Favorite Titles for Ligotti Stories
 

Mr. Ligotti's gifts as a prose stylist are noticeable in some of his story titles. They are often alluring, clever, and sometimes even poetic in their phrasing. Here are my five favorites:

(1) The Christmas Eves of Aunt Elise
(2) Vastarien
(3) My Work is not yet Done
(4) I Have a Special Plan for this World
(5) The Bells will Sound Forever

I'll add that Songs of a Dead Dreamer is my all-time favorite title for a collection of stories.


What are your favorites?

Re: Favorite Titles for Ligotti Stories
 

Since Mr. Ligotti never got around to publishing "Ed, My Dog with Seven Heads, Four Eyes, and Three Legs," I suppose my choices should be selected from his actual bibliography. A handful, in no particular order: "Gas Station Carnivals," "Drink to Me Only with Labyrinthine Eyes," "Mad Night of Atonement," "The Nightmare Network," and "Conversations in a Dead Language." I am easily attracted toward the unusual which is a powerful magnetic force...

Re: Favorite Titles for Ligotti Stories
 

The first short story I read by Thomas Ligotti was about two men who meet in a park or something and there's a house and one can see shadows in the window. My memory sucks, but the reason I read that story was because of its title. I could be wrong with my memory of the plot. Anyone know what story I mean? It was a very strange, disturbing tale.

Re: Favorite Titles for Ligotti Stories
 

I believe that's "The Strange Design of Master Rignolo."

Re: Favorite Titles for Ligotti Stories
 

Personally, I always liked "The Voice in the Bones" and "The Spectacles in the Drawer." I already like the title of Ligotti's forthcoming non-fiction work, "The Conspiracy Against the Human Race."

Re: Favorite Titles for Ligotti Stories
 

The irony of "Ghost Stories for the Dead" is irresistible!

Re: Favorite Titles for Ligotti Stories
 

"The Master's Eyes Shining with Secrets," "His Shadow Shall Rise to a Higher House," "When You Hear the Singing, You Will Know it is Time" and "The Fabulous Alienation of the Outsider, Being of No Fixed Abode" are among my favorites. Generally I admire long titles, and think that literature doesn't contain enough of them.

Re: Favorite Titles for Ligotti Stories
 

Teatro Grottesco
Vastarien
Nethescurial
The Shadow at the Bottom of the World

Re: Favorite Titles for Ligotti Stories
 

Even though it may be one of Tom's stories that is a bit more familiar to people, The Greater Festival of Masks has always struck me as a phenomenal title for a story. It doesn't hurt that I think it's one of his most sublimely beautiful stories as well.

Re: Favorite Titles for Ligotti Stories
 

I love the incongruousness of Gas Station Carnivals and The Lost Art of Twilight. The Voice in the Bones, The Music of the Moon and Conversations in a Dead Language have a weird and alluring charm to them that makes them stand out even among Ligotti's other stories. Indeed they were the first stories I read in the collections which contain them. The Sect of the Idiot is an intruiging title, as is the superficially mundane, but strangely sinister, The Bungalow House.