper about his new Bush book, "Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush." Says Draper: "A lot of Americans and people all over the world are taught to just say, 'I'm sorry I screwed up. I've learned from my mistakes, and I will try to do better.' For all of the other aspects of this president that I think are very emotionally honest that I witnessed, that was one aspect that is not -- his difficulty to own up to his mistakes. I think in a way he's like a baseball umpire who feels like if you call a ball a strike, you've got to stick to that. Otherwise people will question you. They will think that your equivocation is a sign of a lack of certainty. . . .

"I think where the rubber meets the road there is that Bush, for all of his talk about him being so comfortable in his own skin, possesses insecurities like the rest of us. And Bush, due to his insecurities, really doesn't like to be challenged. . . .

"This is a guy who really possesses a lot of insecurities, and I think that's why he evinces this sort of incuriosity. There are only certain kinds of challenges that he can deal with. What is admirable about Bush is also part of his insecurity. I think because his insecurity drives him to want to be relevant and want to do big things, he's willing to throw the ball long. And I think that because of that, history is not going to judge this man with indifference. They are not going to judge him as Franklin Pierce. He is either going to go down in history as a disastrous flop or a really monumental president."

Salon also has an excerpt from John W. Dean's new Bush book: "Broken Government."

RIP Challenge is here!

This blog appears to have fallen on some hard times. I've sorely neglected posting because I've got an Everest-steep learning curve at my new job.

However, I must acknowledge the beginning of Carl V.'s RIP Challenge. This was great fun last year, and this year's challenge promises to be a second terrific chance at getting your thrills fix as the autumn chills set in.

I'm opting for the Wimp Option, also known as Peril the First: Read four books of any length, from any subgenre of scary stories that you choose.

My picks for 2007:

1. Gothic fiction: Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey
2. Classic fiction: Dracula, Bram Stoker
3. Contemporary horror: Lisey’s Story, Stephen King
4. Mystery/horror: Alfred Hitchcock presents Stories My Mother Never Told Me

I'm still going to host in October the Horror Short Story Short Challenge...stay tuned...

Grace Paley (1922-2007)

A literary light is extinguished.

If you haven't read Grace Paley, I recommend starting with Enormous Changes at the Last Minute. One of the best collection of short stories in the last half of the 20th century.

Effing Blogger

Darn, I used a new template and lost all my sidebars, including all of my reading accomplishments for this year.

Damn you, Blogger!