"Reality is a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there." -John Barth
by Miguel de Cervantes (translation by Gerald J. Davis) “I know very well who I am,” answered Don Quixote, “and I know who I can be.” Don Quixote, fed up with a world of sin and despair, takes it upon himself to become a knight errant, an occupation he's often read of in his books... Continue Reading →
by Alexander Laing The best way to make life bearable, in such a case, certainly would be to withdraw into the imagination and to notice nothing outside. Here is the extraordinary murder mystery as narrated by a witness to most of the true events, with the names of the characters, the school, and even the... Continue Reading →
by Fritz Leiber What was the whole literature of supernatural horror but an essay to make death itself exciting?—wonder and strangeness to life’s very end. The Pale Brown Thing, a tale containing autobiographical elements, is the story of a horror writer in San Francisco, Franz Westen (Fritz Leiber?), who has a supernatural experience and attempts... Continue Reading →
by Elmore Leonard “Mitch, no one ever got in trouble keeping his mouth shut.” Mitchell, successful businessman, has been fooling around on his wife of twenty years when he’s presented with photographic evidence of his activities and forced into a blackmail situation. As a competent, thoughtful man, he resists, and soon the blackmailers up the... Continue Reading →
by Ross Macdonald I put on a tie and jacket, and loaded a revolver. Iconic detective Lew Archer is introduced to us in the first novel contained in this Library of America set, though it is the third Lew Archer novel in Macdonald’s bibliography. Ross Macdonald is the pseudonym used by Kenneth Millar. Private detective... Continue Reading →
by Jim Butcher It's much more comfortable to rest secure in the knowledge that no one can reach out with magic and quietly kill you, that vampires exist only in movies, and that demons are mere psychological dysfunctions. Completely inaccurate but much more comfortable. The Shroud of Turin has been stolen and Harry Dresden’s called in... Continue Reading →
by Clifford D. Simak “But for speech and hands, we might be dogs and dogs be men.” The story opens with Dogs, sitting around discussing the possible previous existence of a creature called Man. But they cannot prove his existence one way or another, so they reference a document they’ve found containing eight stories concerning... Continue Reading →
by Jack Ketchum Every so often life reminded you of how grimy and carnal a creature man could be if he set himself to it. Carla has retreated from New York City to the woods to work on her book, and she has invited her sister and a few friends to join her for the... Continue Reading →
by John Farris “In thirty years of study I’ve come to accept the fact that history is neither instructive nor predictive.” A cereal murderer is on the hunt, slicing attractive young girls in a timetable roughly coinciding with the full moon. As we’re getting to know our cast of characters, mostly higher class elites, we... Continue Reading →
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