Ah, the memories. I recently picked up this omnibus of spooky favorites from childhood, including the three “Scary Stories” books by Alvin Schwartz “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark,” “More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark,” and “Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones” and read them for the first time in my adulthood. I really don’t know what about these dark, macabre, downright creepy tales fascinated me so much as a child; normally, I was terrified of anything remotely scary, having to leave the room if a movie showed even the slightest tinge of blood and shying away from even the most innocuous rubber zombie mask. Perhaps because of this, I found these tingly stories all the more attractive. Perhaps, in spite of my fear, I enjoyed a feeling of dark, ghostly unease, and reading about the supernatural allowed me to experience it on my own terms. From then on, I was hooked on reading of ghostly, eerie places and phenomena (both “real” and fantasy) and the spooky atmosphere of these and similar stories filled me with a delicious dread. Even if I still could not bear to walk into the horror section of the video store, I relished “Scary Stories.” Especially around late October, as Halloween (always a favorite holiday) approached and the wind blew the leaves from the trees over the plowed fields and pumpkin patches, I returned to such stories again and again.

After so many years have passed, I am still greatly impressed by each of Schwartz’s “Scary Stories” entries gathered in this one volume. Despite being short, none more than three pages these stories are still extremely effective, still bringing chills to my sister and I (one particular story my sister could still not sit through). The majority a drawn whole cloth by Schwartz from the deep lake of American and Canadian folklore, which in turn takes aspects from ancient stories from a multitude of cultures. These stories touch the very essence of human fears, desires, and delights. Each remains deceptively simple in its telling, rarely going into detail about the ghostly events they describe but leaving just enough to get across the plot, and they are all the more spooky for it. Interestingly, many don’t really have a point or “moral,” which lends to them an aura of “truth” as if they were an actual recalled experience. Also, it must be said that Stephen Gammell’s art that goes along with many of the stories really gives them that extra edge of dread. These drawings have a drippy, macabre, unsettling ambiance that turns even the most mundane object (a chair, a stairway) into a horrifying, unnerving apparition. They are without a doubt the most frightening aspect of the book, and Gammell was an excellent choice to illustrate these scenes. Not all is scary, though. Each book also includes of a collection of joke stories that bring humor as a counterpoint to the horror of the unknown. Best of all, in my mind are the copious references, citations, notes and bibliography that Schwartz includes to trace the provenance and background of each of the tales, and invites the reader to continue their exploration of spooky folklore from North America and elsewhere. For me folklore has a timeless quality that lends itself to telling around a fire in the dark, delighting in imagining all the spooky details.

In conclusion, the Scary Stories theory is ideal in my mind for spine tingly story telling for both adults and children at any time of the year, but particularly around Halloween. I was happy to see that this book remains as memorable now as it had when I was just an easily frightened kid!

I didn’t really know what to expect when I began reading “Syncopated” but it turned out to be a very interesting collection of comic pieces, or “picto-essays” with themes ranging from the humorous to the sobering, the strange to the mundane. Each comic is extremely evocative in telling its story, even more impressive that each is nonfictional encomp history, memoir, and journalism. With as wide a variety of art styles as topics each piece was as interesting the read as the last. In particularly, I really enjoyed Rina Piccolo’s discussion of “postal cards,” being a postcard collector and fan of found items myself. “Syncopated” should provide an afternoon or two of insight for anyone interested in comic art.

This is definitely a pulpy piece of work, complete with ancient Meso-American cults, paranoid archeologists, evil New Age occultists, and shoggoths swarming out of the Mississippi River. It has a bit of 1970s late night movie vibe that I found oddly likable and is way over the top and about as far from Lovecraft’s vision as possible, though it is certainly not the worst Lovecraft pastiche I’ve read. Though the characters were wooden, the Mythos was used only as an excuse for sex and violence, and the plot was incomprehensible, it was a bit of a guilty pleasure, despite having not much to recommend it. The most interesting aspect for me was the Midwestern setting of the Quad Cities, about the last place you would expect Cthulhoid horrors.

