so-soI‘m glad I read this, for the strangeness of it, the reminder that words are ours for the wielding to shape stories as we wish. Was aware of a theme of distance/observation (fitting for a detective main character I guess) and of recurring motifs, but not perceptive enough to piece together their importance. In that sense, as a reader I was distanced. Separated from the story by its opacity. I looked at words on a page, then closed the cover.
bailedI couldn‘t get into this one so giving myself permission to DNF
pick3⭐️ This is a perfect book for Halloween. 11 stories about ghosts 👻 I would‘ve given a higher rating if the endings are more conclusive. I was left feeling unsatisfied for most. My favorites are “Afterward” and “A Bottle of Perrier.” There‘s no ghost for the latter but a gruesome finding at the end, and I found it the most entertaining.
Finishing this book makes me want to cry. It‘s like losing a friend.
pickI was mistaken in thinking Giovanna Rivero's stories were of the horror genre, though some of the themes, especially the first two stories, are horrific and terrifying, as the blurb mentions.
It's hard to sum them up, but if I say that they would be good material for David Lynch or Guillermo del Toro to adapt to film, that gives a sense of their disturbing, unsettling character.
The stories are set in Bolivia, Canada and USA, featuring ⬇️½
'Was it warm, this sticky fluid you found down there?'
#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl
CWs in comment.
#Halloween #Samhain
While I'm happy to read horror stories at any time of the year, it's undeniably atmospheric to do so as summer shifts to autumn, with the promise of winter ahead.
I'm starting off the season with the tagged book, and others I've lined up are:
•Tales of Horror & the Supernatural, Arthur Machen
•The Midnight People, Peter Haining, ed.
•Sea Tales of Terror, J. J. Starting, ed.
•I Can't Sleep at Night, Kurt Singer, ed.
🧡🍂🎃🍂🧡
Durham has two Waterstones shops: I got the book of horror stories by Bolivian author Rivero from the "standard" shop, and the book of Perec essays from the "Plus" shop, which caters for students and has some secondhand, remaindered and academic stock you don't normally see in their mainstream stores.
I'm hoping the horror stories aren't TOO horrific, and that the essays in the Perec don't duplicate those in the Penguin edition I've already read.
