Valancourt Books discussion
2015 Reading List
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Valancourt Books asked:Many of you are already compiling a reading list. What is the inspiration or thought process behind your 2015 list?
I’m not quite sure how “obscure” these literary monsters really are. With very few exceptions, I’ve read (or at least heard of) all of the stories/novels. As for specific entries, I’ve always wanted to read the James Hogg and Ewers books — I’ve had both sitting around in my library for ages, but have always managed to put them off. I’m planning on re-reading Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita sometime in the coming year as part of a buddy read; to this point I’ve only ever read the 1967 Grove Press translation, which (I am told) is based on a censored version of the text.
In response to the question of compiling reading lists, I’ve gone through brief spurts in which I’ve attempted their construction, but I freely admit that I don’t have the self-discipline to stick to them, so I’ve pretty much given up.
I've read one of these (The Time Machine). Can't wait to read your thoughts on them and if they're worth seeking out. I don't compile lists because it only leads to failure. I like to wing it ;) Less pressure.
I've heard of most of them but have read few of them. I don't have a reading list for 2015, I'm still working on my list for this month! Mostly my lists consist of backlogged books and review commitments.
“Rappaccini’s Daughter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1844) This was a movie back in the eighties. Kathleen Beller was in it, of Dynasty fame
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I was hoping that would be on YouTube to watch after I read the story but I don't see it.
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One can read "The Sandman" with out going to the book store on Project Gutenberg here.http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32046/...
Well, I can't figure out where to post this, so I'll just stick it...here. It did sell me on another book though, which probably won't be read until 2015 given my TBR, so hopefully slightly on topic.Anyway, was just browsing the Guardian, a list of 'best' books on the 70's, and came across a great shout-out to Valencourt Books in the comments. Congrats guys, your fame is spreading! ;)
Unfortunately, there are 120+ comments and I can't figure out a direct link, so here's a cut and paste (yeah, okay, it's all the way at the end):
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"IggyScargill 5 Nov 2014
I find myself becoming more and more ‘naffed orf’ – to appropriate a Norman Stanley Fletcherism – that the decade of my childhood is only portrayed by the media as one of crippling national debt and a naive and diaphanous idealism that any porky, right-wing common-senser can poke holes through.
The seventies, seen from the perspective of the present, where Swift's Modest Proposal appears to have become a cornerstone of government policy, were not a foreign country where things were done differently, but an alien planet - a fluorescent orange disco-globe with the clinging chemical whiff of food enhancers and burnt fish-fingers.
In comparison with today’s post-Thatcher Oceaniac tyranny, the years leading up to 3rd May 1979, seem a Utopian paradise; Valerie Singleton your mum, Bernard Cribbins your dad, your science teacher was James Burke, education was free beyond secondary level, and it was possible to acquire a new pair of specs or gnashers for less than a half of a half 'new pence’.
The working population were not only offered affordable social-housing, but were represented at their work place by Unions who still had enough bite to take a chunk out of the hand of any boss caught grabbing grub from the mouths of gripe-watered babes.
Despite being limited to only three terrestrial channels and with restricted hours to broadcast, seventies television offered a greater variety of programming than in 2014, where, with the choice of more channels than there are in Gordon Ramsay’s scrotum, the viewer is left floundering to find anything to watch that won’t instantly spongiform their frontals, eventually causing the brain to seep from the ears like a grey, unnutrious soup of bored Complan.
The Working-class, instead of being patronised and pilloried by programme-makers, could see their lives reflected in dramas from some of greatest writers and directors that this nation has ever produced: Dennis Potter, Alan Plater, David Mercer, Jim Allen, Alan Clarke, Ken Loach, Mike Leigh, Philip Saville – I could go on, and on, and on... And don’t get me started on documentaries, current affairs, the arts, and the lucky happenstance of catching a disscusion of Shakespeare or Pascal, or a frightening shirt with a hippy captured within it, explaining the history of the external combustion engine on the Open University.
Imagine we could go back to a time when we could: "tax the rich until the pips squeak". In just one change of policy we’d be rid of Paul Daniels, Tracy Emin, Rod Stewart, Michael Caine, The Rolling Stones, and Griff Rhys Jones.
So please, please, don’t tell me the seventies were only about power-cuts, uncollected dustbins and endless episodes of Love Thy Neighbour.
Right, that’s the rant out of the way.
The book I’d like to nominate as encapsulating at least something of the spirit of the 1970s is Peter Prince’s brilliant and very slim novel Play Things. It tells the story of an ineffectual Architect drop-out who gets a summer-job as a playleader in a south London playgroup and his daily struggle with the kids, thugs, drug dealers and perverts that inhabit the playground. I can’t recommend this little comic masterpiece highly enough.
Although, I haven’t seen it, it was also the basis for a 1976 Stephen Frears BBC TV film. They were the days!
