Book Recommendations

Peter Ackroyd

Ackroyd, Peter - The Last Testament Of Oscar Wilde

Oddly enough, I missed this book when it was published.
Then again, I was in profound financial distress in 1984.
Fortunately, while reading Green Book #6 (Swan River), interview subject, David Skal, referenced Ackroyd’s book and I directed my library to retrieve a copy for me.

Mr. Wilde is persuaded to keep a journal during his Paris sojourn.
This comes after the fame, after the trial, the imprisonment, after “The Ballad Of Reading Gaol”.
Written during the final four months of his life, Wilde reminisces on his life from childhood through school, from fame to infamy. Determination, temptations, reckless choices.
Ackroyd shows an uncanny ability to, chameleon like, capture Wilde’s voice, the sharp wit, fond recollections, and the weariness of it all.
(When mention was made of an Edison recording with Wilde speaking, I spent several hours searching for it.)
I found this to be an exceptional book, and consider it to be must-read, perhaps must-own, for Wilde devotees.
 
L T Meade

Meade, L T - The Sorceress Of The Strand

300px-Strand_mag_vol25--p_077--Sorceress_of_the_Strand.jpg


Wildly popular series that ran in installments in the Strand magazine.
Madame Sara, beautician to the rich and titled, also masterminds a murderous criminal ring.
Blackmail, extortion, theft and assassination.
She is on cordial terms with her prime adversaries, Dixon Druce, manager of a detective agency, and police surgeon Eric Vandeleur. Cordial because she is often two steps ahead of them.
Madame Sara was a delicious femme fatale of fin de siècle England. Not only was a foreigner, but she was also an empowered woman in an era terrified of such.
I read about Meade’s villainess last year, and ordered a copy for my wife, knowing I would read it eventually.
The Broadview Press edition, highly recommended, contained academic essays on the New Women phenomena, and numerous engravings from the Strand run.
The Sorceress Of The Strand is also available via WikiSource, as is The Brotherhood Of The Seven Kings (the latter illustrated by Sidney Paget).
 
William Desmond Taylor

Giroux, Robert - A Deed Of Death

Detailed overview, reconstruction, and thoughtful conclusion regarding events leading up to, and death of, William Desmond Taylor.
Unsolved murders - from Jack the Ripper to JFK - play host to numerous writers, each with theories. Taylor’s was notorious for the obvious cover up, and subsequent tainting of the Hollywood director.
Fortunately, Giroux is not a scandal scribe, bent on casually defecating on his subject. No, this is a thumping read and a brisk page turner.
The book is packed with photos, to boot.
Fans of the Silent era, this is a must-read, if not a must-add to your shelves.
 
Aldous Huxley

Huxley, Aldous - Antic Hay

Bored with teaching, Theodore Gumbril resigns from the school in order to …
He’s not quite sure. Money would be nice, more rather than less.
Brainstorm flash, Theodore decides to make and market pneumatic pants, an inflatable bottom for bony arsed wearers.
This is the funniest line in the novel, along with marketing expert who knows every trick to convince distracted buyers that pneumatic pants are must-own accessories!
The novel itself is a prickly experience.
Set after the Great War (never mentioned), the main characters, once Bright Young Things, are aimless and adrift. Nothing seems to engage them.
They are affluent. No need of employment to distract their moods or occupy their time.
By and large, they ridicule and belittle others – friends and associates.
Few characters emerge as sympathetic, nor is there enough “character” in any to admire or despise.
 
I do not know why, but I am reading The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. Don't get me wrong: the authors are full of shit, but it is nonetheless very entertaining crap.
 
Orwell

Orwell, George - Down And Out In Paris And London

The first section of Richard Marsh’s The Beetle detailed the unfortunate adventures of Robert Holt.
Once a respectable clerk, reduced to tramping, then house entering.
Reading this recalled Orwell’s book, which I last read twenty years earlier.
I pulled it from the shelves and began rereading. This is a lightning read.
The Paris section may prove more relevant to many. Those who ever worked in a kitchen or restaurant. Those who suffered abysmal lodgings. Those forced to choose between food or rent.
The London section will interest social historians, with the futility of ordering the unemployed to march a perpetual circuit from one meal ticket to the next.
By turns entertaining and harrowing. And don’t you believe this could never happen again.
Even now, humanity is ever on the move.
As the middle class shrinks and grows imperiled, street vagabonds become more normal.
 
