[321] Sparkling Cyanide – Agatha Christie

” If thoughts could kill, she would have killed her. ” [5:82] Halloween creep continues with this moody mystery. Although this is not among Christie’s most memorable work, Sparkling Cyanide is a solid piece of mystery that delves in a favorite theme if hers: a curious death in the past that was murder disguised as [...]

Unearth the Skeletons

In honor of Halloween this weekend, BTT asks: What reading skeletons do you have in your closet? Books you’d be ashamed to let people know you love? Addiction to the worst kind of (fill in cheesy genre here)? Your old collection of Bobbsey Twin Mysteries lovingly stored behind your “grown-up” books? You get the picture [...]

[320a] The Fall of the House of Usher – Edgar Allan Poe

During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country, and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of [...]

[319] And Then There Were None – Agatha Christie

” In the centre of the round table, on a circular glass stand, were some little china figures. . . . What fun! They’re the ten little Indian boys of the nursery rhyme, I suppose. In my bedroom the rhyme is framed and hung up over the mantelpiece. ” [3:40] Creepy. Although readers know the [...]

Taking Inventory

This week’s musing asks: About how many books (roughly) would you say you own? I stack my books horizontally. Lying flat in alphabetical order of authors’ last names, each of the five rungs of the five bookcases can hold three stacks of trade paperbacks. Performing an easy dimensional analysis: 5 bookcases x 5 rungs/bookcase x [...]

Reviews, Book Bits, and Blogging

Simon from SavidgeReads posts an interesting thought on his facebook. It concerns what goes on in a book blog. Should book blog be limited to book reviews and critique, or should it include all the bookish bits, personal habits, and addiction? Do you read a book blog just for the book reviews/book thoughts or do [...]

[318] Jamaica Inn – Daphne du Maurier

” She looked up at Jamaica Inn, sinister and grey in the approaching dusk, the windows barred; she thought of the horrors the house had witnessed, the secrets now embedded in its walls, side by side with the outer old memories of feasting and firelight and laughter before her uncle cast his shadow upon it [...]

Twilight Zone

After a magical realism spree (3 books), it’s time to shake things up. In keeping with the seasonal sentiment, how about some spook? DuMaurier, Poe, and Christie. These authors often use power of association to induce fear. You don’t just see a corpse. What scares the most is when it doesn’t show anything explicit. Terror [...]

World/Translated Literature

This week BTT asks: Name a book (or books) from a country other than your own that you love. Or aren’t there any? I would go a step further to exclude books published in English-speaking countries.  To include the UK would be transposing my entire reading list into this post. My journal reveals that some [...]

[317] The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami

” Everything was intertwined, with the complexity of a three-dimensional puzzle—a puzzle in which truth was not necessarily fact and fact not necessarily truth. ” [3.27.527] The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a puzzle. The many realities and “unrealities” that slip into the narrative demand some rumination of thoughts long after the last page is turned. [...]