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A Good Read: Book Suggestions & Recommendations

Something that may be of interest to @Yithian in particular: Applied Ballardianism by Simon Sellars. Partially autobiographical, the novel charts the descent first into obsession then madness of a travel writer and failed academic who is studying Ballard at postrgad level and becomes convinced that everything connects to Ballard, and the author is a prism through which the narrator discerns reality. It also features a reasonable amount of Fortean phenomena - UFOS in particular, though these are by no means the focus of the book and remain ambiguous. The prose is functional and it's not the sort of book that is a page turner, nor one where cares much, if at all, for the main character. One is here mainly for the ideas, which are by and large interesting, there's much discussion of Ballard's work and it's made me determined to read more by him.

https://thequietus.com/articles/25293-applied-ballardianism-simon-sellars-interview
 
Amazon thought I would be interested in these … I don't know why. Bad robot, bad!
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Just a 'heads-up' to say that although I don't yet have a copy myself, this new title been getting some excellent reviews. It seems to be somewhere between post-modern 'hauntology' and a more traditional exploration of old-fashioned ghost tales--with a personal narrative to hang it all on. Also, although I know that you proverbially shouldn't, what a great cover! Looks like a Christmas present to me.



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In his late thirties, Edward Parnell found himself trapped in the recurring nightmare of a family tragedy. For comfort, he turned to his bookshelves, back to the ghost stories that obsessed him as a boy, and to the writers through the ages who have attempted to confront what comes after death.

In Ghostland, Parnell goes in search of the ‘sequestered places’ of the British Isles, our lonely moors, our moss-covered cemeteries, our stark shores and our folkloric woodlands. He explores how these landscapes conjured and shaped a kaleidoscopic spectrum of literature and cinema, from the ghost stories and weird fiction of M. R. James, Arthur Machen and Algernon Blackwood to the children’s fantasy novels of Alan Garner and Susan Cooper; from W. G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn and Graham Swift’s Waterland to the archetypal ‘folk horror’ film The Wicker Man…

Ghostland is Parnell’s moving exploration of what has haunted our writers and artists – and what is haunting him. It is a unique and elegiac meditation on grief, memory and longing, and of the redemptive power of stories and nature.

Previews Etc.
https://edwardparnell.com/
One shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but damn me if this isn't nice.
 
Just started this, so far, so good (if you have an interest in the women who fell foul of Jack's evil deeds).

The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper Hardcover – 19 Feb 2019
by Hallie Rubenhold (Author)
Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction

Five devastating human stories and a dark and moving portrait of Victorian London & the untold lives of the women killed by Jack the Ripper.

Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary-Jane are famous for the same thing, though they never met. They came from Fleet Street, Knightsbridge, Wolverhampton, Sweden, and Wales. They wrote ballads, ran coffee houses, lived on country estates, they breathed ink-dust from printing presses and escaped people-traffickers.

What they had in common was the year of their murders: 1888. The person responsible was never identified, but the character created by the press to fill that gap has become far more famous than any of these five women.

For more than a century, newspapers have been keen to tell us that 'the Ripper' preyed on prostitutes. Not only is this untrue, as historian Hallie Rubenhold has discovered, it has prevented the real stories of these fascinating women from being told. Now, in this devastating narrative of five lives, Rubenhold finally sets the record straight, revealing a world not just of Dickens and Queen Victoria, but of poverty, homelessness and rampant misogyny. They died because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time&;but their greatest misfortune was to be born a woman.
 
This is a surprisingly good book. Lots of Ballard, but also some Lovecraft and UFO's. And a funny description of personal dysfunctions. And travel.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39988883-applied-ballardianism

Plagued by obsessive fears, defeated by the tedium of academia, yet still certain that everything connects to Ballard, his academic thesis collapses into a series of delirious travelogues, deranged speculations and
 
This title just may have the answer to a question we've all asked at one point or another in our lives. Written by Caitlin Doughty an American mortician, she is the creator of the wonderful Youtube series (also a podcast) "Ask a Mortician"

Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?: Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death

In Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?, Doughty blends her mortician’s knowledge of the body and the intriguing history behind common misconceptions about corpses to offer factual, hilarious, and candid answers to thirty-five distinctive questions posed by her youngest fans. In her inimitable voice, Doughty details lore and science of what happens to, and inside, our bodies after we die. Why do corpses groan? What causes bodies to turn colors during decomposition? And why do hair and nails appear longer after death? Readers will learn the best soil for mummifying your body, whether you can preserve your best friend’s skull as a keepsake, and what happens when you die on a plane.
Find it here on Amazon
 
Completed Sam Peters' "From Darkest Skies" yesterday.

