Books I Read in January 2022

“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” 

— Ray Bradbury

This year I’m trying to read a wider variety of genres. I think I’m doing okay so far. 

Collected Ghost Stories by M. R. James and A Warning to the Curious, Count Magnus, and Other Horrors: The Best Ghost Stories and Weird Fiction of M. R. James, Annotated and Illustrated by M. Grant Kellermeyer. 

M. R. James was a medievalist scholar and provost of King’s College, Cambridge and of Eaton College, best remembered for his ghost stories. I started both of these in December. I really enjoyed the collection annotated by M. Grant Kellermeyer. The annotations were packed full of information and really added to my enjoyment of the stories. 

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury 

I re-discovered Ray Bradbury recently and he’s now one of my favorite authors. This is his classic about man colonizing Mars. It’s more drama than science fiction. Like everything else I’ve read by him, it’s moving and brilliantly written. 

Out on the Cutting Edge by Lawrence Block 

This is the seventh book about Matthew Scudder, an ex-cop solving crimes in New York City. In some ways it’s slow moving but it’s also filled with compelling characters and absorbing dialogue and prose. I finished it pretty quickly. I really like how Mathew Scudder has grown since the first book. One thing hasn’t changed though. He’s still a grave and compassionate man trying to do the right thing in a bleak and tragic world. 

Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne 

In 2020 I read Why You Should Read Children’s Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise by Katherine Rundell. It reminded me of some of the books that I loved as a child and inspired me to revisit some of those and read the ones I never got to. As much as I like SF, crime, noir, and horror, sometimes it’s nice just to read something that’s light and plays with words just for the fun of it. A. A. Milne did quite well. 

Lupin III: Greatest Heists by Monkey Punch 

The adventures of master thief Lupin III and his partners in crime, Jigen, Goemon, and Fujiko. This is a best of manga collection that was originally released after the author passed away in 2019. The stories involve slapstick humor, wild chases, crazy heists, and double crosses, and are more risqué than some people realize.  I love the art style and use of panels. Monkey Punch stated that he was influenced by Tom and Jerry cartoons, Mad Magazine, and the art of Mort Drucker, and it really shows. I have to say that I think Monkey Punch is the greatest name for a comic book artist ever.

100 Poems by Seamus Heaney 

I’ve been mixing up my reading with poetry. I read this after a collection by Robert Frost. This was okay but it didn't grab me like the quote from The Cure at Troy, which is the first thing that I read by him. I think part of it is being unfamiliar with a lot of the subjects that Heaney wrote poems about.

Life Ain’t Nothing But Sex Misspelled by Harlan Ellison 

This is a collection of some of Ellison’s early non-speculative fiction stories. As with most anthologies I liked some stories more than others. I found myself becoming impatient as I read some of them. He can be too wordy at times. On the other hand, among the stories that I liked were two that really stood out. "Neither Your Jenny Nor Mine" concerns abortion and "A Prayer for No One's Enemy" concerns Nazis in America. Although written in the ‘60s, it’s eerie how relevant they still are today.

Favorite Read of the Month: A Month in the County by J. L. Carr 

What a beautifully written book. The main character Tom Birkin is a WWI veteran who reflects on a month from his past in which he was tasked with uncovering a mural that was painted over in a church. There are so many things I love about this book. How the main character develops a bond with the unknown painter from 100s of years ago, his connection with another WWI veteran who is working on an excavation in the churchyard, the conflict between Birkin and the person overseeing the restoration, how Birkin slowly makes a connection with the people from the town, his growing connection with the young woman who comes in to watch him every day, and how it all comes together in the end. All done in 135 pages. The ending is sad and bittersweet but still uplifting. It reminds us that if we miss out on something special in our lives that we have to find a way to settle for its memory.

I learned about this book after I started listening to the Backlisted podcast, which is dedicated to “giving life to old books.” I was planning on branching out on the kinds of books I read, and this podcast is really helping with that. After listening to a few episodes, I have more books added to my to-read list. 

