With M. R. James, amongst the finest ghost stories in the language--a review of E. F. Benson's collected short stories . Memorable, "How Fear Departed from the Long Gallery," "The Room in the Tower," and "Mrs. Amworth." While I don't agree with the blogger in Benson's wider range (M. R. James has quite a range from "Casting the Runes" to "Count Magnus" to "'Oh Whistle and I'll Come to You My Lad," and Lovecraft also had a large range from "Cool Air" to "Whisperer in the Darkness" to "Color Out of Space" not to mention the central position of the Mythos. But that said, I cannot argue with the reviewer's admiration of the quality and range of Mr. Benson's wonderful collection. Well worth one's time if one is into October Reading. And what is particularly nice is that Benson does offer us, occasionally, the real and true, dyed-in-the-wool ghost story--a rarity...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis is interesting to me, though I am not an ereader, because my son just bought an ipod touch with his birthday/chore money - not enough for the ipad (bad name a turnoff), but enough left over to get a few apps and downloads. I have yet to use an ereader, not being enough of a airline/subway traveler to get my money's worth out of one, in addition to being too cheap: will libraries eventually "loan" ebooks? - but find that on days like today, when I log 82 miles in the car while kidtaxiing, that I love having audio books around, and the ipod is perfect for those, especially with so many free options from sites like librivox. But audiobooks are hard to revisit, and I've no idea how you interact with ebooks - can you mark pages that you want to remember? (I like to fold corners and checkmark passages in paper books)
ReplyDeleteAlso interesting - the link to the Yann Martel interview at the bottom of the page. Only I wish he pronounced "Beatrice" like one of my college professors, Italian style: "Bay-a-tree-chay." Sounds prettier.
Dear Emily,
ReplyDeleteYes, you can bookmark e-books. And, by the way, I can borrow e-books from my library for a span of three weeks. Not for Kindle and other appliances, but date sensitive PDFs nonetheless. The era is upon us whether or not we're ready for it.
shalom,
Steven