A Book Adventure
In keeping with the themes of the season, I decided to tackle a new book challenge.
I'm hitting a bunch of classic mysteries ... horror ... creepy books in whatever order I can find them. I posed the challenge on Facebook looking for additional suggestions and as such I now have a few books to plow through before Halloween.
This one has been on my "to read" list for so long that it's ridiculous. Heck, I even own it in paperback form. No excuse for this neglect. Now it's at the top of the list. It's also pretty short (like a few other entries on this list), so ... yep. No excuse.
This will be my second one to read because although I've owned it forever, what really got me started on this new "challenge" was ...
Dracula
Another that I should have read years ago and just ... haven't. A bit longer than Frankenstein but written in a voice that I haven't been able to put down. Also, there's an audio version of the book that's narrated by Alan Cumming and Tim Curry.
Wait, let me do that properly.
Be still, my heart.
This is actually a point where Amazon makes me quite happy -- if you buy the Kindle version of the book, you can get the Audible version for under $3 and if you have the Kindle app it can bounce between the two, picking up wherever you left off in the previous version. Whispersync is pretty neat.
And did I mention Alan Cumming and Tim Curry?
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
I remember reading this when I was far too young to understand what the heck I was reading (thank you, Great Illustrated Classics, for your easy exposure to all things literary) and as it clocks in at under 100 pages, I'm saving this one for a point where I have some time to kill but not too much.
The Invisible Man
All right, this one may not be fully "creepy" but it's only the beginning of what may be an H.G. Wells rampage. War of the Worlds may fit the list better. Even The Time Machine. But I have to start somewhere, and I'm choosing this one. (Besides, it falls in the same "science experiment gone wrong" category as Jekyll.)
I'm sure, like me, when you think "scary book to read this fall" you think "Irish poet Oscar Wilde." But this one was recommended to me by multiple people and the little I know of it meant I added it without question.
The others are fairly well known, so if you're unsure of the plot, it goes something like this: Dorian Gray, a new hedonist, sells his soul to ensure that his portrait ages in his place. Now essentially immortal, he turns into ... well, a soulless bastard, to be perfectly frank.
If I hadn't included this originally, a line in the description would have sucked me in -- "at the time of publication in 1891, it offended the moral sensibilities of the British."
I had to add it. Plain and simple.
[Related: I find this particular cover maybe a little too funny.]
I'm hitting a bunch of classic mysteries ... horror ... creepy books in whatever order I can find them. I posed the challenge on Facebook looking for additional suggestions and as such I now have a few books to plow through before Halloween.
This one has been on my "to read" list for so long that it's ridiculous. Heck, I even own it in paperback form. No excuse for this neglect. Now it's at the top of the list. It's also pretty short (like a few other entries on this list), so ... yep. No excuse.
This will be my second one to read because although I've owned it forever, what really got me started on this new "challenge" was ...
Dracula
Wait, let me do that properly.
There is an audio version of the book narrated by Alan Cumming and Tim Curry.
Be still, my heart.
This is actually a point where Amazon makes me quite happy -- if you buy the Kindle version of the book, you can get the Audible version for under $3 and if you have the Kindle app it can bounce between the two, picking up wherever you left off in the previous version. Whispersync is pretty neat.
And did I mention Alan Cumming and Tim Curry?
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
I remember reading this when I was far too young to understand what the heck I was reading (thank you, Great Illustrated Classics, for your easy exposure to all things literary) and as it clocks in at under 100 pages, I'm saving this one for a point where I have some time to kill but not too much.
The Invisible Man
All right, this one may not be fully "creepy" but it's only the beginning of what may be an H.G. Wells rampage. War of the Worlds may fit the list better. Even The Time Machine. But I have to start somewhere, and I'm choosing this one. (Besides, it falls in the same "science experiment gone wrong" category as Jekyll.)
I'm sure, like me, when you think "scary book to read this fall" you think "Irish poet Oscar Wilde." But this one was recommended to me by multiple people and the little I know of it meant I added it without question.The others are fairly well known, so if you're unsure of the plot, it goes something like this: Dorian Gray, a new hedonist, sells his soul to ensure that his portrait ages in his place. Now essentially immortal, he turns into ... well, a soulless bastard, to be perfectly frank.
If I hadn't included this originally, a line in the description would have sucked me in -- "at the time of publication in 1891, it offended the moral sensibilities of the British."
I had to add it. Plain and simple.
[Related: I find this particular cover maybe a little too funny.]
The originals. Because if you want to scare yourself silly, this is a great way to do it.
I'm not sure this one requires too much more description, either. Both this and Grimm I intend to intersperse among the others, possibly to help me contain nightmares.
*
The best part about many of these is that they're in the public domain. While I linked to several copies that require purchase, that's largely unnecessary if you dig around even just a little bit.
I do, however, need to rethink my approach a little bit. I live alone and it's getting dark much earlier than it did a month ago.
Let's just say I freaked myself out plenty this evening by reading Dracula and then having to walk to my car.
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