Got through 5 books this week:

THE WIDE CARNIVOROUS SKY AND OTHER MONSTROUS GEOGRAPHIES, John Langan
THE MAN ON THE BALCONY,  Maj Sjöwall, Per Wahlöö
LOVECRAFT’S MONSTERS, Edited by Ellen Datlow
FOLK HORROR REVIVAL: CORPSE ROADS – REVISED EDITION, Edited by Andy Paciorek
THE GRAND BANKS CAFE, Georges Simenon

2 short story collections, a collection of folk-horror themed or adjacent poetry, the third Detective Martin Beck novel and yet another Maigret. My XBOX is feeling seriously neglected, but I’ve been really enjoying spending what little free-time I get at home after the kids go to bed just reading.

I’ve never been able to really wrap my head around poetry, I have a history of just abandoning anything I don’t immediately get or take to. Even song lyrics, unless they’re “funny” tend to just bounce off me, so I’m making a concerted effort to read poetry this year and try not to be such a goddamn philistine. (I don’t really know anything about philistines either, what if it turns out philistines are awesome? Sorry, potentially awesome philistines!) This collection was a perfect place for me to begin diving into. I’ve been extremely fascinated with the folk-horror subgenre/culture for a while now and this collection had poems from at least 5 centuries. There was a lot of stuff that I probably glazed over and was wasted on me, but I actually felt like I was understanding and enjoying the majority of what I read. 

I’m sure this is the most obvious thing in the world to people who are INTO poetry, but I found reading it out loud (or at least whispering it) made it that much easier to parse and appreciate. All it took was some poems about goat creatures and children with hooves and witches sabbaths and whatnot to get my interest! I now also have a huge list of poets in my notebook to look further into, so that’s a fun thing I’m looking forward to doing more of this year.

Both the Maigret and the Detective Beck novels were great! Definitely my favorite Beck so far and the Maigret is probably tied with NIGHT AT THE CROSSROADS for favorite Maigret so far.

Only comic that got read this week was more of my reread of Alan Moore & Eddie Campbell’s FROM HELL. Very slowly going through that a few pages at a time each night, taking lots of notes.

I’ve got some more short story collections and another Detective Beck in the hopper for this week but you never know what might leap to my attention and disrupt my carefully planned book schedule. 

Currently Playing: Phish – “Scents and Subtle Sounds 2019-12-06”
Currently Reading: MEDDLING KIDS, Edgar Cantero

3 books this week:

THE MOVIEGOER, Walker Percy
BLACKOUT (DARK ICELAND #3), Ragnar Jonasson
GHOST STORIES OF AN ANTIQUARY, M.R. James

I came close to finishing a fourth, but I lost time forcing myself to finish THE MOVIEGOER, a book which is routinely lauded as one of the greatest American novels of all time, but which I found to be just a complete piece of shit. Never have I been so disinterested in the banal activities of characters I loathed so entirely. Maybe it’s something I’ll return to later in life and find it’s actually brilliant, but since I’m currently brilliant (and REALLY strong) I have my doubts that the problem was me.

Really enjoyed BLACKOUT, as I have all of the Dark Iceland mysteries. They take place in the furthest north town in Iceland called  Siglufjörður (which is fun to say). The weird thing is that for reasons that I’m sure are in no way stupid the english language publishers opted not to release the novels in their original publication order. While this doesn’t impact the individual mysteries in each novel it DOES mean that the characters relationships and current living arrangements are ALL OVER THE PLACE. Characters who break up at the end of the first book are married with a child in book two. Characters who are dead in book 2 are alive again in book 3 and so on. Despite this, they are very engaging mysteries.

I also read the first 4 issues of N.K. Jemisin and Aaron Campbell’s new DC comics series FAR SECTOR. I was VERY skeptical going in despite thinking Jemisin is a brilliant writer (she won 3 consecutive Hugos) and that the art appeared to be the best of Campbell’s career. My skepticism was based mostly on my own revulsion towards modern superhero comics and especially the publishers who release them, however this series has blown me away.

Right off the bat one of the best things about it is that it is barely a DC comic. Sure, it is technically a Green Lantern comic, but it’s all new characters and there have been only the briefest passing references to DC comics properties. It just takes the established premise of the Green Lantern corps (space cops) and uses that to fill in some background before launching into a really good sci-fi police procedural. This is not to say that it’s a by-the-numbers police story at all, it’s using the tropes and standard story-telling beats of the police procedural (and to a lesser extent, the superhero) to tell a much more interesting and unique story about power, corruption, society, peace-keeping and reckoning with messy, complicated history between races.

Plus, the main character appears to be visually based on Janelle Monae. BIG RECOMMEND.

Currently Playing: Phish – “Baker’s Dozen Mega Mix”
Currently Reading: THE WIDE CARNIVOROUS SKY & OTHER MONSTROUS GEOGRAPHIES, John Langan

Taking a bit of a break from the stready stream of novels I’ve been reading this year for some of the collections of short fiction I’ve been meaning to get to for ages now.

Specifically, collections of horror short fiction. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed more than my fair share of Stephen King doorstop horror novels, but there’s something about the format of the short story that seems to me to be the ideal form of horror fiction.

