The extensive notes at the end of Ivanhoe stated who the mysterious pilgrim and Black Knight characters were before their reveal many chapters later. It seemed an odd choice to maintain that mystery even though readers likely had it figured out by then. I like notes, glossaries, etc. but sometimes it is better to incorporate that information into the story.

Read:

Reading:

Not so much the footnotes, but I pretty much skimmed all the Zampano stuff. I got that a lot of it was lampooning the style of academic writing ... and didn't feel like I needed to read every word to get the point. The rest of the book, especially the "meat" Navidson Report, I really enjoyed.

I'm a bit behind in posting here. A couple that I finished:

Tender is the Flesh by Augustina Bazterrica. I had been putting this off for a while. It just sounded so bleak and disgusting. But at a certain point I've just seen it referenced so many times that I want to get it done with. Fortunately it's a very short novel (~200 pages) and has a literary style and ambition instead being splatterpunk edgelord. While it was well done, probably not something I recommend.

The Ghost Tree by Christina Henry. I've read and enjoyed several books by her (Alice, Red Queen, Lost Boys, Girl in Red) although this is the first one that was an "original" (instead of being a twisted take on a fairy tale). Although it went in a very different direction, the basic set-up was very similar to Hex ... a prosperous American small town living under the shadow of a witch's curse.

Above Suspicion by Helen MacInnes (1942). A young married couple are asked to go spy in Nazi occupied Europe in 1939, by which time everyone knows that the world is about to blow up. They have no history of intelligence work, and they act like such innocents that they should be above suspicion. Europe before the war is a creepy place, with secret police, informants everywhere, and columns of men in brown shirts marching through town squares.

The interaction between the couple is great. I liked this book a lot.

If you're a fan of the movie, this is a must have. I'm 70 pages in. Lots of photos (not the separate glossy ones but they are printed along with the text) and input from all participants from the film. Since Lloyd Bridges had passed, Beau and Jeff provide what their father told them about doing the movie.

Read a couple horror books by a new (to me) author:

The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle. It's a cool idea what he did in this novella ... expanding on a minor Lovecraft story (Horror at Red Hook), while shifting the focus to counter Lovecraft's racism.


The Changeling by Victor Lavalle. This one was more problematic for me. I do like LaValle's writing. I understand the point behind it, but this book has an odd structure (taking a really long time to get to the main character and story). There's a lot of a fairy-tale feel (and the main plot concerns changelings and trolls), but grounded in modern NYC. But ...

Did you ever have something (like a book, movie, tv show, game) absolutely turn you against it for just a brief scene? Obviously the story here is driven by the theme of family ... a father going down a supernatural rabbit hole to save his "real" son. But there was a scene in here where a character (the best friend of the main character) goes on a rant. Essentially saying that if you're a man of a particular age (over 30) who's not living with a woman and/or children ... you're pretty much a subhuman pathetic piece of garbage. It's only a page, and a character is saying it ... but it really felt like something the author believes (especially with how unnecessary it seemed to be in the context of the novel). Maybe it's me and I'm reading too much into things. But I don't think so. While reading it felt like the author just spit on me. And if this didn't take place after I already invested the time for 200+ pages I would've bailed on the book right there. And as it is, I'm probably not going to read anything else by this author.

Finished:


Jonathan Moore also wrote Five Decembers under a different name for HCC. While this isnt as good as that masterpiece, it was a very entertaining read.

Reading Pageboy: A Memoir by Elliot Page. Over 2/3rds through and no mention of Trailer Park Boys . (He does mention John Dunsworth in a different capacity though.)

Just finished:


It’s good once you realize it’s not a fast-paced action novel.

Just finished:



This was my first time reading Cujo, and I enjoyed it a lot...even though it felt like it was more padding than plot. Still, the characters were interesting, so it gets a from me.

Starting:



Robb White's Deathwatch was big among my friends in middle school; I found a copy at a library book sale last week and thought that I'd give it a try.

