Supernatural Fiction Readers discussion
Common reads
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What are we going to read in this group?
Thanks, RJ! The Woman in Black sounds like a good suggestion; I've never read any of Hill's work myself, but she has quite a following among genre fans, and that particular book has attracted a lot of attention on Goodreads.
RJ - Slayer of Trolls wrote: "I think I would nominate The Woman in Black by Susan Hill.The book Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor that I mentioned in my earlier..."
Thanks for the update about Hurricane Season not being supernatural, RJ. I was about to put that one on my list for the group read.
Okay...I have studiously narrowed my list to three: Mexican Gothic, Shiver, Woman in Black.
We'll definitely put all three of those in the poll, Deb! Marie and Kit, any thoughts about winnowing down your lists?
Put my book on the list for a vote - it's free on Kindle unlimited and would love to get feedback from you all. It is a shameless promotion of course for The Haunting At Ambleside by Jack O'Neil. I do understand if I get voted down :)
Jack, by group policy set in March of 2018, we don't consider books written by group members for our common reads in this group. (See message 442 on this thread; I've also just added that information to the group's rules.) However, it would be fine for you to post a suggestion, here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... , for a buddy read of your book, and see whether or not there's any interest.
The Woman in Black movie totally creeped me out!! I don't know for sure if I could bring myself to read the book or not!! But at least I'd know how it ends. I have Mexican Gothic and Shiver in my TBR pile.
I’m glad I haven’t been excommunicated from this group, being tardy with reviews and all I have made myself scarce on GR except to log books I’ve read. I recall I have yet to write a couple of reviews for books that Deb asked about a few *cough cough months? ago… I will sort that out.. sometime 😉. Thanks for your forbearance.Re book nominations - I still have to go back over the ones mentioned last year to check what I want. But there is another one I know I do want to read if it qualifies - The Daylight Gate by Jeanette Winterson. It is historical fiction - faction? about witchcraft in Lancashire. Is this supernatural fiction enough?
Werner wrote: "Jack, by group policy set in March of 2018, we don't consider books written by group members for our common reads in this group. (See message 442 on this thread; I've also just added that informati..."Apologies for the faux pas, noted for future. In that case can I recommend a series of books called the Laundry Files, by an author called Charles Stross. They are a little bit different, quite satirical with some interesting supernatural themes and a bit of Lovecraftian stuff thrown in for good measure. 'The Atrocity Archives' is the book to start with.
Ok the books I am interested in reading are:-The Daylight Gate
-Ghost Bird
If we're allowed one nomination, if anyone has preferences for any of these two, I can go with that one.
Sorry, I will try to be more active. First time offering my opinion here… I propose The Hacienda. A thousand times better than Mexican Gothic and I am dying to discuss it.
Kit and Vavita, no need to apologize for not being very active; life happens, and even in the best of times, we value group members who only log in to read others' posts! (If nobody read what we wrote, there wouldn't be much point in writing it. :-) ) Our group rules stipulate that members who haven't logged onto Goodreads at all for at least two years may get deleted from the roster (only because a lot of people abandon Goodreads without bothering to delete their accounts, and those inactive accounts are at risk of being hacked and taken over by "bots" with bad motives). But even in those cases, we make exceptions if we know the person has health or other issues going on, and intends to return to the site eventually; and members who do get deleted for long dormancy aren't blocked from rejoining.
No problem, Kit! :-)We've still got 11 specific titles in the ring. This is getting to be pretty interesting, as we've never had this many suggestions before! I'm still hoping to get them narrowed down more.
I've checked out the book description for The Daylight Gate, and read a review by the only one of my Goodreads friends who finished it. (Another one didn't like it, and abandoned it.) Based on these two sources, my honest impression is that it sounds like a straightforward historical novel, in which witchcraft is a delusion of the witch hunters, and the "horror" element is the cruelty some humans will visit on innocent other humans. William Harrison Ainsworth's 1854 novel The Lancashire Witches is a fictional view of the same Pendle Hill trials which treats witchcraft as (for purposes of the story!) "real;" but I'd be very surprised if Winterson's does.
Vavita wrote: "I propose The Hacienda. A thousand times better than Mexican Gothic and I am dying to discuss it."
