Essential October Reading

ensignoftheunit said:
Can anyone comment on From the Dust Returned (Bradbury)? I remember seeing it on the bookshelves for the first time when I graduated High School but in the rush of heading out to boot camp I lost track of it.
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From the Dust Returned is a bit like the Addams Family or The Munsters, about a family of ghouls, witches, vampires and mummies. It is a fix-up novel, similar to The Martian Chronicles, Dandelion Wine and The Illustrated Man - a bunch of old Bradbury stories connected together by a frame story. For example, two short stories in The October Country, "Homecoming" and "Uncle Einar," are chapters in From the Dust Returned. "Uncle Einar" also appeared in R is for Rocket (that story got around!) and "The April Witch" also appeared in The Golden Apples of the Sun. I enjoyed From the Dust Returned, but if you have read many of Bradbury's other collections you'll probably find a lot of it very familiar.
 
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ensignoftheunit said:
Can anyone comment on From the Dust Returned (Bradbury)? I remember seeing it on the bookshelves for the first time when I graduated High School but in the rush of heading out to boot camp I lost track of it.
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I haven't read it, yet, but it includes stories like "Homecoming" (my nomination for the best American fantasy short story of the 20th century) and, I think, "Uncle Einar," stories about 'the Family,' that group of macabre characters that seem to stem from a Charles Adams cartoon that Bradbury returned to more than a few times.

Also, what's the name of the collection of horror stories that came out in the 30s or 40s? I remember seeing it on the forum but can't find it for the life of me...
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Probably Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural, edited by Herbert Wise and Phyllis Cerf, which has been reissued as a Modern Library edition multiple times since the 1940s. I still see it in bookstores now.

Randy M.
 
Hi, all.

For the U.S. members:

I just heard that a fine anthology from a few years back, October Dreams ed. by Richard Chizmar of Cemetary Dance magazine, has been republished through Barnes & Noble. The new title is Halloween Horrors. It's a fun anthology of fiction, reminiscences and some essays about the holiday's origins, about films to watch and books to read.

I will talk about it a little in the lists to come.


Randy M.
 
In the monthly discussion group I belong to, we just agreed to check out Necroscope by Brian Lumley. I have never checked it out before, but we all agreed it would be an appropriate selection for the month. I think the only vampire book I have completed was Fevre Dream and I wouldn't consider that a horror book. I guess we will see if this one fits that bill or not.
 
Banger said:
Someone mentioned Something Wicked This Way Comes, which we read as a BOTM in October 2006 and which is one of my all-time favorites. Another Bradbury book perfect for October is his short story collection The October Country.
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I read Something Wicked This Way Comes a few Octobers ago and it was spot on perfect for the season.
 
By the way ...

... the first two lists I have in mind for the October readings thread are "Evoking October and Halloween: Bradbury" and "Evoking Bradbury."

Neither are extensive, but there is some good reading in them.

Well, I think there is, anyway.

Just thought someone might find that interesting.


Randy M.
(A tease? Who? Me?)
 
Think they could both work, Randy.

I am really fancying some (more) Bradbury this year.

Mark
 
It might sound silly but I can highly recommend The Spook's Apprentice (American title: The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch), written by Joseph Delaney, and its sequels.

The series is supposed to be YA but they're actually really good and probably too spooky for younger kids.
 
I have never actually read Dracula by Bram Stoker. I've always intended to read it during October. Maybe this year.
 
This will include some duplications of things already mentioned.

Each of these is, I think, reading suitable for the spirit of All Hallow's Eve.

Aickman, Robert:
. We Are for the Dark
. Powers of Darkness
. The Unsettled Dust
. Sub Rosa
. Cold Hand in Mine
. Tales of Love and Death
. Intrusions
. Painted Devils.
.Night Voices
.The Wine-Dark Sea
Aiken, Joan:
. The Windscreen Weepers
. Green Flash
. A Bundle of Nerves
. Far Forests
. A Touch of Chill.
. A Whisper in the Night
. The Haunting of Lamb House
. A Goose on Your Grave
. A Foot in the Grave
. Give Yourself a Fright
. A Fit of Shivers
. Creepy Company
. Dead Man's Lane
Amis, Kingsley: The Green Man
Amis, Martin: Other People
Barker, Clive: Weaveworld [& probably much else]
Blaylock, James:
. Night Relics
. Winter Tides
. The Rainy Season
Bradbury, Ray:
. The October Country
. Something Wicked This Way Comes
. The Halloween Tree
Cady, Jack: The Jonah Watch [& probably much else]
Carroll, Jonathan:
. The Land of Laughs
. Voice of Our Shadow
. Black Cocktail
. The "Answered Prayers" sextet
Collier, John: Fancies and Goodnights [the later the edition, the better]
Davidson, Avram: The Boss in the Wall
Gaiman, Neil:
. Smoke and Mirrors
. Coraline
. The Wolves in the Walls
. The Graveyard Book
Green, Simon R.: Shadows Fall
Hodgson, William Hope:
. The House on the Borderland
. Carnacki the Ghost-Finder
Jackson, Shirley: The Haunting of Hill House [& probably much else]
LeFanu, Sheridan:
. Best Ghost Stories of J. S. Lefanu
. Madame Crowl's Ghost and Other Tales of Mystery
Machen, Arthur:
. The Inmost Light
. The Great God Pan
. The Three Impostors
. The House of Souls
. The Red Hand
. The Shining Pyramid
. Ornaments in Jade
Miéville, China: King Rat
O'Brien, Flann: The Third Policeman
Peake, Mervyn: Boy in Darkness
Pinckney, Josephine: Great Mischief
Smith, Thorne (for the light touch):
. Topper
. Topper Takes a Trip
. The Stray Lamb
. The Night Life of the Gods
Stableford, Brian:
. The Empire of Fear
. The Werewolves of London ["Lydyard" #1]
. The Angel of Pain ["Lydyard" #2]
. The Carnival of Destruction ["Lydyard" #3]
Stewart, Sean:
. Resurrection Man
. Galveston
Warner, Sylvia Townsend: Lolly Willowes
Wellman, Manly Wade:
. John the Balladeer
. The Old Gods Waken
. After Dark
. The Lost and the Lurking
. The Hanging Stones
. The Voice of the Mountain
Williams, Charles (arguably all 7 of his novels could be listed):
. Descent into Hell
. All Hallows' Eve
Zelazny, Roger: A Night in the Lonesome October

Though I left it off, a case could be made for William Hope Hodgson's eerie work The Night Land.
 
Probably not the best.

I begin by saying that this is meta-commentary, in that I have read reviews but not the books themselves--but it was quite a lot of reviews.

It appears that the definitive annotated Dracula remains The Essential Dracula by Leonard Wolf, a successor to his earlier Annotated Dracula.

The chief complaint about the Klinger version appears to be that Klinger has adopted the "higher criticism" basis he used in his annotated Sherlock Holmes books, which is the pretense that the tales are true, factual recountings of actual events. That may make for an amusing or even interesting read, but it is scarcely going to produce a definitive set of annotations.

(Incidentally, I still think the best annotated Sherlock Holmes is the nine-volume Oxford edition.)
 
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