Mystery * Suspense * Thriller * Dark Fantasy * Gothic * Horror *Supernatural
What could be easier, right? My four possible picks are:
Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson: I've read her better known novels We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Haunting of Hill House. I am super curious about her other four. Why are they not as popular?
Slade House by David Mitchell: I have been meaning to read for the past three years... Will 2019 be the charm? This is the one book that might actually be classified as Horror...
Appointment with Death by Agatha Christie: I've seen the televised version of this with David Suchet but I don't remember who the murderer was luckily! I will probably re-watch the adaptation for fun after I read it.
Snake Ropes by Jess Richards: I honestly don't really know if this book fits any of the prompts. I have an idea it might be "gothic". I bought it for a read-along hosted by a now defunct podcast a few years ago.
I'll come back in November and wrap it up if I manage to read any of the planned titles. RIP is a fun exercise to read seasonally which I appreciate and I love seeing what other bloggers list and read as well.
Happy Reading!
I always enjoy participating in this reading challenge. I like that it's so low-key and that I tend to read those categories anyway. :D
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment Lark! I know, this challenge is completely laid back! :D
DeleteNice. I won't participate, but I am going to read your reviews. Interested specially on the Jackson title which I have not read.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment Silvia. Yes, it is curious about Jackson and those four novels that no one talks about!
DeleteHi Ruthiella, I read We Have Always Lived In The Castle years ago and that book stays with you and talk about an untrustworthy narrator! Next year I do want to participate in rhe RIP challenge. This year though I'm a bit behind with the classics challenge
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment Kathy! Yes, juggling challenges can be tricky. Good luck with completing the Back to the Classics. You can do it. You still have four whole months! :D
DeleteNot as late as I'm going to be when I finally get around to creating my sign-up post...It's likely to be all four mysteries for me, and probably pretty cozy ones at that.
ReplyDeleteBut I, too, am especially interested in what you think of the Jackson. I have no idea about that one.
Thanks for the comment reese. I gravitate towards mysteries too. Really scary stuff is not my bag generally. Well, with you and Silvia counting on my reading and reviewing Hangsaman, now I HAVE to read it. LOL.
Delete:) I did the first ten years of this challenge, but got lazy about posting my reviews to the site. It is still one of my favorite times for spooky, Gothic, ghostly, and supernatural books, so I make sure I look at everyone's reviews! Have fun!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment jenclair! Like Lark, you gravitate towards this kind of book just naturally. Totally reading other peoples reviews and lists is as much fun as reading the books themselves.
DeleteI'm not familiar with any of these...hope one of em thrills and chills you.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment Joseph! I hope at the very least I manage to read one of them... Last year was a bit of a wash. :D
DeleteHi Ruthiella! Taking a little break and thought I'd see what you were up to! That's an interesting selection you have there. I love David Mitchell (Have you read Cloud Atlas? One of my favorites! Its story of Sonmi-451 is both sci-fi AND horror. Odd how the two go together, isn't it?). Since I'm such a Mitchell fan (an "avid fan" to quote the creepy serial killer in Red Dragon!) I eagerly awaited, and read, Slade House. Although I enjoyed it, I did feel just a weensy bit let down (I hold DM to a very high standard). Shirley Jackson is another of my favorite writers. I tried Hangsaman many years ago but didn't get too far; no reflection on Shirley -- my mood and timing were just wrong. I've always meant to go back and try it again, so I'll be eager to read your review if you ultimately decide on it. BTW, did you know there's a novel about Jackson & her husband by Susan Merrell, simply called Shirley? I just saw something about Elizabeth Moss playing Jackson in a movie based on it.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to participate in the RIP myself but at this point I'm too frazzled to think about it (I even have a book that's perfect, a re-read of Stewart O'Nan's The Night Country, very creepy in a quiet kind of way). In case you can't tell, I adore the horror & sci-fi genres! Mysteries as well, thrillers maybe not so much.
Thanks for the comment Janakay! I am also a David Mitchell fan. Cloud Atlas was the first of his books that I read and none of the subsequent books have quite lived up to that first one. I think my second favorite is probably The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet but I still have number9dream and Black Swan Green to read as well as Slade House, so the jury’s still out.
DeleteSci-Fi and horror do go well together. My mind immediately goes to films like Invasion of the Body Snatchers or Alien…creepy! I would not have thought of you as a sci-fi/horror fan! I like sci-fi but not horror so much unless it is a good ghost story.
I did not know about the novel based on Jackson’s live or the movie. Elizabeth Moss certainly has the right look. Just put those 1950’s glasses on her. I have read a good (if occasionally speculative) biography of her by Judy Oppenheimer called Private Demons. Jackson was an interesting person.
