What Book Are You Currently Reading ?

[Batman]

What a fantastic book that was, the story was simple enough, Tim Sunblade (as he is now known) has been working a shitty job on an oil rig he finishes work and gets himself a prostitute, she ends up staying with him for a few days and although he wants to he can't seem to shake her off, she is quite honest about her interests and motives 'once the moneys gone, I'm gone' but neither of them can stay away from the other.

Its a pretty volatile relationship, certainly of the love/hate variety, she tries to steal him money, he gives her a bit of a beating, she fights back, he realizes that against his better judgement he has fell in love with her and she is just the right person to help him carry out an armed robbery that he has been planning since he was inside.

Virginia is certainly a restless type of girl, the mundane life doesn't agree with her, Tim Sunblade knows what he wants, he doesn't know why he wants it just that he does.

Fantastic book I'd recommend it to anyone, I can't wait to get the chance to pick it back up and re-read it.

[Batman]

The lives of the Barretts, a suburban New England family, are torn apart when fourteen-year-old Marjorie begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia. To her parents despair, the doctors are unable to halt Marjorie's descent into madness. As their stable home devolves into a house of horrors, they reluctantly turn to a local Catholic priest for help, and soon find themselves the unwitting stars of The Possession, a hit reality television show. Fifteen years later, a bestselling writer interviews Marjorie's younger sister, Merry. As she recalls the terrifying events that took place when she was just eight years old, long-buried secrets and painful memories begin to surface and a mind-bending tale of psychological horror is unleashed.

Really enjoyed this, it seems like its been a while since I read a bog standard exorcism horror, this ticked all the boxes apart from one, it wasn't scary at all.

There are three different narratives in the book, Merry when she is 8 years old describing things as they happened, Merry 15 years on when she is being interviewed for a true crime and finally a random blogger who describes things as seen in the TV docuseries.

The influences in the book were obvious, almost too obvious, the lead character Merry is basically an extension of Merricat from Shirley Jacksons 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle' she is playful and naive and doesn't fully understand what is going on around her (An 8 year old girl trying to deal with her 14 year old sisters schizophrenia/demonic possession) and whilst she doesn't have that twisted sense of mischief that Merricat had but the whole of her narrative had the almost exact same feel (the author actually admits after the book that this was his inspiration but it was painfully blatant. He did however manage to keep it entertaining and enjoyable, sometimes books written from a kids perspective can be cringe worthy but he managed to avoid this.

Paul Tremblay really did try to drag the dated exorcisms into today's world of Wikipedia, iPods and reality TV, it didn't always hit the mark though, the actual 'horror' side of the book suffered from this, the exorcism almost took the backseat for the descriptions of the TV show's cast and crew.

There is a nice little section after the book where the author gives a break down on each chapter describing where his ideas and influences came from, and he has a little chat about his favourite horror films and books etc, I like that sort of thing, it gives you an idea into how their mind works.

It certainly isn't the greatest of books but it was certainly a cracking little page turner.

[Batman]

I think I'm going to stick with the whole 'horror, demon, exorcist' shizzle for the minute and start this tomorrow

In a peaceful Vermont courtroom, humanity will be called to trial by endless evil. Ancient and implacable -- armed with sensuality, delusion and horrible death -- it will join itself to human weakness in an unholy alliance.

Not since The Exorcist has there been such a powerful novel of demonic possession as Son of the Endless Night.

Now I have no recollection of buying this at all, I just got home from work one day and there it was on the floor as I walked through the door, I have either hit the 'one click buy' button on Amazon without realizing it or I have made another of my drunk purchases, I really have no idea, usually if I am buying books when drunk I'll get 4 or 5 delivered sporadically over the course of a few weeks, its actually quite good fun not having any idea of what it could be, I've stumbled across a few gems that way.

Anyway, if its shit I'll put it down to the 'once click buy' button, if its good then I'll chalk it up to drunk batman being out of his noggin on Stella or Rum.

[Batman]

OK then as the year is drawing to a close I thought I'd post the full list of everything I've read this year, I'm hoping to get another one or two done before the year is out but I'm feeling a bit burnt out now so we'll see how I get on.