This was an enjoyable, if unfocused piece of travel writing. McClelland’s goal of discovering the culture of the Great Lakes by exploring the entire length of the inland seas, encountering a variety of eccentric locals in cities, towns, and national parks were always very interesting. The similarities in culture between people in various states and provinces that surround the great lakes, regardless of nationality that differentiates them from other areas of the continent is something I’ve been interested in and McClelland does much to show that such similarities exist. However, it is not an argument without flaws and he occasionally seems to become a little rambling when talking about the diverse and unusual people and places he encounters. The book is divided into short chapters describing a single segment of McClelland’s journey and each depicted the local conditions well, making me feel like I had visited them as well (or visited again, in the case of places like Duluth or Door County, Wisconsin that I have spent time in). Taken alone, these segments are great local color but together can be a bit unfocused as the author tries to bind together random themes in his travels. On the other hand, not all of McClelland’s plans for his travel itinerary work out, giving the book an interesting sense of being on a trip, the many unexpected occurrences that happen while traveling. In spite of the many people McClelland interviews, it is a quite personal narrative as well, dealing wtih McClelland’s own thoughts on the region, and I enjoyed it.

While I’ve never been to Japan, checked out the JET program, or lived outside the country I was born in, I identified with some of the themes presented in “Tonoharu.” It is a fairly bleak look at the aimless feeling of some aspects of post college life in the era of the “quarter life crisis” and the self-loathing loneliness and lack of ambition of the main character, Daniel Wells, is something I’ve seen in myself as well as my peers at various low points of our lives between college and career. While Daniel certainly does not appear to be adapting well to the challenges and opportunities of his life in a rural Japanese village, I’m not sure he’d be any better in his American hometown and his life seems to be at a low ebb during the course of the story. It is not a happy tale, though the art is beautiful and the Japanese landscape invites further introspection and makes me want to visit. The various festivals and other cultural events mentioned in passing provide a great background for the low key story of personal failure and I particularly liked the author self insert character framing his predecessors sad departure. This is the first segment of a prospected trilogy and I am greatly curious how it ends; if Daniel’s life does not improve or reach some sort of point of personal crisis and transformation, the tale just might be too plodding and depressing to warrant recommendation, despite great promise.

I really enjoyed this book as a kid, but its been more than a decade since I read it last. It was probably among the first non-fiction books I read, so I was curious to see what it was like and perhaps bring back some of the memories of my childhood. My impressions were of a very unique story featuring aspects of daily life intruded on by a wacky storyline involving a civilization of chicken-revering, wise and peaceful lizards inhabiting a secret island. When Victor, a young boy stumbles upon mysterious lizard broadcasts on late night TV, he decides to get to the bottom of the story like his idol, Walter Cronkite which leads him to a large city, where he is taken under the wing of the Chicken Man, an odd character who knows more than he is telling and seems to turn up everywhere. Just describing the plot fills me with a nostalgic feeling as I’m returned to my childhood as a curious kid interested in the paranormal, lizards, and travel, three of the themes explored in Pinkwater’s book.

Returning to Pinkwater’s story as an adult, I can still see the exuberant creativity that definitely drew me in as a child, and while many of the crazy plot developments and cast of zany characters were a little too far-fetched for an older audience, it still maintains that feeling of being a “true story” that I enjoyed then and continue to seek out. I think that Pinkwater did a very good job in making the story simultaneously mundane (descriptions of local TV news programs and TV dinners, for instance) and so exuberantly creative, it appeals to the childrens’ sense of wonder, that anything is possible yet the main character’s problems and feelings are easily identifiable as well.

A few things that I picked up on now that I probably missed in my childhood were Pinkwater’s intriguing commentary on the nature of American culture via the medium of TV, particularly the evening news and late night monsters movies, both of which Victor, our protagonist, is a fan of. While very dated to 1976, many of the conclusions that Victor makes about American culture are still relevant today. My only complaint would be that “Lizard Music” is, in essence, a very “masculine” book in that there are very few female characters, mostly housewives and mothers. Those that aren’t are described as “crazy” like Victor’s hippie sister or the vacuous “pod” bimbos on TV. None have important roles. This may make it less appealing to young girls who may otherwise find Victor’s exploration of the lizard society, and its implications for human culture, as engrossing as boys would.

