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So I got tagged on one of those Facebook “List 10 books” things…

09 Tuesday Sep 2014

Posted by Obsession Engine in Books

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books

“List ten books that have stayed with you in some way. Don’t take more than a few minutes and don’t think too hard.”

It took me more than 10 minutes to type this out and add all the links, but I think the exercise was worth it.

From childhood:

1. My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George. Neat lady from a family of naturalists. Not everyone can answer the question, “What was your first pet?” with “A turkey vulture.”

2. Stormy by Jim Kjelgaard. I was a sucker for any “outdoorsy” book that was available in the school library or those book order sheets that used to be passed out in grade school classrooms. My parents very graciously supported my book habit and I am thankful.

3. Conan the Barbarian. I read a lot of sword and sorcery stuff. Howard’s Conan is one I keep going back to. I enjoy his Solomon Kane stories, too, and have Sailor Steve Costigan, El Borak, and his horror stories on my to-read pile as well.

4. The Dungeon Master’s Guide Gary Gygax not only provided a way for me to spend many hours rolling dice, but the book had a fabulous reading list that pointed me towards a lot more great books. Mostly fantasy, but I read some Greek and Norse mythology, a little history, and some “What life in a castle was like”-type books as well.

5. The Joy of Sex. Whenever I was at my Uncle’s house, I’d sneak off to read this or gawk at whatever Playboys my Uncle had in his magazine rack.

6. The Reader’s Digest Do It Yourself Manual This is what I read at my Uncle’s when I couldn’t slink off and read the Joy of Sex.

Okay, so we have Conan, dogs, outdoor stuff, tools, and Playboy magazines…pretty normal for a growing boy thus far. That’ll change.

High School years:

7. Kurt Saxon’s Poor Man’s James Bond Honestly, I’m not sure where this particular crazy train started. I got my hands on one book, maybe the Anarchist’s Cookbook, and started working my way through the bibliography. When I spotted this at the local army surplus store, I snatched it up and didn’t look back. For some reason, Kurt Saxon’s stuff sticks with me, even when his technical info is dead wrong. I used to love reading the various “Revenge” books by George Hayduke as well.

8. How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler. I was already using most of the reading tricks the book proposes, so I didn’t get much there. It was through Adler, however, that I found the Great Books program, and that’s exposed me to a lot of books I wouldn’t have known about as well as help me recognize the roots of various ideas and schools of thought. Like the Dude’s rug, it really helped tie the room together. I write notes in the margins of books, too, at Adler’s suggestion, and it really has helped with retention of knowledge.

9. The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. I enjoy Lovecraft and all things of the Cthulhu mythos and this is my favorite Lovecraft story. The Dreams in the Witch House is probably second.

10. Lucifer’s Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. If you’re a sci fi fantasy geek, preparedness/survival nut, and love books (the book nerd winds up saving the town with his engineering and chemistry skills), what’s not to like about this one? I used to read it about once a year for about a decade, and feel I’m due to read it again.

Well, that’s my 10. Ask me on a different day and I might rattle off a completely different list that could contain such gems as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Arnold: the Education of a Body Builder, Anton LaVey’s The Devil’s Notebook, and the Bible.

Some Reading Material for the Upcoming Holiday Season

07 Sunday Sep 2014

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books, Halloween, Lovecraft

Ah, fall!  My favorite season, Halloween, my favorite holiday, and the time my lovely wife and I chose get married.

I’ll add 2 reading lists to provide fodder for the upcoming season and the following long winter.

First is H.P Lovecraft’s Supernatural Horror in Literature.

The second list is Karl Edward Wagner’s “13 Books” lists that I’m largely copying over from http://miskatonicbooks.wordpress.com/2012/05/14/karl-edward-wagners-favorite-horror-novels/ (Thanks!).

Manly Wade Welman wasn’t found in the list and Wagner was a big fan of his work, publishing him twice under his Carcosa imprint.

Wagner divided his choices for favorite horror novels into three categories. Supernatural Horror, Science Fiction Horror and Non-Supernatural Horror.

I. The Thirteen Best Supernatural Horror Novels:

1.            Hell! Said the Duchess by Michael Arlen

2.            The Burning Court by John Dickson Carr

3.            Alraune by Hanns Heinz Ewers

4.            Dark Sanctuary by H.B. Gregory

5.            Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg

6.            Maker of Shadows by Jack Mann

7.            The Yellow Mistletoe by Walter S. Masterman

8.            Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin

9.            Burn Witch Burn by A. Merritt

10.            Fingers of Fear by J.U. Nicolson

11.            Doctors Wear Scarlet by Simon Raven

12.            Echo of a Curse by R.R. Ryan

13.            Medusa by E.H. Visiak

 

II. The Thirteen Best Science Fiction Horror Novels:

1.            The Death Guard by Philip George Chadwick

2.            Final Blackout by L. Ron Hubbard

3.            Vampires Overhead by Alan Hyder

4.            The Quatermass Experiment by Nigel Kneale

5.            Quatermass and the Pit by Nigel Kneale

6.            The Cadaver of Gideon Wyck by Alexander Laing

7.            The Flying Beast by Walter S. Masterman

8.            The Black Corridor by Michael Moorcock

9.            Land Under England by Joseph O’Neill

10.            The Cross of Carl by Walter Owen

11.            Freak Museum by R.R. Ryan

12.            Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

13.            The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

 

III. The Thirteen Best Non-Supernatural Horror Novels:

1.            The Deadly Percheron by John Franklin Bardin

2.            Psycho by Robert Bloch

3.            Here Comes a Candle by Fredric Brown

4.            The Screaming Mimi br Fredric Brown

5.            The Fire-Spirits by Paul Busson

6.            The Crooked Hinge by John Dickson Carr

7.            The Sorceror’s Apprentice by Hanns Heinz Ewers

8.            Vampire by Hanns Heinz Ewers

9.            Fully Dressed and in His Right Mind by Michael Fessier

10.            The Shadow on the House by Mark Hansom

11.            Torture Garden by Octave Mirbeau

12.            The Master of the Day of Judgement by Leo Perutz

13.            The Subjugated Beast by R.R. Ryan

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