RenoVous

  From the collection, A Warning to the Curious, I finished this story yesterday. And it actually spooked me. The ones before it were subtle hauntings, told as stories heard from someone else, of some perceived curse or disruption of a spirit. But this one contained a true horror trying to hide itself within a ghost story. I still shudder to think of it. So what have you been reading?

 I'm reading a collection, anyway. A Warning to the Curious . Mine is not the original (1925) edition though, and some of the stories are different. "The Haunted Doll's House" is missing, for one thing. "Canon Alberic's Scrap-book" was originally included in Ghost Stories of Antiquary, published in 1904. My version was released in 1987, and seems to be a combined collection. A complete set would have all 34 ghost stories. Collected What have you been reading??

  Final thoughts on Much Ado About Nothing . For establishing the "enemies to lovers" rom-com trope, there wasn't much actual romance....Benedick and Beatrice clearly have a rapport, but they admit in the end that there's no love.  Pushed together and willing to accept each other, really.  And then there's Hero, resigned to whomever apparently. But it was funny.  Dogberry is definitely the comedic relief amidst the bit of drama.   "I am a wise fellow and, which is more, an officer and, which is more, a householder and, which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any in Messina." I would have liked more closure with Don John.  I know he's a bitter bastard and wanted to cause trouble for his brother, but Hero didn't deserve that, and I'm curious what his punishment would be.  Claudio's footman, perhaps. *** So now I'm onto the next read, maybe this Stephen King I picked up - or, yesterday Guy de Maupassant came up again.  He's writ...

  Published on this day in 1843. I've seen many versions, from movies to stage, but I've never actually read it. Online Source

  I finished Beauty and the Beast and decided to run with Disney. Last night I finished The Little Mermaid. It wasn't as horrific an ending as I thought, she didn't just die with a broken heart, she elevated to the sky.  Not sure what's next though. I have read Grimm's Cinderella before. Any suggestions??

  This is what I plan on starting today, and I thought it might be fun to make it a read-along.  I was waiting for November as it seems to be a fall into winter kind of setting. We'll be going with Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont's 1756 version, which greatly condenses Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve's original 1740 novel. Online Source Beaumont reduced the cast of characters, and there is less detail of Beauty's exploration of the castle.  Villeneuve also devotes a large part of the story to the fairies, Good and Evil.  The Disney movie takes a bit from both, as well as some ideas from a 1946 French film. It remains my favorite Disney movie.

  In the beginning of the month I mentioned a short story by George Saunders. The Tenth of December I did start it, and with today's designation, I intend to complete it. It's also worth noting that today is the shortest day of the year - the Winter Solstice. A quick search of "winter short stories" returned a couple options: Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Adventure of Beryl Coronet" Yasunari Kawabata, "Snow Country" Hans Christian Anderson, "Barf Ki Rani" Anton Chekhov, "The Lady with the Dog" Ernest Hemingway, "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" Tobias Wolff, "Hunters in the Snow" This one was a read-along back on the channels, so maybe you read it with me or otherwise. O. Henry, "The Gift of the Magi"

  I have a book from my sister, and I picked up a few second-hand, but I haven't started anything yet. I came across a collection of short stories written by George Saunders. "Home" was up for a Bram Stoker Award in 2011. The title story is called "Tenth of December." The New Yorker Read along with me! "Escape from Spiderhead" was adapted as the film Spiderhead,  starring Chris Hemsworth and Miles Teller. Wiki

  I did finish Dennis Lehane's short stories, but got distracted with some local short stories, so I haven't completed the play just yet. Mark Maynard is a Renoite English professor at the community college.  His stories all center around the area, and each one has made me tear up so far.  Maybe not great when you're sitting alone at a dinner booth.  :-P I also grabbed a local photography book, Reno: Now and Then.   It's nice to see the historical buildings that have survived the changes over time. And now it's on to Shakespeare! Titus Andronicus Again, I won't post Act analysis, but we'll touch base mid-month for anyone reading along with me.  I force this on myself, so it's up to you.  :-)

I'm coming up to the play in this collection, same title, Coronado. From the short story, "Until Gwen," it was adapted for Broadway and opened December 3, 2005. Playbill I was hoping to find a pdf source we could share and read-along, but I only found the Internet Archive, which requires a (free) account.  If you're interested. Archive I barely fulfilled my once-a-year Shakespeare last April, so I hope to be more interested this time around.  The Comedy of Errors  was not my favorite.  I hear Titus Andronicus  is quite the horror.  Any recommends?

  I made it to the library and I picked up a collection by Dennis Lehane called Coronado. I was intrigued because he's the author of Shutter Island , which was a trippy movie. I also see he was a writer-producer on HBO's Boardwalk Empire. The first story is called "Running Out of Dog."  It was a weird, sad story but I read all the way through without putting it down, so it was good. The last one is actually a play, so I'm looking forward to that. Happy Reading!