On to February! 

Favorite Reads of 2021

 “We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel... is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become.”

― Ursula K. LeGuin

I got a lot of reading done in 2021, some on paper and some on Kindle. Mostly science fiction, fantasy, crime, and horror, but also fiction by James Baldwin and Sherwood Anderson. Some non-fiction as well. My overview is divided into four parts.

• Fiction 

• Non-fiction 

• Some Disappointments 

• Goals for 2022

Fiction 

John the Balladeer by Manly Wade Wellman

This is a collection of stories about John the Balladeer aka Silver John, as he wanders the haunted back hills of North Carolina with his silver-strung guitar. As he encounters strange creatures and various haunts, he uses his knowledge of folklore, magic, and science to help people in need. I loved the setting of pre-modern Appalachia and how the stories mixed myth, legend, and folklore.

I bought this book at the Science Fiction & Mystery Bookshop in Atlanta over twenty years ago and didn’t read it until 2021. I shouldn’t have waited so long. I absolutely loved it. 

This edition is sadly out of print, but Haffner Press is planning to release a two-volume hardcover set collecting every John the Balladeer short story as well as the novels. 

The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity by James M. Cain 

Two top-of-the-line hard-boiled noir classics. Both quick reads with great dialogue and prose. Not a word wasted. Highly recommended. 

When Darkness Loves Us by Elizabeth Engstrom

This is a collection of two horror novellas re-released by Valancourt Publishing’s Paperbacks from Hell imprint. Both stories have similar themes and ideas, dealing with women who are perceived as monstrous by society. “When Darkness Loves Us” is short, fast paced, and very creepy. “Beauty Is…” is a slow burn with horror erupting at the end. Both were excellent. 

The Hunter and The Man with the Getaway Face by Richard Stark

These are the first two books in the Parker series written by Donald Westlake writing as Richard Stark. More top-of-the-line crime noir. These were both re-reads. I started the series a few years ago but I decided to restart from the beginning.

Parker is an amoral thief that doesn't let anything get in his way. He’s brutal and efficient. So why read about him? Well as it says on the Violent World of Parker website, “Because Stark is an excellent writer and the Parker books are exciting and thought-provoking. Like all great crime fiction, the Parker novels give readers not just the story of a crime, but also a detailed look at the inner workings of a fascinating and original character."

All Systems Red by Martha Wells 

I bought the paperback a few years ago and I also received a free eBook version of this from TOR Books. That was through TOR’s eBook of the Month Club. You just need an email address to sign up. It’s gotten me to try out a number of different authors and titles. 

A group of scientists surveying a planet lose contact with another team and decide to investigate. With the group is a security cyborg that has secretly overridden its governor module. This allows it to develop independence. Interacting with people makes it uncomfortable, it loves watching television serials, it hates making eye contact, and refers to itself as “Murderbot.”  Between the mystery of what happened to the other team and a fascinating character, I couldn’t put it down. 

Matha Wells won two Hugo Awards recently. Network Effect won for best novel and the series won for best series. I’ve since read three of the sequels, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, and Exit Strategy and have enjoyed them all. Still need to get to Network Effect and the latest, Fugitive Telemetry. 

I have to say that I’m a big fan of TOR Books. They publish a nice variety of interesting science fiction and they’re one of the few publishers that still puts beautiful art on their covers. I really dislike the current book cover trend. Most are either quick photo-shop mock-ups or nothing but enlarged text on either overdone or bland backgrounds. They all look the same. Dull and uninteresting. 

Wings in the Night: The Weird Works of Robert E. Howard Vol. 4

Valley of the Worm: The Weird Works of Robert E. Howard Vol. 5

This series collects the fiction and poetry of Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian, as it originally appeared in Weird Tales magazine. I’ve really been enjoying this series.  While Howard’s stories are fast paced and exciting, they also have strong characterization as well as themes of individualism and the decaying of civilizations. It’s also really interesting to see how his storytelling progressed, since the stories are presented in the order that they appeared in Weird Tales. I read one Conan book when I was in high school but for whatever reason it didn’t grab me. Now he’s become one of my favorite authors. 

Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson 

This is a collection of interconnected short stories published in 1919 about people in the fictional small town of Winesburg, Ohio. I decided to read this after learning that Ray Bradbury recommended it. I loved it but it's probably not for everyone. It’s filled with people making bad decisions in their lives. But there’s also a positive message of getting up and moving on. I think this reviewer's quote says it best:

“There are endless reasons to read and reread Winesburg. But what has struck me about my most recent time through this book is the in-depth, fearless, summarized description of emotion.” — Angela  Pneuman

When the Sacred Ginmill Closes by Lawrence Block 

Lawrence Block became one of my favorite writers after reading Grifter's Game from Hard Case Crime and his series about the stamp collecting hitman Keller. After that I started reading the Matthew Scudder series, about an ex-cop and unlicensed P. I. in New York. This one is the sixth in the series. Always a good read. 

The Killing Hills by Chris Offut 

Army Criminal Investigation Division agent Mick Hardin helps investigate a murder while on leave in Kentucky. The prose and the dialogue flowed, and I got a real sense of the characters and the backwoods community of Hardin’s hometown. I’m looking forward to reading more by Mr. Offut. 

Swords Against Death by Fritz Leiber

This is the second collection of Fritz Leiber’s Fafred and the Gray Mouser Sword & Sorcery series. I read this after re-reading the first collection. I read the first collection when I was in college but never went any further. I still think the first collection is a mixed bag but the second one is outstanding. 

I’m glad that I’m reading these on my Kindle. Leiber uses a lot of vocabulary that I’m unfamiliar with and it makes it easy to look up definitions. I’m learning a lot of new words. I’m glad that I re-discovered him, he’s become one of my favorite writers. 

I recently learned that Fritz Leiber coined the term “Sword and Sorcery” and that he has also written horror as well as science fiction and fantasy. Looking forward to reading more of his work. 

Demons by Daylight by Ramsey Campbell

This was my first time reading the horror fiction of Ramsey Campell. Not every story in this collection worked for me but the ones that did left a strong impression. Will definitely be reading more. 

Blacktop Wasteland by S. A. Cosby

A southern noir with a lead character who is haunted by the past and facing all kinds of problems in the present. It grabbed me from the first paragraph and wouldn’t let go. 

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia 

This is a gothic horror set in 1950s Mexico, influenced by Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft. It manages to comment on colonialism, racist ideologies, eugenics, and toxic masculinity, while still providing a heck of an entertaining story. I loved it. 

I also love the trade paperback edition. Not only do I like the cover, but it also has a beautiful step-back cover, a second piece of art under the main cover. Art by Mia Araujo.

Fear by L. Ron Hubbard 

“...and despite the looneytunes scene his Dianetics and Scientology had become, he was always still just Ron Hubbard, who’d written To the Stars and Final Blackout and Fear and Typewriter in the Sky and Slaves of Sleep, all of which great pulp fiction I can still still reread with pleasure… “

― Harlan Ellison  

I had never taken L. Ron Hubbard seriously enough to want to read any of his work, but then I encountered the quote above as I was rereading Ellison’s introduction to Angry Candy. I decided to read Fear and I was pleasantly surprised. 

Soon after a university professor writes an article mocking the existence of devils, demons and other superstitions, he loses four hours out of his day. He also loses his hat. Then he starts meeting strange figures and starts seeing something out of the corner of his eye. He’s warned that if he finds his hat, he’ll find his four hours, but if he finds his four hours, he’ll die.

It was a little stretched out, but it held my interest and the ending comes at you hard. Ellison was not wrong. Good in a pulpy way. 

Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin 

A collection of James Baldwin’s short stories. I’ve read two of his essay collections and liked them a lot. This was my first time reading his fiction. Themes that show up in these stories include identity, family, religion, love, racism, and bigotry. There’s dark stuff in some of these stories but also a kind of haunting beauty. 

