Hosted by Stainless Steel Droppings
Mystery
Suspense
Thriller
Dark Fantasy
Gothic
Horror
Supernatural
Or anything sufficiently moody that shares a kinship with the above.
That is what embodies the stories, written and visual, that we celebrate with the R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril event.”
And, there are two simple rules:
1. Have fun reading (and watching).
2. Share that fun with others.
You can sign up here. And then you will have a list in your notebook too. Although of course my list has more to do with dreams than reality. I figure I’ll read about 6 or 8 titles and maybe 2 or 3 of them will be from these lists. I am a moody reader, and the titles which appealed to me when I made these lists might not be the ones which insist on being read when I actually sit down with a book in hand.
Anyone else thinking “GingerSnaps”?
Creepy Canlit for Grown-ups
Kelley Armstrong’s Visions (second in Cainsville series, following Omens)
Todd Babiak’s Come, Barbarians
Linwood Barclay’s No Time for Goodbye and Safe House
Joey Comeau’s The Summer is Ended and We Are Not Yet Saved
Nick Cutter’s forthcoming novel, The Deep
A.S.A. Harrison’s The Silent Wife
Matthew Heti’s The City Still Breathing
Emily Pohl-Weary’s Not Your Ordinary Wolf Girl
Andrew Pyper’s The Guardians
Michael Rowe’s Enter, Night
Robin Spano’s Dead Politician Society
Russell Wangersky’s Walt
Michael Winter’s The Death of Donna Whalen
Group R.I.P. Read
Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House
Creepy Canlit for Teens
Kelley Armstrong’s Sea of Shadows (Age of Legends #1)
Leah Bobet’s Above
Erin Bow’s Plain Kate, Sorrow’s Knot
Charles de Lint’s Under My Skin (Wildlings #1)
Maggie de Vries’ Rabbit Ears
Hopkinson, Nalo Sister Mine
Evan Munday’s The Dead Kid Detective Agency, Dial M for Morna
Kenneth Oppel’s This Dark Endeavour (Viktor Frankenstein #1)
Shane Peacock’s Eye of the Crow (Boy Sherlock Holmes #1)
Edeet Ravel’s Held
The Seven Series, an interconnected set of seven mysteries
Drew Hayden Taylor’s The Night Wanderer
Richard Scrimger’s Zomboy
Actually Read:
1. Emily Carroll’s Through the Woods (2014)
Comprised of five long and two short works, these tales are peopled with losses and lonelinesses. Hues of red, black and white dominate the volume, with other colours used sparingly for contrast. Panel use is unpredictable, with images sometimes boxed but often sprawling and dripping across pages, so that a ghost’s song in “A Lady’s Hands Are Cold” meanders without boundaries or the edges of small talk are lost across borders of panels with the majority of words left for guessing in “The Nesting Place”. Deliciously scary, these gothic tales invite rereading and sharing. Whatever Emily Carroll writes and draws next is bound to satisfy those who enjoy beauty and horror in their storytelling.
2. Evan Munday’s The Dead Kid Detective Agency (2011)
The person sitting next to me, whenever I picked this up to read, was bound to hear a few sentences read aloud. And it wasn’t just me: my companion always laughed too! But not only is Evan Munday’s writing smart and funny, but he’s got a kick-ass heroine, who has deservedly been recognized with a sequel. And, yes, there is substance beneath the humour, but the entertainment counters the story’s contemplative shadowy feel.
3. Joey Comeau’s The Summer is Ended and We Are Not Yet Saved (2012)
One Bloody Thing after Another (2010) introduced me to the author’s darkness and Overqualified (2009) introduced me to his humour (the other quality is also evident in each work). Summer is riotously funny at times (the relationship between mother and son is great) and sad in some ordinary ways; it is also jaw-droppingly frightening at times, and it left me all-a-gasp in the end. Why do I keep returning to these short and strange tales? He tells a story as one believes that it is meant to be told. (Of course that isn’t the way that one might *want* it to be told.) I’ve one Joey Comeau left to read, but I wonder if it shouldn’t be saved….
4. Nick Cutter’s forthcoming novel, The Deep (2015)
5. Kelley Armstrong’s Visions (2014)
Actually Watched:
1. In Fear (2013)
2. The Revenant (2009)
3. Blade (1998)
4. Blade II (2002)
5. Blade Trinity (2004)
6. 30 Days of Night (2007)
7. Scream (1996)
8. The Lady in the Cage (1964)
9. Mama (2013)
10-13. Four episodes of Penny Dreadful (2014)
Notes: I didn’t read as many creepy books as I thought I would, but evey book I read was terrific, and the combination of freshly discovered films/shows and old favourites worked brilliantly. Was I disappointed not to have squeezed in Shirley Jackson’s novella? Yup. She’s awesome. But the book is still at hand. And November is just as great a month for the spooky stuff, isn’t it.