There’s just enough space to establish a creepy premise, spend some time exploring it, get eaten by a monster or completely unravel the fabric of reality and get out before you get a chance to become accustomed to the strange reality of the story and have it lose some of its unsettling power.

The two scariest stories I’ve ever read are Stephen King’s “THE MONKEY and H.P. Lovecraft’s “THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE”.

I’ve since reread Colour many times, and while I still think it’s brilliant it doesn’t scare me as bad as the first time I read it. (I had to watch Futurama for an hour in bed before I’d turn off the light and go to sleep that first time).

I read THE MONKEY when I still lived with my parents. I was in high school and had recently moved into the basement of our house and out of my former bedroom upstairs on the same level as everyone else in my family. I liked the shape of the room in the basement better, it was closer to where all the video games were and also provided a much safer location for covert “making out” with my former-girlfriend-whom-I-married.

The story is in the collection SKELETON CREW and it’s about one of those monkey toys with clanging cymbols, every time the toy was made to clang its cymbals somebody would die suddenly. For some reason this scared the proverbial balls off of me and I promptly moved back upstairs for a few months. 

Later, on the night I moved back up my father burst into the room banging two cooking pot lids together and making monkey noises. I suspect someday I shall forgive him.
Pretty much everyone I’ve met who has read THE MONKEY and heard my story usually stares at me,puzzled. “That story?…. really?” 

I’ve purposely never reread that story, mostly because I’m sure it would not scare me like it did and I’d be puzzled by my own reaction to it all those years ago as well and I’d prefer to keep the memory of that pure horror intact. There is also a little part of me that won’t reread it because what if it terrifies me that bad again?! 

Currently Playing: Phish – “Sand -> Ghost -> 2001. 2016-01-15, Riviera Maya, MX“
Currently Reading: THE WIDE, CARNIVOROUS SKY AND OTHER  MONSTROUS GEOGRAPHIES, John Langan

It took me WAY too long to finish THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy over the weekend. It’s a short book, but I found it unbelievably boring and by the time I reached the end I was just so relieved it was over and I could move on to something I gave anything resembling a shit about.

I was about halfway through before I decided the “slow start” was in fact a “boring book”. I wish I had reached this conclusion sooner because by the time I get to halfway (depending on the length of the book) I figure I might as well finish the stupid thing. I’ve gotten better about not continuing things I am not into, but it’s a bit harder if the book (or in this case, audio book) is under 300 pages (6 hours). 

Anyway, at least I’m one book closer to reaching my Goodreads reading goal for 2020 and can read something I like now.

Currently Playing: Ozzy Osbourne – “Ordinary Man” 
Currently Reading: BLACKOUT, Ragnar Jónasson

This has been a weird week. I have had a great deal of trouble focusing so anything requiring much concentration has been very slow going. As such, I only managed to finish two short books this week and one comic:

A CRIME IN HOLLAND, Georges Simenon
33 1/3 – DAVID BOWIE – LOW, Hugo Wilcken
USAGI YOJIMBO VOL.1: THE RONIN, Stan Sakai

Another Simenon Maigret novel, a book about my favorite David Bowie album and a reread of the first volume of one of my favorite comics of all time. Nothing wrong with that, but I can’t help feeling disappointed in myself. I should probably just get over it, book-reading isn’t a competition, and I did make progress in the other books I have on the go, but still… 

I reread more of the new coloured edition of Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s FROM HELL. I was very skeptical when I heard Campbell was colouring the series for a rerelease (I was similarly alarmed when I learned Usagi Yojimbo was going to start being in colour) but it’s really been outstanding. It really cleans up and makes the art clearer and easier to read (Usagi also has turned out brilliantly) and it has given me an excuse to reread that book again. As great as Watchmen is I think it’s a bit of a shame it gets the most attention and praise of Moore’s writing. FROM HELL I think might be one of the greatest novels I’ve ever read, graphic or otherwise. If you haven’t read it, now’s a good time to do so (a new collection of the coloured issues is due out in May I think.)

Currently Playing, A Year in the Country – “The Quietened Journey”

Currently Reading: HEAVY WEATHER, Bruce Sterling

I recently caught up with the first season of the BBC Podcast “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.” 

It’s a radio play adaptation of one of Lovecraft’s stories done as fictional 10 episode investigative “true-crime” journalism podcast. It’s written and directed by Julian Simpson (whose blog and newsletter I am a fan of).

This is easily the best modern adaptation of a Lovecraft story I’ve ever experienced. The acting, sound design and direction are all great-to-excellent and the writing is outstanding. There is a second season based on THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS that I plan to dive into this week and I understand this summer a third season is coming (based on SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH) which supposedly will wrap up the trilogy.

The first season really does a great job of mixing the source material with a ton of research and information on secret societies and historical occultist characters from throughout history not referenced in the original story. They serve to really flesh out the world of the story and make it feel so believable. These references (and the mentions of several of the reference materials Simpson used in writing) have led me to some interviews on YouTube with historian Gary Lachman and then to the many books he’s written on the history of the occult and esotericism as well as several biographies on famous occultists and other counter-cultural figures. 