Hmmm! I haven't read either book (though I've seen both for sale at the local bookstore), but I know that they're often compared or contrasted, because both are Gothic-themed novels set in rural Mexico. Personally, I think they'd be interesting to compare. But because of their similarities, I'd be reluctant to put both of them in the same poll; I'd be afraid that they'd wind up competing for the same group of voters, and split that vote between them in such a way that neither book could win.
How do you like this idea: what about suggesting The Hacienda as a multi-person buddy read, for those interested? (You wouldn't have to reread the book yourself if you didn't want to; but you could contribute to and even lead the discussion.) In September, November, and December I'll be tied up with common reads in other groups; but I'm game to join in a buddy read of the Canas book in January, whether Mexican Gothic is picked for our October read or not.
Thanks for checking out Winterson’s book, Werner. I will just nominate Ghost Bird by Lisa Fuller.
Kit wrote: "Thanks for checking out Winterson’s book, Werner. I will just nominate Ghost Bird by Lisa Fuller."
Sounds good, Kit!
To recapitulate Marie's three suggestions, she mentioned The Haunting of Ashburn House by Darcy Coates; Linden Manor by Catherine Cavendish; and Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand. All three of these would appear to be haunted house tales, so putting all three together in the same poll might be liable to the same objection I posed to pitting Mexican Gothic and The Hacienda against each other; they'd be splitting the votes of haunted house fans, who might otherwise coalese behind one choice and have a better chance of winning. IMO, that's a good argument for just keeping one of these in the ring for this time, and passing the other two by for now.
Personally, I don't have any first-hand experience with any of these three authors, though I've heard of Coates and often seen her books for sale at the Books-a-Million outlet in our local mall. (I think I've heard of the other two ladies as well, but am not as sure.) Marie, did you like any of these three better than the others? Or is anyone else in the group particularly interested in one of these titles? Has anyone else read any of these, and have some feedback that could add to Marie's?
Sounds good, Werner. I can check if someone was to read The Hacienda later on.
Vavita wrote: "Sounds good, Werner. I can check if someone was to read The Hacienda later on."Okay, Vavita; I've put out a feeler just now in the "Buddy reads" thread, and we'll see what happens!
I think The Hunger by Alma Katsu should be added to the poll also. Not sure if I get more than one nomination though... :D
Jack wrote: "...can I recommend a series of books called the Laundry Files, by an author called Charles Stross. They are a little bit different, quite satirical with some interesting supernatural themes and a bit of Lovecraftian stuff thrown in for good measure. 'The Atrocity Archives' is the book to start with."I'm definitely interested in reading the Stross books and I have The Atrocity Archives sitting on my shelf just waiting for the right moment. But we only do one group read each year and this year we have decided we are going to read a selection from a female author, so unfortunately Stross will have to wait at least one more year.
RJ wrote: "Not sure if I get more than one nomination though....we only do one group read each year and this year we have decided we are going to read a selection from a female author, so unfortunately Stross will have to wait at least one more year."
There's no formal "one nomination per person" rule as such, and some people suggest more than one book when we're at the brainstorming stage. This time, though, we have an unprecedented "embarrassment of riches" where suggestions are concerned (which was somewhat surprising to me). Since a poll with a dozen options in it is likely to scatter the votes out so widely that the winner won't have much of a mandate, I'm hoping folks will voluntarily finally limit themselves to one suggestion. :-)
Strictly speaking, we never actually set it in stone that the book selected this time around absolutely has to be written by a woman. But that said, the point was certainly made in our discussion last year that it would be a good idea to pick a female-authored read, especially since the distaff side of the genre has been relatively neglected in our group reads up to now. It would be fair to say that the consensus of the group at that time was in agreement with that; all of the suggestions so far except The Atrocity Archives have been by female authors, and my own preference would be to stick with those. (I also have to say that from the description, Stross' book strikes me more as science fiction than supernatural fiction.)
RJ is correct that, in practice, for a number of years we've only done a single group read every year, in October (and indeed, the read in the "spooky" season of October, leading up to Halloween, has become a group tradition that I and, I suspect, most other members too want to see continue). I broached the idea of the annual October read in 2011, and it's been carried on ever since. But doing only one group read a year isn't a requirement in our rules; it's just the pattern we fell into.