I wrote this several years ago on Goodreads, but as the book has been recently republished in a 20th anniversary edition, I think it's fair to re-post...

Brian A. Hopkins - These I Know By Heart

For several weeks, I've been trying to pin down how to characterize the stories in this collection and, in a sense, the rest of Brian Hopkins's catalogue. And now I think I've come as close as I'm going to get...

At its core, Hopkins's fiction evokes and explores Existential Horror. This subgenre is often absorbed by Cosmic Horror—the horror of the insignificance of existence. But Hopkins pulls in exactly the opposite direction. His horror is profoundly significant and personal. He writes not about existence's cosmic horrors, but rather its quotidian horrors: the mortal fear, sickening doubt, oppressive solitude, and gnawing guilt that are among the dividends paid on human consciousness. Where a large slice of horror fiction draws its tension from the Other—either an Other that dwarfs mankind and renders it terrifyingly impotent, or an Other that draws mankind into an uncanny valley of recognition—Hopkins's vision is utterly committed to the self. And like cosmic horror which can inspire expansive awe and isolating despair, Hopkins existential horror swings, from moment to moment, from the glorious to the gut-wrenching. He celebrates and commiserates on the breadth of human awareness and experience. And in so doing, Hopkins consistently achieves the most cathartic writing I've encountered.
 
Pulps

Various (Editor: Goodstone, Tony) - The Pulps

Published in 1970, this was one of the earlier overviews of the pulps.
Goodstone gives a brief history from the 1890’s Munsey magazines to the collapse in the 1950’s.
The “Golden Era” of the 30’s-40’s makes up the bulk of this thick, coffee table book.
Fifty color plates showcase a wide variety of genres.
In my copy, the third book of signatures used cheaper paper and that section has turned brown.
Very appropriate.
Stores categorized by genre: Western, Aviation, Horror, SciFi, Detective, Girls In Peril, Bad Girls, etc.
Which meant I read some I never would have, particularly the westerns, or aviation adventures.
I was surprised by how many names I had more than passing familiarity with.

For you collectors


Spoiler
One of those books I have owned for decades, and only now have gotten around to reading.
I was young, but actually remember when I bought this one.
A friend had invited me to go with him to a neighboring town to shop for books. The town, across the river, was beyond the range of my bicycle. My friend’s mother detested me, but he disliked being alone.
She suffered my presence before dropping us off at the bookstore while she went shopping.
The bookstore was bright and spacious, busy in some sections, sleepy in others. My friend ignored those, and led me to a side door to the basement staircase. The basement was a long, rectangular shaped room, painted pale green. No windows, only a row of fluorescent lights running end to end.
Either wall was flanked with rows of shelves. One was packed with used paperbacks, sorted by genre. Priced between 10¢ and 25¢. Cheaper than comics! Or Mad magazine. I made a beeline for those.
The other wall was stuffed, end to end, with old pulps. A dollar each. I mean, a whole dollar! That’s what my friend was buying. He was gaga over those things. One could buy ten paperbacks for one of those, and I promptly told him so. Plus, those pulps were nasty. I handled one or two, the pages were hard, brown, brittle. As delicate as glass Christmas ornaments.
“You should focus on paperbacks,” I said.
“No, pulps are more valuable. They’ll be worth something one day.”
“Yeah, dust for the compost heap! Look at this big book on pulps! Used, but looks brand new. Only a dollar! Is that a pirate on the cover?”
“I don’t like books the way you do. I like pulps.”
To each their own. I believe he eventually had over a hundred pulps, maybe two hundred of them, which he kept under his bed.
I never went back to that bookstore, though to this day, I can still picture that wall, lined end to end with $1.00 used pulps.
Yeah, if only I had bought every Weird Tales. Who knew?
I guess my friend did. Long RIP.
 
I did some online digging and found the only four Cormac McCarthy short stories ever published: A Drowning Incident, Bounty, The Dark Waters and Wake for Susan. Bounty and The Dark Waters are two passages from The Orchard Keeper published before that novel.
 

