What Fiction are you reading this week, October 29, 2023?
Trick or treat.
Reading the 15th Mary Russell mystery: Island of the Mad by Laurie R. King. Searching for a missing friend, Mary and Sherlock travel from the grim confines of Bedlam to the canals and cabarets of Venice -- only to find the foreboding shadow of Benito Mussolini darkening the fate of a city, an era, and a tormented English lady of privilege. I thought that sounded like an appropriately scary tale for this week. Great little quotation at the front of the book from Thomas Tryon, 1689. "The world is but a great Bedlam, where those that are more mad lock up those that are less."
Listening to Cat Me If You Can by Miranda James. Charlie and Diesel take a bookish vacation but discover that murder never takes a holiday. They're headed to Asheville, NC, to spend a week at a boutique hotel and participate in a gathering of mystery readers. My favorite plot. If I ever attended a gathering of mystery readers/writers and there wasn't a murder, I would likely be disappointed. 
Got anything scary on your reading list this week?
= new reply since forum marked as read
such a sweet, loving fellow. Not reading anything scary except for the daily news which is enough to make one retreat from life. I started Ron Rash's The Caretaker and read last night until I could no longer hold my eyes open. He is such a good writer, and the story is very compelling.
From Penguin Random House:
It’s 1951 in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. Blackburn Gant, his life irrevocably altered by a childhood case of polio, seems condemned to spend his life among the dead as the sole caretaker of a hilltop cemetery. It suits his withdrawn personality, and the inexplicable occurrences that happen from time to time rattle him less than interaction with the living. But when his best and only friend, the kind but impulsive Jacob Hampton, is conscripted to serve overseas, Blackburn is charged with caring for Jacob’s wife, Naomi, as well.
Sixteen-year-old Naomi Clarke is an outcast in Blowing Rock, an outsider, poor and uneducated, who works as a seasonal maid in the town’s most elegant hotel. When Naomi eloped with Jacob a few months after her arrival, the marriage scandalized the community, most of all his wealthy parents who disinherited him. Shunned by the townsfolk for their differences and equally fearful that Jacob may never come home, Blackburn and Naomi grow closer and closer until a shattering development derails numerous lives.
A tender examination of male friendship and rivalry as well as a riveting, page-turning novel of familial devotion, The Caretaker brilliantly depicts the human capacity for delusion and destruction all too often justified as acts of love.
Happy reading and Happy Halloween
Sounds really good.
Over in the Lounge I just posted a list of actual ghost stories one can find at various links. Sounds like a fun thing to do this week. Along with nibbling from the to-be-handed-out jar. 
Louise Penny hasn't published anything about the writing process, but Elizabeth George has written a book on that topic: Write Away (2004).
The writing books I most often recommend are the two by Stephen King:
Danse Macabre (1982). It's the same material he used for a writing course at University of Maine, "Themes in Supernatural Literature." So you get the actual class he taught--in book form.
On Writing (2000): It's half-memoir about his experiences as a writer, but also a master class for how to write well. Some literary critics consider this book among the finest non-fiction works ever written. It's so good that I actually consider it a character flaw if someone doesn't own a copy of it--and I am *not* much on reading SK's usual output. I adore all of his non-horror works, but his standard fare gives me many a sleepless night for weeks after reading them. Bloody hell, I *still* have nightmares about Pennywise from It. 
The best writing advice, ever, isn't in a book at all, but in the essay, "Politics and the English Language," by George Orwell. You don't even have to buy anything to get it. It's available here:
https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/politics-and-the-english-language/
I started it quite some time ago and then proceeded to get sidetracked and never picked it up again. Totally forgot about it until your post. I guess the 1st chapter just didn't pull me in enough to hook me. I really need to stop reading several books at once. Too many slip through the cracks and never get finished. Interestingly, my recently married daughter is hoping to move from Seattle to the Shaker Heights area. In-laws are near that area. I'll definitely pick it up as soon as I finish the 3 books I'm currently reading.
I’m a glutton for books where none of the characters are actually very likable. Maybe it’s because I was a psychology major and a retired attorney 
. I hope all here enjoys Halloween 🎃!
Too funny! My sister is, too. But I know she's not a member here. What a funny coincidence, though. 
because I am trash.
It’s a guilty pleasure. I’ve been having a rough couple of months so deserve my Sirius Black/Remus Lupin romance escapism, dammit. I adore both characters.
We all have the right to be in love with any book/character/author. And no one should ever have the right to take that away from us. Hang in there. We are here for you. 
A friend, who also has a fanfic addiction and a Lit degree, and I joke about it all the time.
Reading has always been my refuge and the internet is an amazing tool for dialing up whatever you feel like reading at any moment. There are some amazing fanfic writers out there… and some truly terrible ones. Searching for and finding gold is half the fun. And, on some days, I just love the trashy stuff. Today is one of those days.
