@Loki
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Celestia Bloodshed — 6 months ago(September 26, 2025 02:41 AM)
ok it's a couple, actually:
so i started Tolstoy's
The Kreutzer Sonata
today, a short novella i should be finishing by tomorrow.
i also started Patricia Highsmith's
The Price of Salt
, source novel of Todd Haynes' film Carol with Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett. i've seen the film before i knew it was adapted from said novel and loved it a lot. i hope this one holds up bc i was slightly disappointed with her last Ripley novel, the last book i've read from Highsmith.
furthermore, i'm still reading the Stalin biography,
Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar
by Simon Sebag Montefiore which i started before my reading slump and am now continuing, again, in a slow pace of reading one chapter a day, to fully absorb everything that i'm reading.
and lastly, i'm also reading a compilation of short stories by Black African authors and have just finished the (first) section which was writers from South Africa. now i'm onto a short story by Angolian writer, Oscar Bento Ribas.
cursed, scarred & forever possessed -
sheetsadam1 — 6 months ago(September 26, 2025 02:51 AM)
Nice! I've actually read
The Price of Salt
. I think you'll dig that one for sure.
I'm nearly finished with
Stage Fright
(so far no skeleton with a keytar, so ****ing lame!), which has been a fun, light read.
And I've also begun the Daphne du Maurier short story collection I picked up a while back. Only the first two stories so far, the title story "Kiss Me Again, Stranger" (good story, although a bit predictable) and… yes, "The Birds"! It's not really similar to the Hitchcock film at all, but both are masterpieces. I won't spoil all of the major differences, but I will say that it's much, much darker and different enough that one could actually make a more faithful adaptation without worrying about living up to Hitchcock. And somebody most definitely should!
But I'll have a more complete rundown on all of that once I finish the book!
Draft Barron Trump -
sheetsadam1 — 6 months ago(September 27, 2025 02:31 AM)
Finished
Stage Fright
. A nice light read, not too intellectually taxing, set in a then-future 1990s which is more technologically advanced than 2025
Also read:
I picked this short story collection for my big horror read primarily because of "The Birds," but there was plenty to love here, horror and otherwise. I'll break them down story by story. No spoilers.
"Kiss Me Again, Stranger"- A mechanic meets a mysterious young woman at the movies and things happen from there… Astute readers will know where this one is headed long before our somewhat dimwitted narrator, but it's still an effective story.
8.5/10
"The Birds" - To say that this story is quite different from the Hitchcock adaptation would be a giant understatement. A more claustrophobic setting, different characters, and the story is far bleaker. Indeed, I'd almost label the story apocalyptic. And with the British setting, it becomes abundantly clear that what du Maurier is really writing about here is The Blitz. Hitchcock's film is undeniably a masterpiece, but so is the story and, in the right hands, a more faithful adaptation would be more than welcome.
10/10
"The Little Photographer" - A story of an affair with dire consequences. The setting - a holiday in coastal France - is intriguing and the prose excellent, but the main character needed to be fleshed out a little more for her actions to make sense and the ending was a little anticlimactic.
6.5/10
"Monte Verità" - What initially seems like the classic "folk horror" tale ultimately turns out to be it's very antithesis. Modernity and so-called civilization are, as in real life, the greatest horror imaginable and du Maurier's character study of a man coming to realize that he's wasted his life among them is quite poignant.
10/10
"The Apple Tree" - A black comedy story which goes on just a tad too long, but the lead character is one of the most delightfully insufferable assholes I've encountered in literature in recent memory
7/10
"The Old Man" - Very short, more of a sketch than a fully fleshed-out story. None of the characters are given enough focus to be sympathetic and our gossipy stalker of a narrator, in particular, comes off very poorly. Whatever du Maurier was going for here, it missed the mark. Unless, of course, the publisher demanded ten more pages for whatever reason. It avoids the lowest rating only because her prose is, per usual, flawless.
2/10
"The Split Second" - This one reads like a lost Twilight Zone episode and that's one of the highest compliments I can think of. I won't say more because it would be an easy story to spoil and everybody should read this one! It is particularly well-suited for Halloween season.
11/10
"No Motive" - A classic detective story in the vein of Agatha Christie and it remains highly entertaining and compelling throughout. I was going to give it a mere 9.5 for not being
particularly
inventive. But the ironic embrace of one of the most well-known tropes of the genre in the final paragraphs ends the story and the collection on a perfect note.
10/10
Bottom line: du Maurier - whose novel
Rebecca
I greatly enjoyed quite recently - reveals herself here to be a master of the short story. I will most definitely continue reading her. Final score
8.1/10 (9.0 without "The Old Man"
).
@Celestia Bloodshed - We should definitely compare notes when you get to this one.
