Eggp > Recent Status Updates

01. Alfred Kubin - The Other Side [excerpt], 2 stars. World is decaying and overrun with wild beasts.
02. F. Marion Crawford - The Screaming Skull, 4 stars. Old sailor inherits house and noisy ghost.
03. Algernon Blackwood - The Willows, 5 stars. [2013]
04. Saki - Sredni Vashtar, 4 stars. Orphaned boy's guardian takes great pleasure in making him miserable.
05. M.R. James - Casting the Runes, 5 stars. [2016]

Wiki: "In one corner lived a ragged-plumaged Houdan hen, on which the boy lavished an affection that had scarcely another outlet."

95. Helen Simpson - The Festival of the Immortals, 2 stars. Elderly women catch up at literary festival.
96. Fay Weldon - Grandpa's Ghost, 3 stars. Unresolved family issues make an unhappy and unwanted home.
97. James Robertson - Ghost, 1 star. Woman sees some wind in the garden.

91. Ben Okri - Belonging, 2 stars. Man enjoys his mistaken identity.
92. Adam Marek - Dinner of the Dead Alumni, 3 stars. Man stalks woman while his wife struggles with their twins.
93. Michael Marshall Smith - Sad, Dark Thing, stars. Lonely man takes the wrong road, comes home with something.
94. Joanne Rush - Guests, 4 stars. Husband goes away for work, his work shows up at home.

87. Haruki Murakami - The Mirror, 2 stars. Man recalls a late night encounter.
88. Lydia Davis - The Strangers, 1 star. People show up and eat your food.
89. Annie Proulx - The Sagebrush Kid, 4 stars. Lonely couple care for anthropomorphic plant.
90. Jackie Kay - The White Cot, 3 stars. Menopausal woman has an emotional holiday.

83. Kelly Link - The Specialist's Hat, 2 stars. Creepy twins in creepy poet's old creepy house.
84. Phyllis Alesia Perry - Stigmata [extract], 2 stars. Girl has visions of the past.
85. Ali Smith - The Hanging Girl, 3 stars. Woman feels something following her.
86. Kate Atkinson - Temporal Anomaly, 3 stars. Woman hangs around after car accident.

79. Kazuo Ishiguro - The Gourmet, 3 stars. Man with exotic taste seeks something otherworldly.
80. Tananarive Due - Prologue, 1963, 3 stars. Nana takes very good care of her grandson.
81. Joyce Carol Oates - Nobody Knows My Name, 2 stars. Big sister isn't impressed with new baby.
82. Hilary Mantel - Terminus, 2 stars. Looking for dad in the usual places.

75. Louise Erdrich - Fleur, 4 stars. Cursed(?) girl gets work at a butcher's shop.
76. Tim O'Brien - The Lives of the Dead, 3 stars. The one that got away was nine years old.
77. Jewelle Gomez - Off-Broadway: 1971, 3 stars. Vampire makes a new pal.
78. Angela Carter - Ashputtle or The Mother's Ghost, 3 stars. Three versions of Cinderella.

71. J.G. Ballard - The Dead Astronaut, 5 stars. Obsessed woman wants to collect astronaut's remains.
72. Robert Nye - Randal, 4 stars. Sisters share a hot bath after an unsatisfactory meal.
73. Ruth Rendell - The Vinegar Mother, stars. Child's holiday with well-off friend goes awry.
74. William Trevor - The Death of Peggy Meehan, 3 stars. Sheltered child dreams death of classmate.

Wiki: "He wouldn’t just steal your eggs. Or your hen. Not Gregor MacGregor. Ambitious, he was. Steal your eggs and your hen. That was Gregor."

67. Elizabeth Taylor - Poor Girl, 3 stars. Governess becomes infatuated.
68. Richard Brautigan - Memory of a Girl, 1 star. An insurance building has trees around it.
69. Tove Jansson - Black-White, 2 stars. Illustrator spends time away from his wife.
70. Stephen King - The Mangler, 3 stars. Bloodthirsty machine created by unfortunate series of events.

63. Flann O'Brien - Two in One, 4 stars. Taxidermy apprentice takes feud too far.
64. Yukio Mishima - Swaddling Clothes, 2 stars. Woman can't stop thinking about improperly wrapped newborn.
65. Rosemary Timperley - Harry, 4 stars. Little girl has creepy imaginary friend.
66. Muriel Spark - The Girl I Left Behind Me, 4 stars. Office girl forgets something at work.

