MobileRead October 2012 Book Club Nominations

[fantasyfan]

Third Turn of the Screw.

[Dragoro]

ok then Ill second Complete Complete Ghost Stories by M.R. James

[JSWolf]

I'm nominating Carrie by Stephen King. I've had this in my TBR pile for a while now. It is available at some libraries via Overdrive for FREE.

In one way or another, everybody abused Carrie. This sixteen-year-old misfit was forbidden everything that was young and fun by her fanatical mother. She was teased and taunted by her classmates, misunderstood by her teachers, and given up as hopeless by almost everyone.

But Carrie had a secret: She possessed terrifying telekinetic powers that could make inanimate objects move, a lighted candle fall, or a door lock. Carrie could make all kinds of startling bizarre, and malevolent things happen. And so she did one night, when feeling scorned and humiliated...and growing angrier and angrier...she became the vengeful demon who let the whole town—and all the people in it—feel her power.

[WT Sharpe]

Sounds good. I'll second Carrie.

[sun surfer]

I nominate We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson.

Spoiler:

From Amazon:

Visitors call seldom at Blackwood House. Taking tea at the scene of a multiple poisoning, with a suspected murderess as one's host, is a perilous business. For a start, the talk tends to turn to arsenic. "It happened in this very room, and we still have our dinner in here every night," explains Uncle Julian, continually rehearsing the details of the fatal family meal. "My sister made these this morning," says Merricat, politely proffering a plate of rum cakes, fresh from the poisoner's kitchen. We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson's 1962 novel, is full of a macabre and sinister humor, and Merricat herself, its amiable narrator, is one of the great unhinged heroines of literature. "What place would be better for us than this?" she asks, of the neat, secluded realm she shares with her uncle and with her beloved older sister, Constance. "Who wants us, outside? The world is full of terrible people." Merricat has developed an idiosyncratic system of rules and protective magic, burying talismanic objects beneath the family estate, nailing them to trees, ritually revisiting them. She has made "a powerful taut web which never loosened, but held fast to guard us" against the distrust and hostility of neighboring villagers.

Or so she believes. But at last the magic fails. A stranger arrives--cousin Charles, with his eye on the Blackwood fortune. He disturbs the sisters' careful habits, installing himself at the head of the family table, unearthing Merricat's treasures, talking privately to Constance about "normal lives" and "boy friends." Unable to drive him away by either polite or occult means, Merricat adopts more desperate methods. The result is crisis and tragedy, the revelation of a terrible secret, the convergence of the villagers upon the house, and a spectacular unleashing of collective spite.

The sisters are propelled further into seclusion and solipsism, abandoning "time and the orderly pattern of our old days" in favor of an ever-narrowing circuit of ritual and shadow. They have themselves become talismans, to be alternately demonized and propitiated, darkly, with gifts. Jackson's novel emerges less as a study in eccentricity and more--like some of her other fictions--as a powerful critique of the anxious, ruthless processes involved in the maintenance of normality itself. "Poor strangers," says Merricat contentedly at last, studying trespassers from the darkness behind the barricaded Blackwood windows. "They have so much to be afraid of." --Sarah Waters

[issybird]

Second We Have Always Lived in the Castle.

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by issybird

I'd like to nominate Henry James's The Turn of the Screw.

Briefly:

One of literature's most gripping ghost stories depicts the sinister transformation of 2 innocent children into flagrant liars and hypocrites. Elegantly told tale of unspoken horror and psychological terror creates what few stories in literature have been able to do —a complete feeling of dread and uncertainty.

Public domain.

God that was a boring book. No uncertainty. No dread. Just somnolence.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by caleb72

God that was a boring book. No uncertainty. No dread. Just somnolence.

Thanks for the warning.

[pynch]

You can find an epub version of Henry James’ wonderful ‘Turn of the Screw’ here.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by pynch

You can find an epub version of Henry James’ wonderful ‘Turn of the Screw’ here.

Thanks for pointing that out and thanks for the upload. I should have realized the "Complete Works" should contain the story.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by pynch

You can find an epub version of Henry James’ wonderful ‘Turn of the Screw’ here.

Originally Posted by caleb72

God that was a boring book. No uncertainty. No dread. Just somnolence.

It's not so wonderful.

[JSWolf]

To get things moving, just one more nod to Carrie and we are one step closer to the vote.

[tarriek]

Summer of Night by Dan Simmons. It is good and creepy. Has anyone given this a read? It is an American Classic Horror novel. It gave me nightmares.

[Kevin8or]

I second The Last Werewolf.

Ghosts just aren't my thing. I have severe difficulty suspending my disbelief. I know, werewolves and vampires aren't any more believeable, but I'm steeped in a materialist, monist worldview where spirits and ghosts are just, meh, absurd.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by Kevin8or

I second The Last Werewolf.

Ghosts just aren't my thing. I have severe difficulty suspending my disbelief. I know, werewolves and vampires aren't any more believeable, but I'm steeped in a materialist, monist worldview where spirits and ghosts are just, meh, absurd.

I'm a materialist also, but I love ghost stories. Some of the best have been written by materialists. Isaac Asimov was as much of an unbeliever as anyone who ever walked the Earth, but he wrote quite a few of them.