When the common reads were begun (back in 2008), we originally tried to do one three times a year. Participation started out strong, then declined. In 2009, a poll (with little participation) indicated a preference for monthly reads, and that was tried for awhile; but people seemed to get burned out on them and participation dropped even more. (One read had only one participant.) As a result, early in 2010, we instituted a policy that, instead of doing monthly reads, any group member who wanted to propose a common read could do so at any time, and that if there was enough interest, we'd do it. Members actually still have that right, but it's never been used since 2011.
The October read is the only one that the moderators take an active part in promoting (and the only one that I personally feel a sense of obligation to join in). Any other read is up to the members to initiate. But I'm certainly not against letting anyone do so! So knowing that another read before October 2023 isn't positively forbidden might take some of the pressure off here. I'd also be glad to see members make more use of the idea of multi-person buddy reads, a newer option, but certainly one that offers some of the same rewards as group reads but with more flexibility. (I was actually thinking about posting a plug for that idea at the beginning of next year!)
I don't know if this post helps, or just muddies the waters more; but I hope it does the former! :-)
If we're not able to reach a complete consensus on narrowing down our suggestions by the beginning of September, is the group okay with Deb and I using our discretion as moderators to winnow the nomination list to a manageable size? (If we keep to our typical schedule, the poll should go up for voting on Sept. 1.)
RJ wrote: "I think The Hunger by Alma Katsu should be added to the poll also."Our fellow group member Mark Lawicki (who hasn't commented in this discussion so far) has read The Hunger, and gave it four stars. His review is here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
fine with me, you and Deb can narrow it down.
Georgann wrote: "fine with me, you and Deb can narrow it down."Thanks for that feedback, Georgann!
RJ wrote: " I think I would nominate The Woman in Black by Susan Hill.... I think The Hunger by Alma Katsu should be added to the poll also. Not sure if I get more than one nomination though... :D "
Personally, I think both of these books sound like keepers! Since I withdrew all of my suggestions earlier, I'll go head and nominate The Woman in Black myself. That way, we both have just one nomination. :-) (Not that we have to be legalistic about that point!)
Back in late October of last year, Marie shared three suggestions for this read. However, she hadn't commented at all in the current phase of the discussion, and I was wondering why. Just now, I checked out her profile page, and discovered that the reason for her current silence is that, sometime between October and the present, she's left this group. We're sorry to know she's left! Given that she has, though, I think we'd be justified in passing by her suggestions, at least for this time around.With those deletions, the Winterson suggestion withdrawn, and The Hacienda shaping up to be a multi-person buddy read in January, we're actually now down to five solid nominations: Ghost Bird by Lisa Fuller; The Hunger; Mexican Gothic; Shiver; and The Woman in Black. A sixth suggestion, The Atrocity Archives, is still on the table; but it's written by a man and I still think it's science fiction, which would count as points against it, at least for this read.
Jack, since we're still at the brainstorming stage, would you be willing to replace The Atrocity Archives with another nomination, maybe one more unambiguously supernatural, and perhaps by a woman author? It doesn't have to be a book you've read and can recommend; it can just be a book you want to read. (In fact, I think most people's suggestions for group reads usually do fall in that category --all of mine did this time around, for instance.)
Lets take the Atrocity Archives off for debate another day. How about THE SENTENCE BY LOUISE ERDRICH, this lady is a Pulitzer winner and the novel is about a haunted bookstore. It caught my eye, have not read it, but it sounded quite interesting. Whatever we decide, I think we have had some great suggestions, looking forward to the read.
Also apologies for missing apostrophes. Unforgivable in a literary group :) I was typing while a parrot stood on my hand though.
Jack wrote: "Also apologies for missing apostrophes. Unforgivable in a literary group :) I was typing while a parrot stood on my hand though."Parrot on your hand??? Wait a minute...you're not CAPTAIN JACK are you? ;-)
RJ - Slayer of Trolls wrote: "Jack wrote: "Also apologies for missing apostrophes. Unforgivable in a literary group :) I was typing while a parrot stood on my hand though."Parrot on your hand??? Wait a minute...you're not CAP..." Busted! But no, sadly not nearly as interesting. Although my accent is a bit like a pirate.
Jack, I'd often heard of Erdrich before (naturally --I'm a librarian!), but had no clue that she ever wrote supernatural fiction! The Sentence is an excellent suggestion, and we'll definitely include it in the poll. With six choices now, I think we have our roster for the poll complete, and I'll plan to post it on Sept. 1.I agree that we've had some great suggestions (and I'm sure we'll revisit some of them!). This has been one of the best brainstorming processes we've ever had in this group.
