book thread

minty

runs bartertown
listened to "the turn of the screw" by henry james and it was hot garbage, but an author i had not read before so a coin toss is a coin toss

to be cont.
this story was a ghost story, downloaded for spookytimes
so, the story starts off with a prologue about a group of people in a house and a guy is like "i have a ghost story i can tell but i'll have to wait for the manuscript to arrive." so, it does the following day and then the actual story starts. it's about a woman who goes to be a governess for 2 kids being raised by their uncle and he doesn't want to be disturbed at all.
she is seeing a male ghost haunting the little boy and a female ghost haunting the little girl. she is convinced the kids can see them and that they are fucking with her, but the kids are well-behaved for the most part. she tells a housekeeper she's seeing them and the housekeeper says based on their descriptions it's 2 former workers who died.
at the end of the story, she finds out she's the only one who can see the two ghosts, as one of the ghosts appears in front of her, the little girl, and the housekeeper. she sends the housekeeper and the little girl to the uncle. she is determined to trap the little boy in a confession since she still thinks the kids are fucking with her and that he knows what's going on. he says he's doesn't, the male ghost appears and the boy dies
that's it.
that's the end of the story.
no motivation for the ghost, no wraparound back to the audience listening to this that was mentioned in the prologue, no tying up of loose ends with the little girl, no nothing.

i am now listening to the horror stories of robert e. howard. he used to send letters back and forth to lovecraft and after this started you can hear some influence of lovecraft in howard's work but howard can write an action scene much better than lovecraft. there's a solid mix of vampire, werewolf, ghost, and snake person tales and i will post a bit about some gems in here soon

for now i must say that my fav type of ghost story is in here and it's an absolute delight to read. the ever neutral, unscary, "i reached out to a dead legend for help" ghost story
the spirit of tom molyneaux
this story is told from the coach's perspective and is about a black boxer (ace) who looks up to another, far more legendary black boxer named tom molyneaux and has a framed portrait of him in his dressing room. another black boxer from senegal (mankiller) starts taking the boxing world by storm and eventually a match is set and mankiller eventually starts working over ace and ace refuses to cave so for inspiration the coach shows the portrait of tom molyneaux to ace and he feels it ripple in his hands and a cold breeze blows into the ring and a shadowy fourth man appears and helps ace k.o. mankiller
it's not exactly the same, but it reminds me of the twilight zone (rip @j15m luv u buddy) episode a game of pool, where the new best pool player has the legend of the old best pool player looming over him and challenges his ghost to a match
delightful story. 10/10
 

minty

runs bartertown
I keep meaning to read Beyond Good And Evil.
it's alright. there's some good ideas in there but nothing that stuck out in my mind that i can point at atm, apart from the gazing into the abyss chunk which is all too well known, and a section where he says that if a woman has scholarly pursuits it's an indicator that she is probably barren, which gave me a hearty chuckle
howard's conan is too fresh in the brain to remember much else at the moment
gonna start using "by the thunder of crom" in casual language
 

Lovecraft

Dramacrat
it's alright. there's some good ideas in there but nothing that stuck out in my mind that i can point at atm, apart from the gazing into the abyss chunk which is all too well known, and a section where he says that if a woman has scholarly pursuits it's an indicator that she is probably barren, which gave me a hearty chuckle
howard's conan is too fresh in the brain to remember much else at the moment
gonna start using "by the thunder of crom" in casual language
The soundtrack for the early noughties game of the same name was banging though
 
20240920_181153.jpg

If you like history about Hispanic nations rising against the US and being in a constant power struggle this is a great read
Much more to it than that but it's a rundown
 

minty

runs bartertown
finished the robert e howard book, listened to a short story compilation on rats n enjoyed some of those as well. will do a bit of a deep dive on some of those later
for now tho i am listening to bram stoker's dracula and it's a delight. the narrator does a different voice for each character and that makes a world of difference in a book with so many different characters in it.
looking through other audiobooks this dude did n he's got the picture of dorian gray, allan quartermaine, invisible man, and dr jekyll and mr hyde...
so, gonna do a league of extraordinary gentleman character theme book-athon next i think
 

Lovecraft

Dramacrat
finished the robert e howard book, listened to a short story compilation on rats n enjoyed some of those as well. will do a bit of a deep dive on some of those later
for now tho i am listening to bram stoker's dracula and it's a delight. the narrator does a different voice for each character and that makes a world of difference in a book with so many different characters in it.
looking through other audiobooks this dude did n he's got the picture of dorian gray, allan quartermaine, invisible man, and dr jekyll and mr hyde...
so, gonna do a league of extraordinary gentleman character theme book-athon next i think
If you like good narration anything read by Stephen Briggs or Nigel Planer is great.
 