Sticking with iconic English writers, up next I will be revisiting this classic novella from Clive Barker:
Draft Barron Trump - A mechanic meets a mysterious young woman at the movies and things happen from there… Astute readers will know where this one is headed long before our somewhat dimwitted narrator, but it's still an effective story.
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sheetsadam1 — 6 months ago(September 29, 2025 01:45 AM)
Nice! I love Italian horror films, so I'll add it to my list! The book was actually published a year later, so it's unrelated. It's a run-of-the-mill cheap paperback horror of the era, highly entertaining if you're in the mood for that sort of thing, but nobody's idea of great literature. I picked it up because of the cover art
Draft Barron Trump -
Celestia Bloodshed — 5 months ago(October 31, 2025 08:38 PM)
ok so i've read
The Birds
today and i completely agree with you. i like how it's centered around a family being under attack in their home rather than the set of aloof characters from the film adaptation. the story here goes more into private and personal spaces being threatened, creating an apocalyptic bleakness and doom that is much more palpable here than in Hitchcock's version imo with an even more widely open ending than the film offered. and yes, i think, too, that this undeniably makes it an allegory of the WWII Blitz attacks.
for the record, i haven't read any of the other stories yet, and my copy actually only has the first five stories.
cursed, scarred & forever possessed -
sheetsadam1 — 6 months ago(September 29, 2025 01:11 AM)
I finished my re-read of
The Hellbound Heart
. I decided to revisit this one after a discussion on another thread a few months back where
@merry christmas
and
@Casper
had diverging views on it and I realized that I had never read Barker as an adult.
https://www.filmboards.com/board/p/22730519/permalink/#p22730519
Overall, I found it very enjoyable, although the short length left the characters feeling a little underdeveloped. More backstory (Frank's alluded-to criminal past and the relationship between Rory and Kirsty) would have helped matters, as would a few more domestic scenes to fully explain why Julia was unhappy in the marriage and went to the lengths that she did. The Cenobites, of course, and the mystery behind LeMarchand's box are the most intriguing part of the story.
I prefer this novella to Barker's own film adaptation
Hellraiser
, which seemed to sacrifice much of the story's quintessential Britishness for a largely American main cast.
In short, I would recommend this one and I intend to revisit more of Barker's work in the near future. Probably beginning with
The Thief of Always
, which was my favorite of his growing up.
Up next, I'm beginning this massive behemoth of a book, which features contributions from several of my favorite contemporary horror authors, many authors I'm not yet familiar with and even a few whom I actively dislike. I'll likely be reading something else concurrently, but haven't settled yet on what it will be.
Draft Barron Trump -
sheetsadam1 — 6 months ago(September 29, 2025 01:42 AM)
I haven't read that either. Or really any of his more recent work. I seem to remember that he went all George R.R. Martin for a while and wasn't really publishing anything and I never checked back in once that phase was over. I don't want to overextend my Halloween season reading list, but if I run out of things to read next month, I may go find that one at the library
Draft Barron Trump -
sheetsadam1 — 6 months ago(October 01, 2025 06:15 PM)
While I continue to slowly make my way through
The End of the World as We Know It
, I've decided to revisit yet another classic horror author, the late great Peter Straub. I've read this one before, but it's been years.
@dbentley666- I can't remember if it was this one or
Julia
which you mentioned a while back?
Draft Barron Trump
- I can't remember if it was this one or
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sheetsadam1 — 6 months ago(October 01, 2025 06:44 PM)
You're in Washington, correct? I read this one a few months ago and it's one of my favorites this year. It's largely centered around Tacoma and the author grew up in the area during that time.
Draft Barron Trump -
Cheeky — 6 months ago(October 01, 2025 07:12 PM)
Sounds good
I read Ann Rules book on Bundy, The Stranger Beside Me
If we take the time to see with the heart and not with the mind, we shall see that we are surrounded completely by angels ~ Carlos Santana -
Celestia Bloodshed — 6 months ago(October 04, 2025 12:06 PM)
my sister gave me a book to read from her shelf:
Cursed Bunny
by Bora Chung (2017)
Cursed Bunny is a genre-defying collection of short stories by Korean author Bora Chung. Blurring the lines between magical realism, horror, and science-fiction, Chung uses elements of the fantastic and surreal to address the very real horrors and cruelties of patriarchy and capitalism in modern society.
Chung’s prose effortlessly glides from being terrifying to wryly humorous. Winner of a PEN/Heim Grant.
3 stories in and so far so good!
i have also started reading another Patricia Highsmith noir,
The Two Faces of January
(1964), after i've been thoroughly blown away by her last novel that i've read,
The Price of Salt
, which became an instant favourite. this one is pretty good as well and i'm so back on that Highsmith kick, baby
cursed, scarred & forever possessed
