Book Hauls!

[j d worthington]

Mr. G: Would you be willing to post the TOC of that Benson volume? I'd like to see if the contents match my edition of The Collected Ghost Stories, or if there have been obscure pieces added....

In any event, Benson is somewhat uneven; and (if memory serves) he also has a few humorous ghostly tales as well. But at his best he can be quite good, and some of his pieces, such as "The Face" come very close to being in the first rank....

 

[dask]

Just set up my new Canon printer and thought I'd test it with a true American classic I picked up at the Salvation Army while my old printer was rotting in the landfill:

 

[AE35Unit]

^ I never knew Errol Flynn wrote!

 

[GOLLUM]

Mr. G: Would you be willing to post the TOC of that Benson volume? I'd like to see if the contents match my edition of The Collected Ghost Stories, or if there have been obscure pieces added....

In any event, Benson is somewhat uneven; and (if memory serves) he also has a few humorous ghostly tales as well. But at his best he can be quite good, and some of his pieces, such as "The Face" come very close to being in the first rank....

I'll post the table of contents in the Horror subforum as part of the current Wordsworth thread we've been using.

As suggested I've read very little of Benson to date, so it will be interesting to see how he compares to some of the better known (for me) Victorian ghost writers.

 

[Extollager]

My Madison Jones collection grows... Two new ones for my collection below the Exile image.

I haven't read either of these yet, though I've been ordering copies of several that I read in library copies and decided I wanted to own.

I'm tellin' ya, people, try this author -- say the great noirish An Exile first -- and see what you think. You may find that you want to get your own copies. His books can be picked up very inexpensively at abebooks.com. I just mailed off a signed copy of what's often considered his greatest novel, A Cry of Absence, that cost me about $4.

This Buried Land apparently deals with a Tennessee valley covered thanks to a flood-control project, which somehow makes me think of Lovecraft's "Colour Out of Space."

 

[dask]

I've been looking but haven't seen any yet. When I do I'll try him.

 

[Extollager]

I've been looking but haven't seen any yet. When I do I'll try him.

Can you get one or two of Madison Jones's books on interlibrary loan? Once you decide you enjoy his novels, you can get them for a few dollars each from abebooks. I think he probably deserves to be in the Library of America, but I doubt that will happen. He seems to be one of those authors who is liked and promoted by a small group of the discerning (wink wink) but somehow doesn't quite find his audience. But indeed I'd like to see some discussion of his work here. Maybe there are shortcomings that I don't see. For me, he was the author discovery of this year.

Warmly recommended: An Exile, A Cry of Absence, Herod's Wife, Passage Through Gehenna

Worth reading: Nashville 1864

Not yet read by me: An Innocent, A Buried Land, Season of the Strangler, Last Things, Forest of the Night, To the Winds, The Adventures of Douglas Bragg

Having read several of Jones's novels, I'm curious to see this movie

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000E5KUJC/?tag=brite-21

which appears to be based on An Exile. A reviewer calls the movie "country noir" -- that works, yes.

 

[Extollager]

Today's mail brought another Madison Jones novel for my collection, the front flap of the dustjacket of which describes it as a "harrowing, darkly comic tale of corruption and cultural decay... the pulse of a thriller driven by a heart of gold. Fool's gold." -- sounds about right for the state of this union....

PS Just found and ordered a very inexpensive copy of Passage Through Gehenna, about which I wrote in August, "This is the fourth novel by this astonishing novelist that I have read in a few months. For readers interested in a compelling novel with possible supernatural overtones -- but it does not require that view -- this might be the one to try first." Try searching for this title without spelling the Hebrew word -- you'll turn up the least expensive copy(ies).

 

[dask]

When I go to the library this weekend to get the cd they're holding for me I'll check their catalog.

 

[Extollager]

I've started a Madison Jones thread... hope to see some of you folks there.

 

[Extollager]

One more for my Madison Jones collection -- his first novel.

 

[Extollager]

And one more --

I read this one a few months ago & knew I'd want to read it again soon. Powerful stuff.

 

[K. Riehl]

I just picked up this rarity. Only 5 more to have all 18 in the series. All stories were published between 1929 and 1932.

 

[Extollager]

And one more for my Madison Jones collection.

 

[GOLLUM]

HMM..forgot to post the other day I picked up the following recent SF Masterwork edition.

The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe - D. G. Compton. Blurb: A few years in the future, medical science has advanced to the point where it is practically unheard of for people to die of any cause except old-age. The few exceptions provide the fodder for a new kind of television show for avid audiences who lap up the experience of watching someone else's dying weeks. So when Katherine Mortenhoe is told that she has about four weeks to live she knows it's not just her life she's about to lose, but her privacy as well.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

HMM..forgot to post the other day I picked up the following recent SF Masterwork edition.

The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe - D. G. Compton. Blurb: A few years in the future, medical science has advanced to the point where it is practically unheard of for people to die of any cause except old-age. The few exceptions provide the fodder for a new kind of television show for avid audiences who lap up the experience of watching someone else's dying weeks. So when Katherine Mortenhoe is told that she has about four weeks to live she knows it's not just her life she's about to lose, but her privacy as well.

Excellent novel. You might try to find the movie adaptation Deathwatch, which isn't bad. (Caution: There are several films by that name.)

I found a good used book store in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. I picked up The Complete Roderick by John Sladek, Don't Bite the Sun and Drinking Sapphire Wine by Tanith Lee, Of Men and Monsters by William Tenn, and One Human Minute and The Chain of Chance by Stanislaw Lem.

 

[GOLLUM]

Excellent novel. You might try to find the movie adaptation Deathwatch, which isn't bad. (Caution: There are several films by that name.)

Indeed. I'm on the lookout for that film actually but I'll read the book first. It appears to have contained some interesting ideas and quite prescient given it was written in 1975.

On a side note and I don't wish to go too off-topic here but your comment regarding Scanner Darkly is interesting from the point of view that most people I know who have seen that and Bladerunner still feel that Bladerunner is the superior film. I liked Scanner Darkly when I saw it but I still prefer the cinematic vision that Ridley Scott brought to Bladerunner both when it was first released and even now in retrospect. I also found Bladerunner the more gripping of the two movies. Both PKD books upon which these films are based are amongst my favourite of his.

You got some very good books from that second-hand store actually. Must be a good 'un.

I'll also take this opportunity to say welcome to the forums....

 

[Rodders]

A couple of good ebargains on Amazon, I just downloaded the complete Revelation Space series for £14.59 And the complete HHGTTG (A Trilogy in Five Parts) for 14.29. I also bought Jack Campbell's Lost Stars: Tarnished Knight.

 

[Connavar]

Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Swedish translation to finally read the classic book by one of my best authors.

Kallocain by Karin Boye - she is one of the most important modern poets in Swedish literature but this is a dystopian novel of hers that is hailed as her best novel.

 

[GOLLUM]

Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Swedish translation to finally read the classic book by one of my best authors.

That's a great work! I hope you get as much pleasure out of it as I did.

OH and I assume you saw my recent PMs to you? Hopefully they were of some benefit.

Happy reading.