minty

runs bartertown
@minty View attachment 21450

I't's a children's book. It has all the elements that make a good children's book: talking animals living a life of harmony and content, rape, war, ancient evil trying to overtake the world and the final battle of champions, the rooster and the anti-rooster.
legit...
that's actually why i have loved watership down ever since i was a kid. it was in my elementary school library, but there was a complex rabbit mythology, war, enslavement, and a rabbit that could see doom in the future.
def buying this. thx

aside, i finished dracula. quincey morris was the best character. i love that they all sat down n decided how bad dracula was n how he needed to be dealt with during the daytime and the second they all saw a bat outside quincey took himself and his six shooter outside n started blastin'
that is a real man

the portrait of dorian gray is deeply homoerotic. while a tale of a young man who starts off innocent and then has to choose between spending time with one friend who is a good influence and another who is bad and then slowly resigning himself to the bad because it's easier and requires no self-reflection can be not gay, this one is very gay. a better "good person becoming corrupt" tale is citizen kane.

If you like good narration anything read by Stephen Briggs or Nigel Planer is great.
these book narrations are by bj harrison n i am probs just gonna stay on brand working through the league
dr jekyll n mr hyde (and other stories) next
 

Lovecraft

Dramacrat
legit...
that's actually why i have loved watership down ever since i was a kid. it was in my elementary school library, but there was a complex rabbit mythology, war, enslavement, and a rabbit that could see doom in the future.
def buying this. thx

aside, i finished dracula. quincey morris was the best character. i love that they all sat down n decided how bad dracula was n how he needed to be dealt with during the daytime and the second they all saw a bat outside quincey took himself and his six shooter outside n started blastin'
that is a real man

the portrait of dorian gray is deeply homoerotic. while a tale of a young man who starts off innocent and then has to choose between spending time with one friend who is a good influence and another who is bad and then slowly resigning himself to the bad because it's easier and requires no self-reflection can be not gay, this one is very gay. a better "good person becoming corrupt" tale is citizen kane.


these book narrations are by bj harrison n i am probs just gonna stay on brand working through the league
dr jekyll n mr hyde (and other stories) next
The two narrators I mentioned have done the majority of the audiobook readings of Terry Pratchetts works, and I somehow got curious if their other narration work would be up to the same standard. To my slight surprise, it was.
Though it is kind of weird listening to true crime and history read by a voice you expect to go into detail about the finer points of wizardry at any moment.
 

minty

runs bartertown
i have not read a single terry pratchett book

tbh, 95% of what i read is not fiction. this is the most fiction intake i have had in a while, honestly. n even then i have restarted reading the potato history book in the mornings to balance it out some because it feels like i'm putting trash in my brain because it's not about the tulip bulb boom n bust of the 1600's
 

minty

runs bartertown
finished my league of extraordinary gentleman starter course:
dracula, dorian gray, jekyll & hyde had other short stories following it, including one about a genie in a bottle which was p cool. the invisible man came with the time machine, which was rather delightful, and led to me buying wells' food of the gods book (i haven't listened to it yet, but i've been told there's giant chickens in it)
allan quartermain was last and tbh was p solid
it was neat, there was a spot in the time machine where the traveler was attacked by a giant crab, and then in quartermain there was another spot where everyone was attacked by crabs. the zulu dude in quartermain was an absolute badass n went down like a champion. out of all of these i'm giving 9/10 for time machine, dracula, and quartermain. gay/10 for dorian gray, 7/10 for jekyll, 8/10 for invisible man

after that i started listening to scary stories for the rest of october. sleepy hollow is classic, some edgar allan hoe. halfway through agatha christie's hallowe'en party rn
 
finished my league of extraordinary gentleman starter course:
dracula, dorian gray, jekyll & hyde had other short stories following it, including one about a genie in a bottle which was p cool. the invisible man came with the time machine, which was rather delightful, and led to me buying wells' food of the gods book (i haven't listened to it yet, but i've been told there's giant chickens in it)
allan quartermain was last and tbh was p solid
it was neat, there was a spot in the time machine where the traveler was attacked by a giant crab, and then in quartermain there was another spot where everyone was attacked by crabs. the zulu dude in quartermain was an absolute badass n went down like a champion. out of all of these i'm giving 9/10 for time machine, dracula, and quartermain. gay/10 for dorian gray, 7/10 for jekyll, 8/10 for invisible man

after that i started listening to scary stories for the rest of october. sleepy hollow is classic, some edgar allan hoe. halfway through agatha christie's hallowe'en party rn
In your opinion, are female or male voices the best for audiobooks?
 

Lovecraft

Dramacrat
in my opinion, you should be hanging from a tree in my yard next to the comically large spider wrapped in fake webbing for the october vibes
Southern trees are known for bearing strange fruit.
Strangest and fruitiest harvest yet, probably smell like durian too.
 

fleacollerindustry

Tank Police Officer
Wiki Admin
in my opinion, you should be hanging from a tree in my yard next to the comically large spider wrapped in fake webbing for the october vibes
do you have any recommendations on comically large spiders that do NOT look like they have four noses? I'm asking for a friend
 
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