Had a couple of plane flights over the weekend and managed to knock down a trio of books:

1974, Red Riding Book 1, by David Peace – A truly stupendous crime novel about the north of England in the 70s, serial killers, and a corrupt society. Absolutely terrific.

Fordlandia, by Greg Grandin – An interesting study in the failure of Henry Ford to create the kind of world that he idealized in Brazil in the early part of the 20th century. Drags in places, but overall interesting.

Heart-Shaped Box, by Joe Hill – I was disappointed by this. Some sections and scenes were good, but overall, nothing felt as new or exciting here as its clippings would have indicated.

Sam

Cote D'Azur: Inventing the French Riviera by Mary Blume. A nice account of the seedy invention of France's Sin City. Late.
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I mean the concept behind the zombies, the birdlike hivemind. I liked that. The ending was not that great, I agree and I'm not sure I like his protagonist .

A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East by David Fromkin. This is touted as a great foundation for understanding how that tumultuous region came to its present form. Late.
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Red star
 

Just finishing Imperium by Ryszard Kapuściński , and when finished im gonna read Gulag by Anne Applebaum ( have read it before, but its over 1000 pages with names, places and years - Kinda like reading Silmarillion :eek: )
Dont know why, but my fascination toward soviet/post soviet is guiding me in my choice of books. Lots of cozy stories then.. eh? :D

The First and the Last by John Galsworthy.

Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin

"Lisey's Story" by Stephen King

blood born by Linda Howard and Linda Jones....Only a couple chapters in so far the kids and man gave it to me for the bday!

I'm finally getting around to reading Under the Dome. I bought it at release so it has been rotting in my 'to be read' pile for a fair while.

The King in Yellow, by Robert Chambers – Fairly purple prose here and a lot of “it was all a dream!” endings, but Chambers clearly was a huge influence on Lovecraft. Interesting to trace those ideas and tropes to this book.

Sam

Reading Abe Lincoln Vampire Hunter right now. its a fun read so far

If you like monster situations involving Abe Lincoln, read the Magazine of Bizarro Fiction#3, featuring my story Remancipator that has a zombie Lincoln advantage that can only be stopped by a descendant of John Wilkes Booth and a badass samurai Marilyn Monroe.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson – I’m only about 15% of the way in, but this – don’t know if this is dangerous to say – is kind of dreadful. The writing’s terrible so far. I’m hoping that when the mystery really cranks up it gets better.

Sam

Party Monster (or, originally, Disco Bloodbath) by James St. James.

My Bro had me watch the movie. I loved it!

I'm kinda reading REALMS OF FANTASY. By Malcom Edwards and Robert Holdstock. It's like a collection of things and talking about everything ranging from medieval times to the Future, and also talk about things like the hobbit and such. It's from 1983..ooooooooh ahhhhhhhhhhh

Dark - A Horror Anthology

Including a short story by HDC's own Sean Keller!

From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life by Jacques Barzun. So far a wonderful account of the cultural life and death of the greatest culture of the day.
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Sounds cool. I'll keep my eyes open for a second hand copy. Right now I'm reading THE CALL OF CTHULHU AND OTHER WEIRD STORIES by H.P. Lovecraft, edited by S.T. Joshi. Beautifully annotated with a bio-intro as fascinating as any of the weird tales within, Joshi seems like the man to go to for all things Lovecraftian, which I suppose is why Penguin Books did just that. Some really creepy stuff here. One story, "The Picture In The House" should be saved (and savored) for a stormy night in late October.

A Million Versions of right- Reccommended by Doc and suitably screwing with my mind. I can honestly say I have never read anything so warped and odd and at the same time endearing x
:cool:

Finished DANSE MACABRE by Stephen King. This is not a definitive examination of the horror field but a deferential nod by someone who's spent most of his life adjusting it to become one of today's foremost practitioners. The chapter on horror fiction is a must read.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larrson - Finally finished this. The mystery was very good, very engrossing, but the prose was not too good and I couldn't get much into the characters. I won't read his other two books.

