The Continuing Saga of the Reading Challenge.

Good evening constant reader.


I've finished 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill.
To be honest, I'm glad I'm through with it.

The introduction, written by horror author Christopher Golden, made 20th Century Ghosts sound too good to be true. Unfortunately, that turned out to be the case.

Golden practically reviewed every story in his introduction, eventually having to cut himself off lest he review the entire book.
His over view had me drooling by the time I got to the first story.

It's my opinion that the horror literature genre shines best in the short story format.
I've read some humdingers that stay with you long after you've read the last word.
I was hoping Joe Hill's short stories would be like that. Some of them were quite good. Some were excellent. But most just weren't what the introduction built them up to be. I've read Joe Hill's other work, notably his two horror novels, Heart Shaped Box and Horns, and loved them.

Ah well...more novels are sure to come from Mr. Hill and I look forward to them.

Next book up is It Must Have Been Something I Ate by Jeffrey Steingarten.

The Reading Challenge, It Goes On

Good evening constant reader.

I'm nearly finished with Joe Hill's 20th Century Ghosts.
It hasn't been what I expected.
That's not to say it's bad, but it isn't making me want to sit with it on a constant basis.

There are some very good stories.
There are some mediocre stories.

I think the title is a little misleading.
Yes, there are some ghosts in the traditional sense, and some that aren't.
The scope of the collection is ambitious, yes.
Did it fail?
No, but having read two of Joe's novels, this collection is not representative of his talent.

Next up, as I anticipate finishing 20th Century Ghosts before the weekend is out, will be Sunglasses After Dark by Nancy A. Collins.

Reading Challenge Update

Good evening constant reader.

The challenge, it's on.

About halfway through Joe Hill's 20th Century Ghosts.
I admit I like Joe's writing, but I was expecting something different I think.

I've already raided the next shelf for my next book.
The contenders are:
Hellbound Hearts edited by Paul Kane and Marie O'Regan
Behind The Mask of the Horror Actor by Doug Bradley
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Stories edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio

I'll get around to reading all of these eventually. The quandary is, which one do I choose to read next?
Eeny, meeny, miney, mo...

Read All The Books!

Good afternoon constant reader.

My new reading challenge for 2013 and beyond, as there is no way on earth I could read every unread book I own in one year.
Well I could, if I didn't go anywhere else, or sleep.

The genesis of this came about through a chat I was having with a friend on Facebook.
It went like this:

"I've got such a back log. I have no business buying more books for like a year...like that's going to happen. However, I've been tempted to challenge myself and see how long it would take me to read everything I have that's unread.

Wow. You should do that, keep a journal, and then turn your experiences into a book deal!

Hmmm, that's an idea...I've got a moleskin journal that's begging to be used for something just like this. I've got well over 100 books here unread. What a neat concept. I see it as something along the lines of the Julie and Julia book/film, Julie cooking all the Julia Child recipes and keeping account of her success and failures."

Thus my reading challenge was born.

Instead of keeping track of it on Goodreads, I'll keep track of it here.

I doubt I'll be as anal about entering what page I'm on, but I'll make entries when I start a book, how it's coming along, if it has made it pat the Page 50 point, and when I've finished. 

You may well wonder how I decide what to read.

Do I just pluck a book off the shelf? Well...yes, but I've made a pattern out of it. 

The first book I chose, I picked off the bottom shelf. Bottom shelves are horribly ignored and always dusty, so that's where I chose to start.

I picked Thomas William Simpson's The Editor. 

It was a fair thriller. I had part of it figured out about a third of the way through. I thought Simpson's The Hancock Boys was better.

The second book has come from the fourth shelf.

(The next from the third, the next from the second, etc, when I've read a book from the first shelf, I'll start form the bottom and work my way up. Why? When my ultimate goal is to read everything, does it matter what shelf it comes from? It doesn't. It's me being idiosyncratic, and it helps me stay on task.)

Currently I'm reading 20th Century Ghosts, by Joe Hill.

Joe is Stephen King's son and he's a very good writer. I've read his two novels, Heart-Shaped Box and Horns. I liked them both a lot. This is, by it's very title, a collection of ghost stories. So far, I like what I'm reading and I'm on page 56.

Bear in mind I'll also be reading review books at the same time...so who knows how long this is going to take?
But it is reading.
It's what I do.