J.Sheridan Le Fanu - Uncle Silas - 1864
Charles Portis - True Grit - 1968
Albert Camus - The Plague - 1947
John Steinbeck - Of Mice and Men - 1937
Truman Capote - In Cold Blood - 1965
Ian Rankin - Knots & Crosses - 1987
Shirley Jackson - We Have Always Lived in the Castle - 1962
Oakley Hall - Warlock - 1958
Ian Rankin - Hide and Seek - 1991
Shirley Jackson - The Birds Nest - 1954
Ray Celestin - The Axemans Jazz - 2014
Zecharia Sitchin - The Lost Book of Enki - 2001
James Herbert - The Rats - 1974
S. Elliot Brandis - Young Slasher
Ian Rankin - Tooth and Nail - 1992
James Hogg - The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner - 1824
Margaret Atwood - Oryx & Crake - 2003
Charles Bukowski - Post Office - 1971
Jim Al-Khalili - Aliens: Science asks: Is there anyone out there?
Lauren Beukes - Broken Monsters - 2014
Graeme Macrae Burnet - His Bloody Project - 2014
Stephen King - It - 1986
Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian - 1985
Stefan Grabínski - The Dark Domain
Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita - 1955
Michael Connelly - The Crossing - 2015
Charlotte Dacre - Zofloya, or the Moor - 1806
Vladimir Nabokov - Bend Sinister - 1947
George Orwell - 1984 - 1949
Steven Hall - The raw Shark Texts - 2007
Stefan Kiesbye - Your house is on fire, your children all gone - 2011
Elliott Chaze - Black Wings Has My Angel - 1953
Paul Trmblay - A Head Full of Ghosts - 2015
Max Ernst - Une Semaine de Bonté - 1934 (this is a bit of a cheat because its just pictures)
John Farris - Son of the Endless Night - 1985

[Master]

That is a lot of books! Pace yourself and enjoy them. It is not a race.

[Batman]

That is a lot of books! Pace yourself and enjoy them. It is not a race.

meh, its less than a book a week, I'd rather read than sit down watching the telly constantly.

It's a nice (mostly) cheap hobby and it keeps me out of trouble.

[walrus]

Hey I just started the Stephen king book about kennedy. Most of what I read is history, philosophy and and theology along with a smattering of economics. I'm looking foreword to this nonfiction.

[Beanz]

OK then as the year is drawing to a close I thought I'd post the full list of everything I've read this year, I'm hoping to get another one or two done before the year is out but I'm feeling a bit burnt out now so we'll see how I get on.

J.Sheridan Le Fanu - Uncle Silas - 1864
Charles Portis - True Grit - 1968
Albert Camus - The Plague - 1947
John Steinbeck - Of Mice and Men - 1937
Truman Capote - In Cold Blood - 1965
Ian Rankin - Knots & Crosses - 1987
Shirley Jackson - We Have Always Lived in the Castle - 1962
Oakley Hall - Warlock - 1958
Ian Rankin - Hide and Seek - 1991
Shirley Jackson - The Birds Nest - 1954
Ray Celestin - The Axemans Jazz - 2014
Zecharia Sitchin - The Lost Book of Enki - 2001
James Herbert - The Rats - 1974
S. Elliot Brandis - Young Slasher
Ian Rankin - Tooth and Nail - 1992
James Hogg - The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner - 1824
Margaret Atwood - Oryx & Crake - 2003
Charles Bukowski - Post Office - 1971
Jim Al-Khalili - Aliens: Science asks: Is there anyone out there?
Lauren Beukes - Broken Monsters - 2014
Graeme Macrae Burnet - His Bloody Project - 2014
Stephen King - It - 1986
Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian - 1985
Stefan Grabínski - The Dark Domain
Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita - 1955
Michael Connelly - The Crossing - 2015
Charlotte Dacre - Zofloya, or the Moor - 1806
Vladimir Nabokov - Bend Sinister - 1947
George Orwell - 1984 - 1949
Steven Hall - The raw Shark Texts - 2007
Stefan Kiesbye - Your house is on fire, your children all gone - 2011
Elliott Chaze - Black Wings Has My Angel - 1953
Paul Trmblay - A Head Full of Ghosts - 2015
Max Ernst - Une Semaine de Bonté - 1934 (this is a bit of a cheat because its just pictures)
John Farris - Son of the Endless Night - 1985

That is an awful lot of fiction. If you were on the same bus as Bill Hicks, God knows what the "We got ourselves a reader" bloke would have made of you. Books are good..m'kay. Well done . I would buy you a pint but you live miles away. Merry Crimbo oh caped peruser

[Batman]

OK then as the year is drawing to a close I thought I'd post the full list of everything I've read this year, I'm hoping to get another one or two done before the year is out but I'm feeling a bit burnt out now so we'll see how I get on.