A very well written, twisty-turny, thriller/whodunnit set on an expertly depicted colony world.

Themes include, AI emotions, global conspiracies, the tribulations of life on a high-gravity planet and a plausible description of high-tech future detective work. Solid characterisation too, to the extent that I cared about the fate of the main players.
It's the first in a trilogy, but is a satisfyingly complete story in its own right. Fans of intelligent sci-fi will not be disappointed.

https://www.fantasybookreview.co.uk/Sam-Peters/From-Darkest-Skies.html
 
This title just may have the answer to a question we've all asked at one point or another in our lives. Written by Caitlin Doughty an American mortician, she is the creator of the wonderful Youtube series (also a podcast) "Ask a Mortician"

Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?: Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death


Find it here on Amazon
I think your recommendation would be a good pairing for Paul Barber's book on vampires, that details how the processes after death affected vampire lore:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0300164815
 
Just read Superstition & Science , Mystics Sceptics, Truth-seekers and Charlatans by Derek Wilson, interesting history of development of scientific thought and how it intersected with religion.
 
Ireland's Forgotten Past: A history of the overlooked and disremembered by Turtle Bunbury. Lord Rosse & the Hell-Fire Club; Pretenders to the English Throne raising revolts in Ireland, the Knights Templar and much else. I've just written a review for the FT mag, I'll post that here when it appears in print.
https://thamesandhudsonusa.com/book...of-the-overlooked-and-disremembered-hardcover


Tepper Isn't Going Out by Calvin Trillin. New York Jewish humour mostly at the expense of the Italians and Irish. About the adventures of Tepper who likes to park and read a newspaper. He comes into conflict with the fanatical Mayor Ducavelli (a thinly disguised Rudy Giuliani). The book was written in 1999.
 
Ireland's Forgotten Past: A history of the overlooked and disremembered by Turtle Bunbury...

And it looks like it's illustrated with woodcuts - I'm a sucker for woodcuts. Already on the wish list.

Tepper Isn't Going Out by Calvin Trillin...

I'd recommend Trillin's book, Killings - which is a collection of his crime related journalism from the late 60's onward. It's maybe more about life than it is about actual crime, or about what happens to life when stuff goes wrong. Similar in some ways to the journalism of Pete Dexter (author of Paris Trout, Deadwood, and one of my top five favourite crime novels - Train).
 
Part way through The Quanderhorn Xperimentations.

A sci-fi comedy spin-off from the Radio 4 series and penned by the trusty hand of Rob "Red Dwarf" Grant.
It's basically a pastiche of well-loved 50s and 60s sci-fi themes and does for The Quatermass Experiment what Bored of the Rings did for Tolkien's saga.

Some of the gags are a bit hit and miss, but it's laugh-out-loud funny every few pages and those of us of a certain age will love the hat-tips to the golden age of classic sci-fi.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Quanderhorn-Xperimentations-Rob-Grant/dp/1473224020
 
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Part way through The Quanderhorn Xperimentations.

A sci-fi comedy spin-off from the Radio 4 series and penned by the trusty hand of Rob "Red Dwarf" Grant.
It's basically a pastiche of well-loved 50s and 60s sci-fi themes and does for The Quatermass Experiment what Bored of the Rings did for Tolkien's saga.

Some of the gags are a bit hit and miss, but it's laugh-out-loud funny every few pages and those of us of a certain age will love the hat-tips to the golden age of classic sci-fi.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Quanderhorn-Xperimentations-Rob-Grant/dp/1473224020

I really enjoyed the radio show. I will look out for this.
 
Reading 'London's Glory'....short stories in the Bryant and May series...love all the Chritopher Fowler books in this quirky British detective series.
 
Dalrymple's new book on ehe East India Company sounds interesting. On my list.

THE ANARCHY, William Dalrymple’s gripping book on the East India Company’s “relentless rise” in the Indian subcontinent from 1756 to 1803, settles many things.

No one can now argue that Indians did not put up a tough fight; that they lacked in enterprise, dignity, or political sophistication; that the Mughals — the empire that ruled much of the subcontinent before the British — were a decrepit dynasty that let the British have their way. And no one can argue that Company rule was just, benevolent, or about anything other than greed. Still, Dalrymple’s literary commitments and tight focus on the Company constrain it from grappling fully with the realities of colonialism.