A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelanzy with Illustrations by Gahan Wilson 

Thirty-one chapters of mystery, adventure, horror, and humor, narrated by Snuff the dog. The characters and their animal companions are players in “The Game.”  Each chapter covers one day and as the story progresses the reader learns more about the mysterious game, leading up to a final confrontation on October 31st. One of my favorite books. I read it for the first time in October of 2020 and I’ll continue to read it every October. 

The Dying Earth by Jack Vance

Six loosely related short stories that take place in the distant future where the Earth's sun is nearing the end of its life and magic and technology exist side by side. The magic system in Dungeons & Dragons is based on the system described in these stories. I really enjoyed Vance’s writing style. This was a fun read. I liked the characters and Vance’s descriptions are lyrical and poetic.

Roads by Seabury Quinn with illustrations by Virgil Finlay

A sword and sorcery Christmas story which reimagines the fable of Santa Claus? Count me in! Klaus, called Claudius by Romans, is a gladiator in the arena of Herod the Great. Things begin to change for him after he is present at the crucifixion of Christ. After a series of adventures he returns to his homeland in the north.

I’m not the most religious person but one of the things I like about the story is its criticism of leaders who profess to follow the teachings of Christ, but don’t actually follow those teachings. After Klaus returns to the north and before he becomes Santa Claus, he notices that the poor in his village are struggling. He decides to leave them presents of food and other gifts at the end of the year. This doesn’t sit well with the local leaders. One of them has this to say:  

“It is no work of merit to give bread unto the poor. If it were Heaven’s will that all men should be fed, then we should have no poor, but it is stated most explicitly that the poor we shall have with us always. It is the well-considered thought of this reverend company that it is little less than a defiance of divine purpose to alleviate their condition.”

“If wise all-seeing Heaven had not willed them to be poor they had not been so, but their poverty is obviously by divine decree, whoso maketh them less poor, even though it be by giving them no more than a dry crust, thwarts Heaven’s will, and is therefore no better than a contemnor of Holy Gospel.” 

This was written in 1938. I recently read about a woman in Seattle, WA that was stopped by police for passing out free masks, gloves, and other supplies to the homeless. The supplies were confiscated, and she was told if it happens again she would be arrested. The more things change…

A Warning to the Curious, Count Magnus, and Other Horrors: The Best Ghost Stories and Weird Fiction of M. R. James, Annotated and Illustrated by M. Grant Kellermeyer 

M. R. James was a medievalist scholar and provost of King’s College, Cambridge and of Eaton College, best remembered for his ghost stories. I discovered this volume after joining a Ghost Stories for Christmas Reading Challenge. Like with most anthologies, some stories were better than others but there wasn’t a bad one in the bunch. As good as the stories were though, the annotations take it to the next level. They cover vocabulary, history, locations, and a lot of other topics. There are also thirty pages of essays. This collection is outstanding. I’ll definitely be getting more volumes from Oldstyle Tales Press. 

Non-Fiction 

Flame and Crimson: A History of Sword and Sorcery by Brian Murphy 

This is a thorough, well organized, and well researched history of the fantasy sub-genre of sword and sorcery. Before going over the authors and books of the late 60s, 70s, and 80s, the author explains that its origins can be traced to Icelandic sagas, Nordic myths, historical fiction, and early fantasy. An excellent overview. 

“Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feyman!” by Richard Feynman 

Richard Feynman (1918-1988) was an American theoretical physicist. He worked on the Manhattan Project, won the Nobel Prize in 1965 (along with Julian Schwinger and Shinichiro Tominaga), and helped to discover the cause of the space shuttle Challenger disaster. He was also known as the “Great Explainer” because he could explain complex concepts in simple and understandable ways.

This collection of essays covers a wide variety of topics. He had a lot of interests. In these essays he talks about them and how they connected to his work.  I thought he went on too long about safe cracking, but I loved when he wrote about teaching and how he solved problems at work. It was an entertaining read and his passion for learning really came through. 