J.Sheridan Le Fanu - Uncle Silas - 1864
Charles Portis - True Grit - 1968
Albert Camus - The Plague - 1947
John Steinbeck - Of Mice and Men - 1937
Truman Capote - In Cold Blood - 1965
Ian Rankin - Knots & Crosses - 1987
Shirley Jackson - We Have Always Lived in the Castle - 1962
Oakley Hall - Warlock - 1958
Ian Rankin - Hide and Seek - 1991
Shirley Jackson - The Birds Nest - 1954
Ray Celestin - The Axemans Jazz - 2014
Zecharia Sitchin - The Lost Book of Enki - 2001
James Herbert - The Rats - 1974
S. Elliot Brandis - Young Slasher
Ian Rankin - Tooth and Nail - 1992
James Hogg - The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner - 1824
Margaret Atwood - Oryx & Crake - 2003
Charles Bukowski - Post Office - 1971
Jim Al-Khalili - Aliens: Science asks: Is there anyone out there?
Lauren Beukes - Broken Monsters - 2014
Graeme Macrae Burnet - His Bloody Project - 2014
Stephen King - It - 1986
Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian - 1985
Stefan Grabínski - The Dark Domain
Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita - 1955
Michael Connelly - The Crossing - 2015
Charlotte Dacre - Zofloya, or the Moor - 1806
Vladimir Nabokov - Bend Sinister - 1947
George Orwell - 1984 - 1949
Steven Hall - The raw Shark Texts - 2007
Stefan Kiesbye - Your house is on fire, your children all gone - 2011
Elliott Chaze - Black Wings Has My Angel - 1953
Paul Trmblay - A Head Full of Ghosts - 2015
Max Ernst - Une Semaine de Bonté - 1934 (this is a bit of a cheat because its just pictures)
John Farris - Son of the Endless Night - 1985

That is an awful lot of fiction. If you were on the same bus as Bill Hicks, God knows what the "We got ourselves a reader" bloke would have made of you. Books are good..m'kay. Well done . I would buy you a pint but you live miles away. Merry Crimbo oh caped peruser

@Beanz I can add another 2 to that list now

'The horror, whatever it was, had not yet entirely spoiled that marvellous beauty'

Enthralled by his own exquisite portrait, Dorian Gray exchanges his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Influenced by his friend Lord Henry Wotton, he is drawn into a corrupt double life, indulging his desires in secret while remaining a gentleman in the eyes of polite society. Only his portrait bears the traces of his decadence. The Picture of Dorian Gray was a succès de scandale. Early readers were shocked by its hints at unspeakable sins, and the book was later used as evidence against Wilde at the Old Bailey in 1895.

cracking book, I don't know why I'd never read it before now, its very much a book of morals and whilst it isn't shocking or controversial in this day and age if you like fiction from this era then its definitely worth reading, I'll definitely revisit this in the future.

Darkness lives within ...Cash-strapped, working for agencies and living in shared accommodation, Stephanie Booth feels she can fall no further. So when she takes a new room at the right price, she believes her luck has finally turned. But 82 Edgware Road is not what it appears to be. It's not only the eerie atmosphere of the vast, neglected house, or the disturbing attitude of her new landlord, Knacker McGuire, that makes her uneasy - it's the whispers behind the fireplace, the scratching beneath floors, the footsteps in the dark, and the young women weeping in neighbouring rooms. And when Knacker's cousin Fergal arrives, the danger goes vertical. But this is merely a beginning, a gateway to horrors beyond Stephanie's worst nightmares. And in a house where no one listens to the screams, will she ever get out alive?

Just a bog standard horror this was, I've read Adam Nevill before but never realised he was a Brummie himself, it was strange trying to read about a haunted house in Handsworth, I just couldn't imagine it, he also mentions how Perry Barr is mainly populated by Asians but the Eastern Europeans are taking the area over, the main character actually works in the bull ring, it was pretty nice to see Birmingham get the full on horror treatment.

Its certainly pretty bleak for the main part, its kind of like Jack Ketchums 'The Girl Next Door' with elements of Eden Lake and Martyrs thrown in for good measure.

This was delivered today, I'm really looking forward to getting started on it tomorrow

Bram Stoker Award Winners Bruce Boston and Alessandro Manzetti combine their poetic and narrative talents in a poetry novella that blends the genres of horror, surrealism, crime, and noir. Set in a large America city, Sacrificial Nights follows the lives of some of those who inhabit its late-night streets: prostitutes, pimps, a thief, an arsonist, a police detective, a psychotic killer, and more. Their tales and the tale of the city itself are richly complemented by British artist Ben Baldwin’s striking illustrations. This is a dark read with some explicit graphic content.

“Original, intelligent and exquisitely rendered, Sacrificial Nights is an absolute tour de force, a richly layered Chinese Box of sorts, where each part is as important as the whole. In a world of cookie-cutter plots and tired poetry, Sacrificial Nights is a shot of cool night air, shadowy, dangerous, and addictive as sin.” —Greg F. Gifune, author of The Bleeding Season

"When a book is both lucid and hallucinogenic, the effect can be shocking, luminous … transgressive. The collision of talents in this extraordinary work practically establishes a new genre – macabre noir." —Robert Dunbar, author of Willy

“Populated by denizens who straddle the line between salvation and damnation, Sacrificial Nightsreads like a flashlight exploration of the darkness lurking behind closed doors and down blind alleys. Boston and Manzetti deftly navigate the shadows where human monsters dwell.” —Michael McBride, author of Subterrestrial

[Alpha]

I'd really like to get Simon Sinek’s book 'Together is better'