  In the beginning of the month we mentioned  The Velveteen Rabbit  for a short read-along. I'm sure I read this once before a long time ago, but this time I cried more.  The sadness and the sweetness, it's different as an adult.  So today I'm looking for other short stories to finish out the year. I came across "A Child's Christmas in Wales" and since we've been traveling around some for the Christmas topics, I thought that would fit in nicely. Online Here's a classic.

  I have Thursday and Friday off this week. Dinner plans tomorrow, of course, and I'm making yams. Friday is Record Store Day, and the day we celebrate my dad, so we'll definitely be stopping by Discology.  I usually grab a release I know he would have been looking at. Such as this: I also found a short story, if anyone's interested. A Thanksgiving Dinner That Flew Away "Honk!" Happy Holiday!

  I finished up Midnight Frights  - "The Yellow Wallpaper" was definitely the best of the bunch. If you read along or read before, what did you think of "The Horla"? Lovecraft believes this to be "the vanguard of a horde of extra-terrestrial organisms arrived on earth to subjugate and overwhelm mankind," and the character does ramble on about the hierarchy of nature. Interestingly, this comment connects with a book I grabbed from the library: The introduction discusses the possibility of life coming to Earth from other planets, knowledge being bestowed upon us.  If that much were to be true, then so could Lovecraft's theories on the darker side of that, the unknowable, perhaps unseeable, horrors. "The Horla" was in fact an inspiration for "The Call of Cthulhu."

  Man-Size in Marble  by Edith Nesbit A not so spooky but fine enough ghost story.  Poor Laura. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman This one though, I'm not sure it really is a ghost story, but it was haunting.  I felt my anxiety rise as she lost her mind - how expertly written that was.  I had a sense of Lovecraft as I was reading, the insanity of "The Rats in the Walls."  So I thought it was interesting to find he had commented on the story, saying it "rises to a classic level in subtly delineating the madness." Previously there was mention of feminism in both of these stories, and they do both portray a woman who is treated as fragile and unable to handle themselves, with husbands who must tend to them.  Although I have a much more negative opinion of John in the second story.  I was seriously thinking he was gaslighting her. I went ahead with the next story, The Cigarette Case  by Oliver Onions.  Another fine ghost story...

  The Signalman by Charles Dickens What an interesting twist, set up in such a way that you did not see it coming. Next up is Man-size in Marble by Edith Nesbit Online Source Followed by The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman Online Source And we'll check back again before the end of the month!

  After finishing Shadow of the Wind , which is now an all time favorite - and before April, when I like to read Shakespeare - I decided to look for some female authors in this collection to end Women's History Month. First I read Dorothy Parker's Big Blonde.   An interesting, sad story. I'm now reading Willa Cather's Paul's Case. This one is more intriguing.  Not that I knew what was going to happen with Hazel in Big Blonde , but Paul is a bit more haphazard and unpredictable.  I am more curious about the end. Next up: Bliss  by Katherine Mansfield (Book is a 4th printing from 1961)

  You may recognize this from last year, when we read the title story for a quick read-along. Here I came across an online collection that included another one of her stories from this book, called Suicide, Watch . Here It's much less about a specifically black experience, but it was a good read, with a sharp ending. The collection is also where I pulled the short story I linked to in the February Book Club post. Here

  The National Button Society, founded in 1938, established Button Day as a celebration of collecting and crafting buttons.  While I don't intentionally collect, I do have a bag full of randoms. It is believed that the first button can be credited to the Indus Valley Civilisation, of the Bronze Age in South Asia.  It was made from a curved shell and was used as ornamental embellishments.   For practical purposes and design, buttons have been with us for a while. One of the reasons I went with this today is the new book I started. I'm not very far into it, but Gwendy has just received the button box.  As I read the description, I was picturing these kinds of buttons, not just any button - but then I realized I don't even know what a button box is!  A musical instrument?   I don't know, so far Gwendy's dispenses an impossible kind of chocolate, and the mysteries are left to her to figure out.  There's a button each for the 6 populated cont...

  In last week's thread, both Karloff and Lugosi were noted for their horror icon status, and now I find out the story we just read was adapted and starred them both! I honestly thought the story was spookier before its ending - the fact that it's based on true events, for one thing, and that it shows how easily one can turn a blind eye to atrocities when there is something to be gained...be it money, or the assistant position Fettes was so happy to hold... I found a review that stated Macfarlane was a prototype for both Jekyll and Hyde, which Stevenson published two years after this. Still sticking with this sense of classics, I was reminded of John William Polidori's, The Vampyre. The first vampire tale, in fact, as taken from a famous contest between Polidori, Lord Byron, and Mary and Percy Shelley. PDF Here And don't forget to check out Monster of Monsters when you're done! Here Happy Haunts through Halloween!!