Attachments

The Revenant Of Rebecca Pascal

Barker, David & Pugmire, Wilum - The Revenant Of Rebecca Pascal

An adventurous romp through veiled Arkham.
Richard Pascal inherits the home of his famous Aunt Rebecca, as well as a couple million dollars. (Always keep in touch with those relatives, kids.) He also inherits a persistent coterie of her old admirers. Well, Aunt Rebecca had been a movie star.
Only thing, these devoted fans keep hinting there was more to the grand dame, a darker, possibly sinister side.
Richard, unlike most Horror rubes, is not the curious looky-loo. More power to him, I say. Mind your own business and avoid rumors and gossips. Nevertheless, Richard is troubled by unsettling dreams, charged, highly erotic fantasies involving … sorry, these are too distasteful to write here.
Tidying up, cleaning house and the mental cobwebs, he finds – well – a secret door.
Throughout, a light, tongue in cheek humor pervades. This is not Lovecraft, this is an amusing tall tale.

Another gem from Dark Renaissance Press. Oh, how I wish Dark Regions has stuck with this imprint just a little longer.
Hopfrog, you are missed.
 
Margaret Oliphant

Oliphant, Margaret - The Library Window

The young girl is recuperating at her Aunt Mary’s in Edinburgh.
While we are never directly told what her ailment is, in time one might infer it is a nervous condition. Overwrought emotions necessitating peace and quiet. Or a change of scenery.
Aunt Mary and her friends are older, a merry lot, and while the young woman overhears conversations, she refuses to be drawn in.
Besides, she is preoccupied with staring at the window across the street.
As summer days lengthen, she begins to discern the interior of the room across the way. Furniture, paintings, bookshelves packed with volumes, perhaps even an occupant?
This is the gradual unfolding of a haunting. Not a ghost, nor supernatural, but this is a finely crafted tale of things seen, and unseen.
This is not one that packs a punch or delivers a jolt, but leaves the reader with a held breath of the unexplained.
 
Frederick R. Ewing

Ewing, Frederick - I, Libertine

I%2C_Libertine_%28book_cover%29.jpg


“Gadzooks, but here’s a saucy bawd!”
BANNED IN BOSTON.
With credentials like that, I knew this must be good.
Rollicking historical adventure, the sort you seldom find anymore, and certainly will not read.
Lance, 18th century hustler, advances up the social rank via romantic dalliances.
Schemes and steam aplenty. Those of faint heart, beware.
Believe it or not, this was a bestseller at one point.
Also a favorite of Jean Shepherd (“you’ll shoot your eye out”) and SciFi great Theodore Sturgeon.
Ideal book for lovers of spring, particularly April.

I, Libertine - Wikipedia
 
https://www.amazon.com/Fantastic-Gustave-Dor%C3%A9-Alix-Par%C3%A9/dp/3791379631/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=dore&qid=1683662924&sr=8-1

This is a new publication on Gustave Doré i received today. Looks splendid and based on the first impression seems to be well worth its price.
 
Last edited:
yellowish haze said:
This is a new publication on Gustave Doré i received today. Looks splendid and based on the first impression seems to be well worth its price.
Click to expand...

Thank you. I forwarded this link to my brother (artist).
Is there a high ratio of illustrations to text?
Amazon does not indicate.
 
Zaharoff said:
Thank you. I forwarded this link to my brother (artist).
Is there a high ratio of illustrations to text?
Amazon does not indicate.
Click to expand...

I'd say that a vast majority of the book is composed of illustrations. Many of them are full page others are scaled down to leave some space for quotes from the original text the illustrations went together with. The reproductions are of good quality. The book is a hefty volume. It's page size is not big though (8.38 x 10.56 inch).

As for Doré, i think an earlier publication (now out of print) is also worth obtaining:
https://www.amazon.com/Gustave-Dore-1832-1883-Master-Imagination/dp/2081316439
 
Last edited:
Michael Cox

Cox, Michael - The Meaning Of Night

As bygone Common Reader would have put it, a thumping good read.
Edward Glapthorn, the special investigator (fixer) at Tredgold law firm, exceeds his brief to commit a casual, random murder.
Just to see if he could do it. This is only a trial run, for the actual deed.
Who does Glapthron want to kill? And why? Therein lies the tale.
Victorian thriller, steeped in Gothic and fog, vast libraries and brothels, set during the Crimean War.
Revenge for a life stolen, vengeance against an all-knowing adversary.
How much is factual? How much is in Glapthron’s imagination?
At 600 pages, this is a long book.
If you dislike length, florid language, dense writing, footnotes, then read something else.
The first two-thirds of this fly past. Latter sections echoed Thomas Hardy for me.
Nevertheless, the story is compelling, and satisfying.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top