September-October Fiction Reading Theme: Horror

We’re getting a head-start on October with a selection of hair-raising horror!

 

Photo by Edilson Borges on Unsplash.com

100 Jolts: Shockingly Short Stories by Michael Arnzen (yes, Dr. Arnzen!)
One hundred very satisfying small stories by one of the true masters of flash fiction. Sometimes disturbing, sometimes humorous, and sometimes musical, this collection is essential reading for anyone interested in flash-bizarro-horror, not to mention the fact that it's basically a clinic for anyone interested in writing the stuff. A modern classic. (Amazon.com reviewer Scott Cole)


Ghost and Horror Stories by Ambrose Bierce
Drawing on his own experiences as a Civil War veteran and a San Franciscan journalist, Bierce uses the backdrop of the Civil War, the South and California as the setting in many of his tales. His highly intelligent, highly critical and biting personality comes through in the bizarre menagerie of characters populating his narratives, in the descriptions of their actions and in the world they inhabit. (Amazon.com reviewer Amazon Customer)

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
Have you ever tiptoed down a hall in a dark house late at night, not sure if you really heard that bump in the night? That is what reading this novel was like, in all of the best ways possible. Shirley Jackson is a renowned master at the macabre, the unnerving, the Gothic genre, and this work puts her talents on full display—in HD. (Goodreads.com reviewer Navidad Thelamour)

Four Past Midnight by Stephen King
You are strapped in an airline seat on a flight beyond hell. You are forced into a hunt for the most horrifying secret a small town ever hid. You are trapped in the demonic depths of a writer's worst nightmare. You are focusing in on a beast bent on shredding your sanity.

You are in the hands of Stephen King at his mind-blowing best with an extraordinary quartet of full-length novellas guaranteed to set your heart-stopwatch at- FOUR PAST MIDNIGHT. (Publisher’s summary)


The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
Does this classic need a synopsis? A young and beautiful primadonna is visited by a masked "Angel of music" who teaches her to sing and jealously demands her devotion. (Publisher’s summary)

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by H.P. Lovecraft
Incantations of black magic unearthed unspeakable horrors in Providence, Rhode Island. Evil spirits are being resurrected from beyond the grave, a supernatural force so twisted that it kills without offering the mercy of death! (Publisher’s summary)


Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice
Lestat's kiss has awakened Queen Akasha from her 6000 year sleep. She immediately begins a wholesale slaughter of most of the world's vampires, sparing only a small remnant (including Lestat) who she expects will join her in a crazed crusade against male mortals. (Publisher’s Weekly)


Dracula by Bram Stoker
Presents the classic macabre tale of a vampire, Count Dracula of Transylvania, and the small group of people who vowed to rid the world of him. (Publisher’s summary)


Fog Heart by Thomas Tessier
Oona Muir has visionary trances that involve self-laceration, bleeding and fits. Expressing her visions in the disjointed, imagistic language of traditional prophecy, she convinces a few believers but lets more skeptical acquaintances scoff--until she hints at their own dark secrets. (Publisher’s Weekly)


The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story by Horace Walpole
On the day of his wedding Conrad, heir to the house of Otranto, is killed in mysterious circumstances. Fearing the end of his dynasty, his father, Manfred, determines to marry Conrad's betrothed Isabella, until a series of supernatural events stands in his way. A giant helmet falls from the moon, a portrait sighs, a statue bleeds and spirits warn of impending tragedy, as the curse on Manfred's house inexorably works itself out. (Publisher’s summary)


Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural, edited by Phyllis Cerf Wagner and Herbert A. Wise

This is the bedrock of horror anthologies; the quintessential collection of spine-chilling tales; the keystone in any serious horror buff's collection. (Amazon.com review)

Labor Day Weekend

 

The Library will be closed Saturday - Monday for Labor Day Weekend. The Library staff wishes everyone safe and happy celebrations; we'll see you on Tuesday!

Friday Reads: Barbarian Days, A Surfing Life

We're going to get back to semi-regular Friday Reads now that we're into a new academic year! To kick us off, our Cataloging & Acquisitions Librarian, Adam Pellman, tells us about trying something different for him -- Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, by Willam Finnegan.