Creating Short Fiction by Damon Knight 

A practical and insightful guide to writing short stories from SF author Damon Knight. It’s clear and well organized with sections that cover turning ideas into stories, beginning stories, controlling stories, and finishing stories. I’ll be going back to this and reviewing it soon. 

Making Comics by Lynda Barry 

This is a collection of Lynda Barry’s cartooning and comic book homework assignments with illustrated examples from her and her students. The assignments do a good job of helping the reader escape the mindset that a drawing has to be perfect and encourages anyone to draw no matter the skill level. A great resource for anyone interested in storytelling, narrative drawing, and channeling their creativity. 

I like how the book is designed in the style of a composition notebook. It’s a subtle touch but it helped make reading this book and doing the assignments a fun learning experience.

Some Disappointments 

The Getaway by Jim Thompson 

Jim Thompson’s story of a bank robbery gone wrong. Started out okay but then it got too surreal for me at the end. I prefer the 1972 film version which I watched after reading this. It’s directed by Sam Peckinpah and stars Steve McQeen and Ali MacGraw. 

The Eyes of the Overworld by Jack Vance

This is the sequel to The Dying Earth. It’s another collection of short stories but this time they all feature the same character, the utterly amoral thief Cugel the Clever. This was not a fun read. I like reading about anti-heroes once in a while (see Richard Stark's Parker series above) but there’s a fine line between anti-hero and villain. Cugel abandons allies at the drop of a hat and gets people killed regularly. It got old pretty quickly. This was a big disappointment after how much I enjoyed The Dying Earth.

Goals for 2022

I’d like to read more of my favorite authors, which I haven't read in a while. In no particular order:

,

• Ray Bradbury

• Harlan Ellison 

• Neil Gaiman 

• Leigh Brackett

• Poul Anderson 

• Fredric Brown

• Ursula LeGuin 

• Tanith Lee

• Stephen King

• Charles Dickens 

• Mark Twain 

• P. G. Wodehouse 

• Ernest Hemingway

• John Steinbeck 

• Haruki Murakami 

I’d also like to go beyond my usual genres of science fiction, fantasy, and crime, and read more of the following: 

• Classics 

• Mythology and Folklore

• Children’s books

• U.S. and world history 

• Current events 

• Biographies of U.S Presidents 

• Japanese literature

• Japanese science fiction

• Essays 

• Poetry 

Hmm. I think I have too many interests…Oh well!

Here’s to reading favorite authors as well as discovering new things in 2022. 

Quotes About Writing

This month marks the third anniversary of my blog. I started it as a way to write more and I began by writing about my struggles with creating. Then I added book reviews, first on books about writing and then on fiction that interests me. 

A lot of my posts begin with quotes about writing. I thought it would be a good idea to review them once in a while, so I’ve put them together as an anniversary post. 

Reminders that you have to put in the work:

“Don’t just plan to write — write. It is only by writing, not dreaming about it, that we develop our own style.”

— P.D. James

“People on the outside think there’s something magical about writing, that you go up in the attic at midnight and cast the bones and come down in the morning with a story, but it isn’t like that. You sit in back of the typewriter and you work, and that’s all there is to it.”

— Harlan Ellison 

“The truth is that there’s always a gap between the story as you imagined it — compelling, insightful, rich with subtle nuance — and what actually ends up in the manuscript. This is because stories must be written, and read, one word at a time…”

— Nancy Kress 

“You can always fix bad pages. You can’t fix no pages. So write. Just write. Try to turn off that voice of doom that paralyzes you.”

— Harlan Coben 

 

“Finish things.”

— Neil Gaiman 

 

“Work inspires creation. Keep working. If you succeed, keep working. If you fail, keep working. If you’re interested, keep working. If you’re bored, keep working.”

— Michael Crichton 

Inspiration

Michael Crichton’s quote really spoke to me. But what do you do when you have the desire to write but you don’t feel inspired to write?  Well, you have two choices. 