Get this, turns out he’s also the bass-player from Blondie. How’s that for a cool second act in a career? Dude played the bass on Parallel Lines AND wrote a biography of Aleister Crowley. Neat.

A lot of the things I’ve been reading about or interested in lately all seem to keep connecting to occult characters and histories (OMG MAYBE IT’S MAGICK!!). Much of what I know on the subject has been absorbed via osmosis from reading the likes of Alan Moore, H.P. Lovecraft and various and sundry writers of that ilk. I suppose now is as good a time as any to get way into this shit. Maybe I’ll dabble now and then in a few years when I turn 40 I’ll go full-blown like Alan Moore and declare myself a magician and start worshipping a snake god or something… or, maybe I’ll just read a bunch of books and actually know what David Bowie was on about when he was in the grips of full-blown cocaine psychosis in the mid 70s. Either way, seems like a good use of my spare time!

Currently Playing: David Bowie – “Station to Station”
Currently (fucking still) Reading: HEAVY WEATHER, Bruce Sterling

Got through 4 books this week:

THE MAN WHO WENT UP IN SMOKE, Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö
NIGHT BLIND,  Ragnar Jónasson
THE NIGHT AT THE CROSSROADS, Georges Simenon
SLOW HORSES, Mick Herron

A very euro-centric week of crime/spy fiction here at Stately Gruszecki Manor. 

SLOW HORSES is the first novel in the Slough House series of novels by Mick Herron. It concerns the British intelligence agents who are posted to “Slough House” a dumping ground for intelligence agents who have screwed up in some manner in the line of their duty. They get posted to Slough House under the odious and flatulence-prone Jackson Lamb (who is described in the novel as “Timothy Spall gone to seed”) to idly sit out their careers doing busy-work until they quit in disgust.

A young man is kidnapped and his live execution is promised over the internet and one of the agents in Slough House (called Slow Horses by the rest of the intelligence community) sees an opportunity to redeem himself by finding and saving him.

I had a great time with this book and will definitely be continuing with the series, the Jackson Lamb character is just fantastic. A fat, slovenly, flatulent asshole who just doesn’t give a shit about anybody (OR DOES HE?!!!!!!) but who is also secretly a brilliant agent. I in no way relate to this horrible man… nope… not at all… *fart*

Another week another failure to attack the ever-growing pile of unread manga beside my bed. I may have to institute some kind of strict “one-in-one-out” policy before the pile gets large enough to menace commercial aviation… I did read some more USAGI YOJIMBO, and startred another reread of Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s FROM HELL but finished neither so they don’t on the list.

I also made precious little progress on the Bruce Sterling novel, HEAVY WEATHER, I’ve been reading as it was a “bugger” of a work-week and I have not been awake enough to read any more of it. Hopefully, this long weekend will let me catch up on both my sleep and my non-audio books.

Currently Playing: Seffi Starshing – “Virtual Goddess”

Currently Reading: A CRIME IN HOLLAND, Georges Simenon

Finished 5 books this week:
ANXIETY AS AN ALLY, Dan Ryckert
MUD AND STARLIGHT: THE ALAN MOORE INTERVIEWS 2008-2016,  Pádraig Ó Méalóid
ROSEANNA, Maj Sjöwall, Per Wahlöö
ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND, Lewis Carroll
THE SNAIL ON THE SLOPE, Boris & Arkady Strugatsky

If you have any interest in the works of Alan Moore I highly recommend MUD AND STARLIGHT. 

I’d read most of these interviews as they were originally published over the years, but it was great revisiting them all at once in this format. It’s neat to see references to books I’ve since read that were still being kicked around in larval form at the time of the interview. 

One of the main reasons I wish people would read this book is that there’s a very cliche image of Alan Moore that a lot of people seem to have. That of the crazy, grumpy wizard who lives in a tree and shouts at people for liking superheroes. This is really a complete distortion of the man, and a lazy one at that. He seems, to me, to be an exceedingly kind man whose disdain for much of modern comics and comics-culture seems pretty well-earned and deserved. Few authors have had the impact on the medium of comics that he’s had and also few have been as dicked-around by it. Hard to blame the guy for wanting to wash his hands of the whole thing.

The interviews actually spend very little time talking about subjects that Moore clearly is not interested in discussing (superheroes) and mostly concerns itself with what Moore was working on at the time. Works he clearly cared and was extremely passionate about. Passion which shows in the finished works, some of which are among the finest things he’s created in his long career (Providence!).

Rereading these I felt like I came to an even better understanding of one of our greatest living writers and the last ~15 years of his work.

One thing I did NOT get around to this week was the manga I had intended to read. I started the first volume of YOUNG MISS HOLMES by Kaoru Shintani, but gave up on it. I can be pretty fussy about Holmes pastiche/adaptation and I bounced off this one pretty hard after the first 4 or 5 chapters.

Currently Playing: Jim Guthrie – “Below (Original Soundtrack)”

Currently Reading: UNDERGROUND: THE TOKYO GAS ATTACK AND THE JAPANESE PSYCHE, Haruki Murakami