It seems a bit strange to me that I would choose to read a memoir focused on surfing. I don't read many memoirs, and I've never tried surfing, or ever really had any interest in it. I do, however, love great writing, so this book turned out to be the perfect choice. Finnegan has spent time all over the world chasing waves and working as a war journalist, and he is, unsurprisingly, an avid reader, so the book is as much a travelogue and intellectual history as it is a book about his devotion to surfing. Or, perhaps "obsession" is a better word than "devotion." Finnegan writes evocatively about the places he's traveled and the waves he's surfed, and he writes just as beautifully about surfing's undiminished attraction for him:


"A bruise-colored cloud hung over Koko Head. A transistor radio twanged on a seawall where a Hawaiian family picnicked on the sand. The sun-warmed shallow water had a strange boiled-vegetable taste. The moment was immense, still, glittering, mundane. I tried to fix each of its parts in memory. I did not consider, even passingly, that I had a choice when it came to surfing. My enchantment would take me where it would."

Catalog passwords reset

 

If you have a borrowing account set up in the library CATALOG (HillCat) for renewing books & DVDs, your password has been reset to 4321. (This does NOT affect the databases.) Sorry for the inconvenience!

September-October DVD Spotlight: Horror Movies

 Although it's still technically summer, the Halloween candy displays are already popping up in stores across the country.  That means it's unofficially horror movie season!  Once again, we're taking two full months to spotlight the many horror films in our DVD collection.  If chills and thrills are your thing, Reeves Memorial Library has got you covered.  We've got horror movies about all manner of things that go bump in the night, from vampires and zombies to mutant animals and murderous aliens.  Not to mention the scariest monster of all: humankind.

Featured titles include:

Audition (1999)

This cringe-inducing Japanese film, surely one of the most disturbing movies ever made, is both an extremely unsettling piece of revenge horror and a surprisingly affecting examination of loneliness.

The Exorcist (1973)

This horror classic, about a possessed teenage girl, is considered by many to be the scariest movie ever made.

Get Out (2017)
Jordan Peele's acclaimed hit, about a young African-American man's nightmarish weekend visit to his white girlfriend's parents' house, is the perfect combination of slowly-escalating unease, disturbing horror, and brilliant social commentary.

Nosferatu (1922)

This silent, expressionistic adaptation of the Dracula story features some of the most haunting imagery in all of cinema.

Shaun of the Dead (2004)

With equal parts horror and humor, this wildly entertaining film tells the story of a slacker who tries to win back his ex-girlfriend amid the chaos of a zombie apocalypse.

The Thing (1982)
Tension and paranoia abound in John Carpenter's gory horror classic, about an Antarctic research station that comes under attack by a shapeshifting alien.

Stop by the library and check one out today ... if you dare.

Fall 2021 Library Newsletter

(c) 2021 Reeves Memorial Library

Fall semester is just about here! Take a few minutes and check out the Library's Fall 2021 Newsletter. We're especially excited to be adding a much-requested video streaming service this year!

Friday Reads

We'll be doing Friday Reads sporadically throughout the summer. Adam said his current read, The Overstory by Richard Powers, was worth featuring!

I love this book. I want to begin by saying that.

This is a novel about trees. Well, it's about people, at least in terms of its plotting and characters, but it's the ways in which trees impact and inform those human characters' personal and collective histories that serve as the focus of the story. It's a big, sprawling epic of a novel, beautifully written, and with such rich characterization that even minor side characters who only appear in a single chapter feel like the protagonists of an entire novel. The book follows nine Americans over the course of decades in their lives. Many of them will come together as part of an environmental activist movement in the Pacific Northwest, where ancient forests are being cut down by large timber companies.

Most great nature writing, whether it's fiction or nonfiction, reminds us that there's an entire non-human world all around us, bursting with activity and intelligent life that many of us never notice. The term "overstory" refers to the topmost layer of foliage in a forest, the layer which acts as the forest canopy. This novel reminds us that there is indeed an entire story unfolding above our heads, among the trees that we so often take for granted, and that we would all do well to pay attention to it.