1. Write.

2. Don’t write.

I realize that’s not as easy as it sounds. Finding the time and the energy can be a challenge. Life gets in the way. But whether you have inspiration or not, I’ve found that the act of writing regularly leads to inspiration, which leads to energy, which leads to moving forward and finishing things. But you have to get up off the sofa. 

The act of not writing leads to doing whatever it is you have decided to do instead. I’ve spent years doing option two and feeling fine about it. Now I have a lot of unfinished stories. 

 

I’ve been writing more and more over these last three years though. The quotes above and the rest of the quotes below have all helped to inspire me in one way or another. 

Quotes on Writing and Creativity

“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”

— Mary Oliver

“When I’m writing, I am trying to find out who I am, who we are, what we are capable of, how we feel, how we lose and stand up, and go on from darkness into darkness.”

— Maya Angelou

“We live by stories. It’s the principle by which we organize our experience and thus derive our sense of who we are.”

—Tobias Wolff

“You can’t be afraid to deal with your demons. You’ve got to go there to be able to write.” 

— Lucinda Williams

“Curiosity will conquer fear even more than bravery will.”

— James Stevens

“It’s urgent, like literary appendicitis. In writing, you operate on yourself and save yourself.” 

— Ray Bradbury

“Imagine it, create it.”

— Toni Morrison

“Genius is nothing more than childhood recaptured at will, childhood equipped now with man's physical means to express itself, and with the analytical mind that enables it to bring order into the sum of experience, involuntarily amassed.”

— Charles Baudelaire

“You start by imitating others, there is lack of clarity, there are many reasons to fail. But there is a seed that slowly grows.”

— Octavio Paz

"The muscles of writing are not so visible, but they are just as powerful: determination, attention, curiosity, a passionate heart."

— Natalie Goldberg

“Writing a book is like having an empty pool in the yard and every day going out and throwing in a cup of water to fill it.”

— Bethany Ball

“As slowly as I write, the story seems to unfold itself, in spite of me.”

— Isabel Allende

 

"If today was not a productive day don't beat yourself to death over it. Wake up tomorrow and start from there. Try it. It works. We can't go back. We can only go forward. Let's go!" 

— Terry McMillan

 

“Something that you feel will find its own form.”

— Jack Kerouac 

 

"Write what should not be forgotten."

— Isabel Allende

 

“Very few writers know what they are doing until they’ve done it.”

— Anne Lamott

 

“I always start out with an idea, even a boring idea, that becomes a question I don’t have answers to.”

— Toni Morrison 

 

“Writing a first draft is very much like watching a Polaroid develop. You can’t — and, in fact you’re not supposed to — know exactly what the picture is going to look like until it has finished developing.”

— Anne Lamott

 

"Reading is the nourishment that lets you do interesting work."

— Jennifer Egan 

 

“You learn best by reading a lot and writing a lot, and the most valuable lessons of all are the ones you teach yourself.”

— Stephen King 

"Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book."

— Jane Smiley 

 

“Study hard what interests you the most in the most irreverent and original manner possible.”  

— Richard Feynman

 

“Writers are either developing an idea or they are questing, even if unconsciously, for the germ of an idea.”

— Patricia Highsmith

 

“You won’t know what’s in you until you test it.”

— Ray Bradbury

 

“Creativity is merely a plus name for regular activity. Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better.”

— John Updike

 

“Writing is what I love to do. It can be maddening, frustrating, and the genesis for all sorts of unhealthy behavior (as well as grand plots of procrastination), but I cherish all elements of it. A part of your brain is permanently moored in the storytelling harbor. It affects how you view the world and indeed how you experience everything in that world. It demands complete devotion.”

— David Baldacci

“We are, finally, all wanderers in search of knowledge. Most of us hold the dream of becoming something better than we are, something larger, richer, in some way more important to the world and ourselves. Too often, the way taken is the wrong way, with too much emphasis on what we want to have, rather than what we wish to become.”

— Louis L’Amour 

In closing, here's a quote that I came across a few years ago that I haven’t used before.

“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.”

— Neil Gaiman