Finished:

The Store by Bentley Little. Despite seeing his name all over horror book store sections over the last 30 years, I've never read anything by him until now. It was alright ... "evil" Walmart is still a relevant idea. Little nicely ramps up the tension and manages to pull things together by the end. I did see what I've heard him criticized for ... some unpleasant sexual situations. I get that it's a horror story that's supposed to make you uncomfortable, but sexual abuse scenes are things I just don't want to subject myself to. It does strain credibility. I don't care if there are contracts and how good The Store's lawyers are ... I doubt they could get away with stuff like:


Is there a Bentley Little masterpiece to best judge him by? On Goodreads this had one of the most reviews and higher review scores.

Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington. Booker: born a slave, emancipated at age five, walked with his mom to West Virginia to where his stepfather had found a job, and started working for a coal mine. Intelligent, hard-working, and fiercely ambitious, he managed to get himself an education, became a teacher, and founded the Tuskegee Institute. He advocated Black education, Black economic self-sufficiency, and the virtue of physical labor.

He stayed away from political issues. That made him unpopular during the Civil Rights era, but it seems to me that a race of educated landowners will naturally end up with more political clout than a race of ignorant field hands.

The Snare of the Hunter by Helen MacInnes. 1974. Not one of my favorite books by MacInnes. It lacks the local and year-specific detail that made the other books interesting. The romance definitely overpowers the espionage. The competent normal person has a lot less to do, and mostly drives.

Just started:

Finished:

This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno. There's a lot to be impressed about here. Despite being relatively short, there's a lot going on and a lot to unpack. It brought to mind another book I recently finished ... Ronald Malfi's Come With Me. Both have the same set-up of a husband drawn into the supernatural while grieving the sudden death of his wife. But while Malfi's book goes in a more thriller direction (with hints of a ghost story) and is ultimately hopeful, this one goes into cosmic horror and is grim and hopeless. So while well done, it's certainly not something I can say I enjoyed reading.

With Halloween over, I'm taking a break from horror books for a while. I rarely reread books, but just started a reread of Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy.

Tad Williams was one of my favorite authors starting in the late 80's. Though I lost track of him around 2010 when he starting writing in genres I don't generally read (young adult and detective thrillers). But he's gotten back into fantasy with several books that follow-up Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. But it's been 30 years since I've read them, and pretty much can't remember a thing about them. Other that the main character was a castle kitchen boy who gets swept up in a gigantic world-spanning adventure, the "big bad" was some kind of ancient elf demon, and a twist where:


I remember really getting swept up in the books though. It'll be interesting to see how it aged, since the series was highly influential on later fantasy ... so maybe in retrospect it'll seem more derivative then it felt when they were new.

One that should appeal to a lot of you here:

Just finished:



Such a wonderful and enjoyable read! Probably my favorite book I’ve read this year. Historical non-fiction can sometimes get bogged down with being overly technical in the writing and read like stereo instructions but this is written in such a breezy fashion it almost feels like a novel.

Finished

Finished this yesterday. It was a gift back in 1993 or '94 and I never got around to it. Started off alright, but once it got into his (then) current stuff it seemed like a transcript of his show. Funny, but dated.

Decided to take a break from book 3 of The Inheritance Cycle (Brisingr), a whole lot of nothing was happening, got bored with it.

Started reading Dragonlance Chronicles (Collector's Edition trilogy) again, because it's a damned good book.

Just started:

Dirty Little Secrets by Liliana Hart, a murder mystery starring a female coroner. It's the first book of a long series. The writing in this book is truly awful, but I kept reading to watch the trainwreck. It reads like a 14-year-old girl wrote it, although Hart is a bestselling author. The Google Books copy includes a few chapters of the next book about the character, which is noticeably better. I think that Hart simply uploaded something that she wrote when she was 14. Free on Google Books.

Just finished:


The first appearance of Raylan Givens. It’s a quick, breezy read. Almost too quick. Leonard has a way of writing so fast that it takes me a minute to catch up to what he’s saying.