Sam

Just finishing up Three Days of the Condor, by James Grady.

Read two short stories by Saki: The Schartz-Metterklume Method, and The Open Window. Great stuff.

Clive Barkers Books of Blood. Great stories. Better author than moviemaker.....besides hellraiser.
Good call on Saki, think i might see what i can find on amazon.

Patient Zero

I've gotta read that one sometime.

Achelon Ranch- by Doc.
Loving it! Wierdly wonderful and I love the way that the lines between reality and fantasy/ fiction and the real world are blurred.
Bloody brilliant, but think it will warrant a couple of readings.:cool:

Wow, thanks!

No probs- it wonderfully surreal and somehow works well with my brain having just finished A Million Versions of Right. I seem to be in the right mind set to read it. I think Bernard is cute and want to know more about Clyde.

My only Criticism-and its really not a slight agsainst you, is that Amazon does not seem to promote new or innnovative authors and although I read your profile on there, I was dissapointed that the blog about your books was limited and there were no reviews. Bugger, So I geve you 5 stars to start you off! Didn't write a review- but will do when I have finished the book. Is this the case on Amazon.com? Or is it just the UK web site that seems slightly predjudiced against independant or small publishing houses and their authors?

Here are some reviews on Amazon from Doc's first published book:

http://www.amazon.com/Murderland-Par...6225700&sr=1-1

Brilliant- thanks for that. I will definitely be tracking down the Murderland books next x

Amazon doesn't really do promotion for small presses. There isn't much money in it for them. I should probably bring up some of the reviews of these books. Thank you for the suggestion. I really have no clue what to do about the Amazon blog. The no promotions thing is really just the tip of the iceberg. The prejudice we have to deal with goes way beyond that. I held a copy of my book in my hand, a book that was on shelves at a Borders about three miles away and had a Barnes and Noble employee tell me it did not exist. I had a friend who was told by a Borders district manager to "stay away from vanity presses" when he tried to get his book, published by Eraserhead, a press whose books have gotten blurbs from people ranging from Warren Ellis to Lloyd Kaufman, on the shelves. Everything we do we have do for ourselves and in spite of the ignorance and myopia of booksellers.

Thanks, Lee!

Does your book have an ISBN number? That would probably make it exist for the corporate book chains.

Linwood Barclay "No time for goodbye"

Yes, but I showed her the ISBN, but she wasn't willing to look it up in the system.

1977 and 1980, by David Peace - The novels continuing Peace's excellent North of England noir series. The plots are very similar, but it seems to me that Peace is making a point about the recurrence of patterns in the world. Dark, ugly, scary stuff here - recommended to anyone who likes hard-edged noir.

Talking with Serial Killers, by Christopher Berry-Dee - A sloppy, disappointing book. Mixes serial killers with other kinds of killers, changes quotes to British idiom (what other quotes have been changed then?), and makes a ton of copyediting mistakes, including crucial errors of fact. Some interesting quotes, but not a great book.

Sam

I'm in the middle of A Choir of Ill Children by Tom Piccirilli. An awesomely weird Southern Gothic that's well worth looking into. I'd also like to put in a recommendation for Gina Ranalli's House of Fallen Trees. Like a contemporary and more macabre treatment of Shirley Jackson.

"The Outsider" by H.P. Lovecraft, another creepy gem from the Penguin trove THE CALL OF CTHULHU AND OTHER WEIRD STORIES edited by S.T. Joshi. If IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE can be viewed as the true pilot for THE TWILIGHT ZONE, then "The Outsider" would feel right at home in the premiere issue of TALES FROM THE CRYPT, it has that certain slant of bite. Now I'm breezing through FRANK R. PAUL: THE FATHER OF SCIENCE FICTION ART. Beautiful, stunning, mind-blowing.