Ah, a fellow Mitchell enthusiast! I heard him interviewed on BBC or something shortly after reading Cloud Atlas and I'm afraid the interview "sealed the deal" for me! I will be a fan forever. That said, I'm afraid that, like you, Cloud Atlas may turn out to be his best book. Although, again like you, I haven't read Black Swan Green. I think I've read all the others, with the exception of the Thousand Autumns; I don't know why I'm hesitating on that one, particularly as it ties in with several courses I took last year on Dutch art from that period. I became really interersted in that whole Dutch colonial thing; read some really interesting stuff about Dejima, where poor old Jacob had to spend his 1000 days and looked at paintings by Dutch artists from Brazil and Indonesia (in fact, I reviewed Marie Dermout's Ten Thousand Things for the Classics challenge because I was so interested in the Dutch-Indonesia link). I think I'm saving Thousand Autumns for a time when I have a week or two to just zone out.
DeleteI adore sci-fi! I grew up reading all those pulpy things with green monsters on the covers and guys with ray guns! The Galactic empire was mine to roam! I still love the genre although I don't read it as much these days. The newer writers are so much better, skill-wise, than the old guys (and they WERE almost exclusively guys) and the themes so much more sophisticated, but I can't help feel that a certain energy and gee whiz quality which I enjoyed is gone. It's a bit like the difference between the old and new Star Trek series; but they're both great in their own way but which do you prefer?
I also adore horror, but I'm pretty selective! I don't like gross out, body part horror, I go more for the shivery, creepy corner of your eye stuff. And you're so right about ghost stories -- they tend to be the best; altough haunted houses are also pretty good (Jackson's Hill House is one of the scariest things I've ever read). I'll have to keep an eye open for a Jackson bio; there's another one in addition to the one you read called (I think), A Rather Haunted Life (connects her to the Poe/James macabre tradition, as well to all that mid-century feminist angst).
Hi Janakay,
DeleteHave you written your paper yet! :D
I understand the concept of waiting for the right time to read a book. Others may scoff, but I think there is something to it for certain titles and certain readers. I waited a long time to read Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift because I could tell from trying the first couple pages that I needed (a) quiet and (b) time enough to read the very short book in more or less one go. I think you will like the Thousand Autumns. It has one of Mitchell’s best female characters I think. And it ties into The Bone Clocks. There are probably links to other of his books too, but I don’t recall any clearly even if I ”got” them at the time. It is maybe less about the Dutch and more about Japan because Jacob becomes very involved in Japanese culture in the book, but none-the-less, it is a good historical novel with a twist of the supernatural.
I am a trekkie but waning, I guess. I’ve not seen the new series or even the last movie. But I see your point. DS9 (my personal favorite) is much better than TNG in terms of script, production values, etc. I read Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy a few years ago and boy was it clunky. Great idea, but the execution would have worked much better for me had I read it decades ago. I haven’t read much SFF at all (the more I read, the more I think I haven’t read much of ANYTHING in 5 decades! LOL). But I have really enjoyied some of the newer female Sci-Fi authors in the past few years. I loved the three Wayfarer novels by Becky Chambers and the two Imperial Radch books by Ann Leckie (still need to read the third and finish off the trilogy) and most recently the first two Murderbot diaries (such fun novellas) by Martha Wells.
The Haunting of Hill House did scare me. But I haven’t really read much in the genre. I kind of have to psych myself out to get scared when reading (as opposed to T.V. or movies). I’ve heard about A Rather Haunted Life but I am a little wary of biographies that make subjective interpretations. I guess all biographies are supposed to do that…otherwise, why write them unless you have a new angle, But it bugs me a little because people are complex for one and two the subject of the biography is (usually) no longer around to defend themselves and what amounts to their private life. So I guess if I do read a biography, I have to adjust my expectorations.
Good luck with the challenge—it’s personally one of my favorites. I’ve read Jackson’s The Lottery and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, so I’m curious about Hangsaman as well.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment Jane! I really must read Hangsaman first! If I like it, there are three other lesser known novels by Jackson I can then try. I have to admit, she may have been a master at them, but I just don't normally love the short story format. I need a novel! :D
DeleteOooo, have fun! I always have good intentions of participating but then the time comes around and I have too many other books scheduled. It's fun to see what others are reading though. I've read The Haunting of Hill House but I'd like to read more Jackson. And of course, you can't go wrong with Agatha Christie. Enjoy the challenge!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment Cleo! I know about those good intentions! The minute I make up a list of books I seem to get distracted by other books. But I think I will do OK this year. I've already completed the Christie book and have started two of the others. :D
DeleteThat's a good question about Shirley Jackson! I love We Have Always Lived in the Castle. I am going to read an Agatha Christie as well, Endless Night. So excited for scary book season! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment crackercrumblife! I've read a lot of Christie but very few of her stand-alones like Endless Night. The weather where I live is FINALLY cooling down making reading scary, mysterious books much more palatable! :D
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