Werner wrote: "I'll plan to post it on Sept. 1"How long will the poll be online? When will we know the winner?
Should we have a rule that we can only vote for another’s nomination and not our own?I remember once in my family we had a disagreement about naming a pet so we all put in our nominations and voted for our own nominations. There was one vote per nomination and we got nowhere.
Btw, it really is too bad you aren’t Captain Jack, Jack! Still, that’s ok. Welcome.
Vavita, good questions! We typically schedule the polls so that they're open for two weekends (the original figuring was that most people would vote on the weekends, being too busy for social media during the work week --though, in reality, I'm not sure now that that's true). So this poll will be open for voting from the time I post it on Sept. 1 (and I try to do that early) and will run through Sept. 11, ending at midnight. After midnight, the Polls page itself will show the results, but I'll try to announce them here early on Sept. 12.Kit, I understand your concern! However, our situation is a bit different, since we're a larger group than the typical family. We have six choices, but we can expect many more people to vote than the six that nominated the books (over the past seven years, we've had between 23-31 people voting every year --and there's been much more activity on this thread this year than usual.) So the situation your family ran into has never arisen here, and we've never had a reason to make such a rule.
That is great! I will be on a boat trip from Sept 2 to Sept 11 w/o internet access. So I will be able to vote and later to order the book in time.
Sounds good, Vavita! Yes, part of the reason for scheduling polls the way we do is to give everybody ample time to snag a copy of whatever book is picked.Have a great trip!
Jack wrote: "Also apologies for missing apostrophes. Unforgivable in a literary group :) I was typing while a parrot stood on my hand though." Ha ha ha!! You did very well, in that case!
Georgann wrote: "Jack wrote: "Also apologies for missing apostrophes. Unforgivable in a literary group :) I was typing while a parrot stood on my hand though." Ha ha ha!! You did very well, in that case!"I think I might actually change my name to Captain Jack after the feedback in the group. Arr me hearties!
The poll is now up, and ready for voting, at this link: https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/2... . It will run through Sunday, Sept. 11, and I'll plan to announce the winner here early on Sept. 12.
Throughout the poll, A Woman in Black and Mexican Gothic had a spirited battle going for first place; but the former has won, with 15 votes to 13, and will be our group read this year! The Hunger came in third with nine votes, and Shiver was a distant fourth with four. (I expected the latter to do better, since Stiefvater is popular; but since her trilogy has been published for a number of years, many group members have probably read it already.) Ghost Bird and The Sentence tied for last place, with two votes each.Our read/discussion will officially begin on Oct. 1. I'll plan to get the discussion thread posted on that date.
Seems like perfect timing with the nights drawing in. Look forward to the read.
OK, I'm in. I read where it has a different ending than the movie, so hopefully...I hated the ending of the movie.
I'm definitely planning to join in myself, so I'm hoping for a rewarding read! The film adaptation is one of many recent movies I haven't seen (I'm just not much of a movie watcher, mostly just because my schedule doesn't provide much opportunity to watch them); but for those who have seen it, the comparison of the two might provide some grist for discussion.
Georgann wrote: "OK, I'm in. I read where it has a different ending than the movie, so hopefully...I hated the ending of the movie."Interesting, Georgann! I liked both book and movie, but I actually preferred the movie to the book--including the different ending. I'll be curious to see what you think of the book ending.
Though October might still seem a long time away. it'll actually be here in less than two months! So it's not too early to begin to think seriously about what book we might want to choose for this year's annual group read.Although she doesn't write Goodreads reviews, my library colleague at BU, Paula, highly recommended
The Ghosts by Antonia Barber (1969) to me. I'd be game to nominate that one this year, if anyone else is interested in the possibility of reading it (?).
Oh yes - me please! 😊 I've actually got a different book by Antonia Barber ready to read (The Mousehole Cat) before I give it to my little cousin.Some older readers might remember an excellent film called "The Amazing Mr. Blunden" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ama...
It was based on The Ghosts.
Supernatural Fiction Readers
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The book Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor that I mentioned in my earlier post actually turned out to not be supernatural at all, despite being about a "witch." I would still recommend it for those who enjoy dark and violent stories but it wouldn't be a good selection for a supernatural book.