58. Elizabeth Bowen - The Demon Lover, 4 stars. A long-forgotten promise is kept.
59. Sir Alec Guinness - Money for Jam, 2 stars. Dangerous storm ruins simple plan.
60. Stevie Smith - Is There a Life Beyond the Gravy?, 2 stars. Surreal relatives visit uncle.
61. Ray Bradbury - Mars is Heaven/The Third Expedition, 5 stars. [2016]
62. Shirley Jackson - The Tooth, stars. Tripping balls before/after dental procedure.

Wiki: "...the ring left by a vase on the top of the escritoire; the bruise in the wallpaper where, on the door being thrown open widely..."

54. Franz Kafka - The Hunter Gracchus, 1 star. Dead guy has a little chat.
55. Zora Neale Hurston - High Walker and Bloody Bones, 1 star. Don't run your mouth.
56. Dylan Thomas - The Vest, 2 stars. Pervert hurts woman.
57. W. Somerset Maugham - A Man from Glasgow, 3 stars. Scotsman hears someone laughing.

49. D.H. Lawrence - The Rocking-Horse Winner, 3 stars. Son has a talent for playing the ponies.
50. Virginia Woolf - A Haunted House, 1 star. Utter nonsense re: a ghost couple.
51. P.G. Wodehouse - Honeysuckle Cottage, 4 stars. Crime writer falls under a soppy influence.
52. Graham Greene - The Second Death, 3 stars. Playboy fears what's on the other side.
53. William Faulkner - A Rose for Emily, 4 stars. [2017]

Wiki: "...she was forcibly reminded of the old conundrum that starts, 'All Cretans are liars.'"

"It was not that ladies were inferior to men; it was that they were different. Their mission was to inspire others to achievement rather than to achieve themselves. Indirectly, by means of tact and a spotless name, a lady could accomplish much. But if she rushed into the fray herself she would be first censured, then despised, and finally ignored. Poems had been written to illustrate this point."

43. Arthur Machen - The Bowmen, 2 stars. Soldier calls for help.
44. Saki - The Open Window, 4 stars. Attention seeker meets an interesting girl.
45. Edith Wharton - The Lady's Maid's Bell, 3 stars. Sickly maid gets a new job.
47. Richmal Crompton - The Ghost, 3 stars. Troublemaker is admired by elderly relative.
48. May Sinclair - The Nature of the Evidence, 3 stars. Lusty widower remarries unsuitable girl.

39. F. Marion Crawford - The Doll's Ghost, 3 stars. Doll doctor is too emotionally invested in his patients.
40. E.F. Benson - The Room in the Tower, 3 stars. Man finally lives out his reoccurring dream.
41. Richard Middleton - On the Brighton Road, 2 stars. Hobo is kind to a young looking fellow traveler.
42. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - How it Happened, 3 stars. Man tests new car against the advice of his servant.

Wiki: "Ah! I’ve always longed to know what a posset is."

Wiki: "He thought of pleasant things: Broadstairs, his small daughter’s back hair, oyster patties, his favourite ‘star’ in little but a corset belt, and his own nightcap of hot whisky and lemon."

Broadstairs > Bleak House

Wiki: "Dinny took the last thing out of the trunk. It was a pot of antiphlogistine."

33. Mary Wilkins Freeman - The Wind in the Rose-Bush, 4 stars. Aunt comes into money and travels to collect orphaned niece.
34. Guy de Maupassant - A Tress of Hair, 3 stars. Man finds some hair, obsesses.
36. Mary Austin - The Readjustment, 2 stars. Woman dies, makes her presence felt.
38. Oliver Onions - The Rocker, 2 stars. Gypsy mother spots old woman's little visitor.

29. W.W. Jacobs - The Monkey's Paw, 4 stars. The classic "be careful what you wish for" story.
30. Jonas Lie - Elias and the Draug, 3 stars. Father royally pisses off a wereseal.
31. Émile Zola - Angeline or The Haunted House, 1 star. Man hears conflicting stories about haunted house.
32. H.G. Wells - The Inexperienced Ghost, 2 stars. Friends don't believe chum's ghostly encounter.

Wiki: "...it was none other than the Draug himself who sat steering his half-boat alongside his and who had lured him on to destruction..."

Wiki: "But the youngest, Askeladden, didn’t even wait for the sun to rise before going out to the woods."

Well, that's not what I was expecting, and ditto: "Remarkable to think his inner circle consisted of only four human beings."

Little spike of dread at “Chains?”, loving it.