Drawing richly from sources in multiple languages, The Anarchy is gorgeously adorned with luminous images representing a range of perspectives. (I only wish the poetry laced throughout had also been presented in the original languages.) Delightful passages abound, including of the duel between Warren Hastings and Philip Francis, Shah Alam as “the sightless ruler of a largely illusory empire,” and action-packed scenes of battle. In postwar Calcutta, mansions rise “jagged from the loot-littered riverfront like blackened, shattered teeth from a diseased gum.” These gems are enrolled in an account of the conquest of India as “the most extraordinary corporate takeover in history.”

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/an-epic-struggle-for-mastery-of-a-subcontinent/


The Migration by Helen Marshall.

Set in the near future this is a tale of a pandemic which affects the young. A family move from Toronto to Oxford where experimental treatment is available. Storms and floods add to the problems. Similarities between the time of the Black Death and this plague and weather patterns are noted. The dead don't stay dead but this isn't a zombie novel, far more complex issues arise. Written by an author who moved from Toronto to Oxford to undertake a study of literature written during the time of the Black Death. Fortunately she didn't bring a new plague with her.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/550133/the-migration-by-helen-marshall/9780735272620
 
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Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister: Three Women at The Heart Of Twentieth-Century China By Jung Chang (author of Wild Swans).

Red Sister: Ching-ling married Sun Yat-sen, after he died her lover was murdered by Chiang Kai-shek, kind of understandable how she ended up as Mao's Vice-chair.

Little Sister: May-ling married Chiang, didn't get on too well with Ching after that!

Big-Sister: married Chiang's PM/Finance Minister.

It's also the story of Sun Yat-sen and the Koumitang (Nationalist Party), how he wasn't quite the democrat he's made out to be. At an early stage Chiang was his favoured assassin for getting rid of political rivals.

I'm just a quarter of the way through it and Jung makes socio-political history a joy to read.
 
I’ve been on a WW1 string recently, finishing my third read of an old favourite yesterday: Storm of Steel, by Ernst Jünger. It’s a superlative account of his service as a young officer through some of the hardest fighting in the Great War. He survived to a grand old age, and became a noted entomologist, of all things.

Due to his bravery and dedication, he was one of the few junior infantry officers to be awarded Germany’s highest military honour, the Pour le Mérite, AKA the “Blue Max.”

Other superb WW1 books, in no particular order:

Death’s Men: Soldiers of the Great War

Sagittarius Rising

The First Day on the Somme: 1 July 1916

Goodbye to All That

maximus otter
 
In an attempt to take my mind off current bullshit I am exploring the Kindle Unlimited library, something I normally don't have time to do but now...
Anyway, all my own books are available on there (Steven A. McKay) if you fancy historical fiction set either in medieval times or the "dark ages".
But enough shameless self-promotion, yesterday I read Credible Witness by Andy Gilbert. It's a short book but well worth a read, there's lots of creepy stories all told by former/current police officers. Really left me wanting more (there's a second volume although reviews aren't quite as good but I'll try it).
The day before I read Tales of Mystery Unexplained by Steph Young. I had wanted to read about the Missing 411-style cases which she covers, but this one caught my attention. It's a good read again, covering things like Elisa Lam and other strange disappearances. It would greatly benefit from an editor and proof-reader but it's still worth a read. One point - some of you get irritated when FT sticks Crowley in the magazine and Steph Young does it here for no real reason. You might want to skip those parts (I did).
I rated both books 4 stars. Worth a go if you have KU.
 
I've been waiting for that to get back in print!
For a while now, it's only been available for a small fortune.

I plan to order a copy tonight, but with the worldwide situation I'm not sure when it'll turn up.
 
Currently working my way through the Audible free books for children offerings. Started Miss Partridge's Home for Peculiar Children but am finding it hard going. May switch to Moby Dick instead!
 
Currently working my way through the Audible free books for children offerings. Started Miss Partridge's Home for Peculiar Children but am finding it hard going. May switch to Moby Dick instead!
I was pleasantly surprised to see they have some HPL in there!
 
Yes! It's a good range and all age groups - weans to teens.

And it may well tempt me into getting an adult subscription, which is good for them :)
 
Currently working my way through the Audible free books for children offerings. Started Miss Partridge's Home for Peculiar Children but am finding it hard going. May switch to Moby Dick instead!
Love both! Just got hold of the fifth Miss P book.
 
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