About Her
Elle E. is 25 and teaches in a state overrun by the spawn of yuppies. Therefore she is a full-time heretic much afflicted by spleen.
the colour green, reading, scribes and orators, ruffs, cuffs, Machiavellian villains and vindictive heroes.
wishlist · livejournal · email
Last 10 Entries
What I'm Reading Now
Classic Victorian and Edwardian Ghost Stories
Various
This is a book to be read by a blazing fire on a winter's night, with the curtains drawn close and the doors securely locked. The unquiet souls of the dead, both as fictional creations and as 'real' apparitions, roam the pages of this haunting new selection of ghost stories by Rex Collings.
Reviewed
Book
The Black Veil & Other Tales of Supernatural Sleuths
Various
Rating 
Some really good stories share the pages with a few indifferent supernatural detective stories. I especially liked the Carnacki stories and Arthur Machen's 'The Red Hand'. Vintage sleuthing at its best. I'll definitely look for more works by Machen and Hodgson.
The Temple of Death
A.C. & R.H. Benson
Rating 
I totally disagree with the editor of this collection that R.H. Benson's works are more religious in tone than A.C. Benson's. I find it the opposite. I sometimes had to resist flipping through the pages for almost every story written by A.C. Benson as they were all so predictable. I found some of the stories laughable. But I was surprised that there were only 7 stories of R.H. Benson included - but they were all good and I even cried when I read one of them... No, it wasn't a ghost story but a Catholic weepie. And I was delightfully chilled by his 'The Traveller'. Excellent and effective.
The Vesuvius Club
Mark Gatiss
Rating 
Someone said I'd love the new rogue of British literature, Lucifer Box, after I confessed my liking for the classic
Flashman Papers series. I get the point that Lucifer must love himself, but I'd prefer it if he didn't always make me feel so impatient with him. I think I'm going to read the second book some other time...
The Bloody Chamber
Angela Carter
Rating 
I'm reading this again after almost 10 years... The thing that many reviewers forget is Carter's humour. She's so funny at times that you have to laugh in a crowded train. If you have never picked up a book by this fearless authoress, this would be a good starting point. I promise you, you will love her works.
Blogroll
Monday, August 20, 2007 - 2:24 PM
It's my Chopin mood. Sometimes, I'm in my Stravinsky mood and feel like myself, slightly batty, dramatic and trying to be mysterious. Stravinsky runs wild in my head, even when I sleep, when I'm like that. I wake up humming Stravinsky. But in my current circumstances of being a hideous capitalist victim, I listen to too much of Chopin's Nocturnes - and, rightly, feel like a character from Shakespeare or something. Oh god! I'm useless. I'm a lover of books and melancholy for its sake, and I'm of no use to this world. And I cannot face this fact.
