"Reality is a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there." -John Barth
by Richard Matheson Richard Collier, recently diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor and given a few months to live, decides to pack up and spend the rest of his days traveling. On a whim he flips a penny to give him direction and ends up at the Coronado Hotel in San Diego, a “monument to... Continue Reading →
by Ernest Hemingway "It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact." The old man, the aged form of a monster of a man who was once deadlocked in an arm wrestling contest for days and won, is poor and alone with a breaking down body and with the scant acquaintance of... Continue Reading →
by Shirley Jackson Our main character Eleanor steals the car she bought with her sister in order to answer a summons for an educational visit to a ‘haunted house,’ where she is to meet the doctor conducting an experiment, another woman similarly summoned, and the heir to the house. The house’s reputation precedes it, and... Continue Reading →
by Oscar Wilde “Who art thou to bring pain into God’s world?” Mr. Wilde’s career in short stories was collected in three books published in the late 1800’s as follows: The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888) Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime and Other Stories (1891) A House of Pomegranates (1891) The Happy Prince and Other... Continue Reading →
by Horace Walpole Gothic novel #1. "It is sinful," replied the Friar, "to cherish those whom heaven has doomed to destruction." Generally accepted to be the first Gothic novel ever written, The Castle of Otranto is an important book for those looking deeply into horror and it's history and remains highly enjoyable. A headstrong prince,... Continue Reading →
by M.R. James "I expect you're right: he has got in. And if I don't mistake, there'll be the devil to pay in one of the rooms upstairs." 8 stories make up this 1904 collection, and they hold up well. The language of the time isn’t much of a barrier here, and though it may... Continue Reading →
by Voltaire “I have been in several provinces. . . in all, the principal occupation is love, the next is slander, and the third is talking nonsense.” Candide seems to have mastered one central theme, and the book will pound you over the head with it: If a man is standing over an open cesspool,... Continue Reading →
by Chuck Palahniuk We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. And God says, “No, that’s not right.” Yeah. Well. Whatever. You can’t teach God anything. Fight Club is the story of a man too sensitive to the shortcomings of modern... Continue Reading →
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