It has just been republished by the wonderful Vallancourt Books. Check out their website. They've got a fantastic backlist of reissued novels, and they are beautifully produced – often with the original jacket design."
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014...
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I saw that list, I added a few of them to my ever-growing book wishlist (seriously, that thing is huge).As to reading lists, I don't really do them. Instead I pile my books to be read everywhere, with those I should in theory be reading sooner close to my bed. This order is always changing, and I will keep going into the local library to get books out or buying more.
But to give you a taste of my taste, I have two Valencourt editions to read (Ratman's Notebooks and The Castle of Wolfenbatch), Aurelio Voltaire's novel Call of the Jersey Devil which was lent by a friend, a book on the Aztecs and Apparitions: Ghosts of Old Edo by Miyuki Miyabe also lent by a friend, Tim Powers' Hide Me Among the Graves from the library, a book on the Jack the Ripper case in media called Saucy Jack, Fred Saberhagen's The Dracula Tapes, Master of the House of Darts by Aliette de Bodard (last of her Aztec set Obsidian and Blood trilogy), reread Joe Hill's Heart Shaped Box, and an anthology edited by Ellen Datlow called Hauntings. That's just a few of the pile.
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If you're familiar with the other 'Horrid Novels' (re: The Castle of Wolfenbach), we're still working on getting Horrid Mysteries out next year. It's been four or five years in the making. We are trying, though.
Well, I don't always review if I can't think of anything to say, I use GR more as a listing tool that gives me some idea of whether I liked a book or not by the star ratings. (My self-made personal database is just for books I own.) Some of them might be a while as they'll be dispersed with other genres in my pile.I'll look forward to that then! The Castle of Wolfenbach will be my first Horrid Novel, though I do have The Castle of Otranto and The Monk as part of a gothic novel anthology which is at the bottom of a pile somewhere. Really it was your editions plus the BBC documentary that made me want to read them sooner rather than later.
I have The Monk, too. Been meaning to read that one for two years now.
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Oh, please! No more recommendations! LOLI have some lined up that were originally for my classic horror challenge this year. This challenge was a complete and total failure. (Partly because of YOU, Ryan!)
That challenge consisted of, (in addition to The Monk), Uncle Silas, The Castle of Otranto, and The Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood.
*sigh*
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Now that you mention it, I do have a seven volume novel you can read. It was originally published in 1797. When Jay makes me mad I threaten to forward it to the Valancourt proofreading department stamped with 'EXPEDITE'.
Oh dear. XDReminds me of a friend thinking she was being very kind by buying me Clarissa aka the longest book in the English language. No, I've still not read it.
BTW what's the name of the seven volume novel? Inquiring minds want to know...
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Here's the title page:
Full view: https://31.media.tumblr.com/a4deb9391...
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Valancourt Books
Books mentioned in this topic
The Master and Margarita (other topics)The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (other topics)
Uncle Silas (other topics)
She (other topics)
Ayesha: The Return of She (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
James Hogg (other topics)Hanns Heinz Ewers (other topics)
Mikhail Bulgakov (other topics)
Many of you are already compiling a reading list. What is the inspiration or thought process behind your 2015 list? Are you sticking to a genre or theme? New authors? Suggestions from friends? Backlog?!
31 Fairly Obscure Literary Monsters
http://electricliterature.com/31-fair...
Here's the list with links, if available
“The Sandman” by E.T.A. Hoffmann (1816)
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg (1824)
“The Man of the Crowd” by Edgar Allan Poe (1840)
“Rappaccini’s Daughter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1844)
Uncle Silas by J. Sheridan Le Fanu (1864)
“Lokis” by Proser Mérimée (1869)
“The Horla” by Guy de Maupassant (1887)
She and Ayesha: The Return of She and others by H. Rider Haggard (1887)
“The Damned Thing” by Ambrose Bierce (1893)
“The Great God Pan” by Arthur Machen (1894)
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (1895)
“Sredni Vashtar” by Saki (c. 1901—1911)
“Count Magnus” by M.R. James (1904)
Alraune by Hanns Heinz Ewers (1911)
“Rogues in the House” by Robert E. Howard (1934)
War with the Newts by Karel Čapek (1936)
“It!” by Theodore Sturgeon (1940)
Malpertuis by Jean Ray (1943)
The Horse and His Boy and The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis (1954 and 1956)
“The Howling Man” by Charles Beaumont (1959)
The Genocides by Thomas M. Disch (1965)
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (1967)
“Don’t Look Now” by Daphne Du Maurier (1971)
“Conversation With A Cupboard Man” by Ian McEwan (1972)
The Manitou by Graham Masterton (1975)
Freddy’s Book by John Gardner (1980)
Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalis (1982)
The Thief of Always by Clive Barker (1992)
“Thieving Bear Planet” by R.A. Lafferty (1992)
“Subsoil” by Nicholson Baker (1994)
Letter to His Father by Franz Kafka (First, Last and Always)