November 2017

[Randolph, Randy]

Let’s start thinking about November. I pencilled something in but it definitely isn’t carved in stone. We’ve had couple of less than stellar reads in the last 6 months so quality should be a criteria (although tastes do vary).

[Bill]

Well I can't say I have a good sense for what people in this group might consider "quality". But these are on my to-read list, that might be relevant to the group:

Broken River
The Wish Mechanics
The Doll's Alphabet
Sip

And I should add: I've been known to end up hating items on my to-read list. (My friends don't consider me "the pickiest weird fiction fan they know" for nothing.)

[Randolph, Randy]

I know. I desperately try to not read duds since I feel time marching on but it’s unavoidable if you are going to try “new” things.

Listening to Can’t Get Satisfaction by Squire (not the Stones song).

[Neutrino]

Maybe The Twenty Days of Turin? Or You Should Have Left: A Novel by Daniel Kehlmann, something I've meant to mention in the foreign horror thread.
New Reggie Oliver and Andrew Michael Hurley novels are coming out in late October, but it might be better to go with something that has been out for a while.

[Thogdin]

I just finished reading The Twenty Days of Turin and it's quite good. Not really horrifying, but odd enough to be worth it in the mode of Buzzati. Hello all, by the way.

[Randolph, Randy]

What about White Tears by Hari Kunzru?

[Marie-Therese]

Thogdin wrote: "I just finished reading The Twenty Days of Turin and it's quite good. Not really horrifying, but odd enough to be worth it in the mode of Buzzati. Hello all, by the way."

*waves at Thogdin* Welcome!

I have The Twenty Days of Turin and hope to read it soon. The Buzzati reference makes it especially intriguing to me now.

I'm pretty open as far as the November read. I do plan to start a newish book Eight Ghosts: The English Heritage Book of New Ghost Stories and think it might be of interest to readers here, so I'll nominate it as my choice, but am willing to read whatever.

[Marie-Therese]

Bill wrote: "My friends don't consider me "the pickiest weird fiction fan they know" for nothing." You?!? No way!!! *crosses fingers behind back and shuffles off snickering*

[Marie-Therese]

Randolph wrote: "What about White Tears by Hari Kunzru?"

Oh! This sounds really good. I would be very happy to read this.

[Neutrino]

"Eight Ghosts" might be good, too. I've never read any of Hurley's short fiction, it would be interesting to see how his entry compares to his novel.

[Randolph, Randy]

There is a poll up, it should be under both polls and on the group's home page, for a November read.

[Bill]

Marie-Therese wrote: "You?!? No way!!!"
I am picky and proud. November's group read candidate authors should start getting nervous now.

[Randolph, Randy]

I don't think they will lose any sleep ;)

[Neutrino]

So, looks like Onions will win. I never actually read any of his stories outside of ones in Widdershins.
This looks like a pretty large volume, too. It will be interesting to see how (if?) the rest of his weird stories stack against a handful of often reprinted ones. For example, I think that equally huge The Collected Ghost Stories of E.F. Benson could be safely freed from some two thirds of its contents, if one wants to focus on stories that are actually worth reading.

[Bill]

The Onions collection is 650+ pages. I better start building a database of sentences that I would rewrite.

Fortunately, there's a goodreads review of it that recommends selected stories.

[Randolph, Randy]

Well the Oliver Onions collection of so-called "classic" stories won the November poll with a whopping 8 votes, more than a Democratic primary election in South Carolina so this doorstop will be the November read. I have read the first 20% and found the stories good if not always great. The Beckoning Fair One, a haunted house story, is considered Onions' "best" story; at least the most anthologized.

I would say if anyone doesn't feel up to the Wordsworth The Dead of Night collection, any other "best of" will do or just Widdershins perhaps. I will try to comment story by story so jump in with anything you feel like and I'll at least try to keep up. I cannot promise I am always the most perceptive reader and I have a certain fondness for the ghost trope so I may not be the most discriminating reviewer. I am well aware of the weaknesses of this sort of writing and collection.

There are always buddy reads for those that eschew the sometimes overwritten classic tails.

[Marie-Therese]

I like Onions and have read a fair amount of his work, so I'll probably read a best of collection but I'm not going to commit to The Dead of Night. This late in the year I tend to be behind on my planned reading and need to play catch up so a volume this big is impracticable. I'll comment where I can. Apologies, all.

[Ronald]

I'm wary of Oliver Onions. The only work I've read by him is _The Rope in the Rafters_ which appears in _The Mammoth Book of Short Horror Novels_ edited by Mike Ashley.

This is from my review of the anthology edited by Mike Ashley:

"The Rope in the Rafters by Oliver Onions. I do admit that Oliver Onions had one of the better prose styles, but I was underwhelmed by this story. Perhaps this is a too conventional ghost story. The narrator is staying at a place which has a rope hanging from the rafters, and the place has a macabre history: a smuggler used to operate from here, and when the authorities was closing in on him, the smuggler killed himself with that rope. Our narrator senses the presence of the ghost of this smuggler; there is even a smell. And then somebody dies by suicide with this very rope. A lot of words just for this plot?"

[Randolph, Randy]

Nobody sez ya hasta read it.