In the end, I would still recommend “Lizard Music” for a quick read for adults interested in middle school literature or for the children themselves. It has a creative spark that many kids, I think would find engrossing and even has some interesting philosophical insights that they may only truly discover later in life.

The War for the Oaks is one of my favorite fantasy reads. I really enjoy the juxtaposition yet complimentary aspects of mundane contemporary life and the strange, alien world of the supernatural fairies that seem to lurk just out of everyday perception. I have always liked the subtle mix of the fantastical and the commonplace, and I think that Emma Bull does it very well here, marrying these contradictory themes into a cohesive (and compelling) whole. One of the earlier works in the genre of “urban fantasy,” “The War for the Oaks” (Bull’s first novel) expertly weaves together many threads into an entertaining plot; Celtic folklore, rock music, and love, all under the backdrop of a lovingly described 1980s Minneapolis.
Telling the story of down on her luck musician Eddi McCandry and her sudden and frightening introduction of the warring bands of Fey, the Seelie and the Unseelie courts who each hope to take the Twin Cities for their own side. The normally immortal beings need a mortal witness to make their battles fatal and heighten the stakes of their centuries old conflict. Bull draws heavily on Celtic folklore to really bring her fairies to life, making them feel authentically ancient and otherworldly and yet playful in their interpretations of modern life.
The characters, both mortal and fey alike are very well drawn, likeable, and believable and as much detail is put into the practice of Eddi’s band, and though I have know musical experience seemed to bring further authenticity to the work. The action however is very dated to the 1980s with its outrageous fashion and the Minneapolis Sound in music highly evident, which I personally enjoyed but others may find jarring. Some of the shifts in romantic relationships may also become a bit clichéd in certain segments, but for the most part the characters remain quite real.
In addition, Bull makes the setting of the Twin Cities into a character itself; it definitely appears to be a tribute to Minneapolis and Minnesota in general, and I really can’t think of a better city for a story like this to take place in. To me the Twin Cities, with its parks, lakes, rivers, glittering skyline and mix of cultures, seem perfect for urban fantasy and Bull utilizes this setting to the fullest, drawing in local landmarks from Minnehaha Creek to the Como Conservatory (and of course, First Avenue).
“The War for the Oaks” really works for me as one of the best depictions I’ve seen of the culture of the Twin Cities and really works in the themes of urban fantasy very well, making it almost difficult to tell when the “urban” ends and the “fantasy” begins. I highly recommend the novel to anyone interested in urban fantasy, folklore, rock music, or the Twin Cities as a setting, and though it may be a little too ‘80s for some, Bull has created a truly nice summer read.

This was a very interesting companion on my recent trip to North and South Carolina, my first time exploring a part of the American South. I always enjoy reading a travel account while traveling myself, as it provides a backdrop to my own experiences. As I followed Tony Horwitz’s journeys around the South in 1998 searching for the remains of the Civil War in contemporary Southern culture, I compared and contrasted his experiences with my own as I visited historical museums and sites such as Fort Sumter. Ten years later, I saw similarities but also differences from the events of the the book.

As for the contents of the work, Horwitz, I felt wrote a very sympathetic account of the people he encountered on his journey and their viewpoints on the history of the Confederacy and the Civil War, no matter how strange they might be. Equal parts humorous (Hodge and the reenactors) and depressing (the racial issues that continue to haunt America), I felt that he captured the conflicting and contradictory attitudes towards the meanings of the war and its importance today. On the other hand, he reaches no real conclusions and the book may be seen as a collection of articles on various people and events in the Southern U.S. and its history. But, such is life sometimes, answers are not always obvious in such a complex and divisive topic as this, and I was given much to think on as I read and traveled.

This book, I feel, is more a historical curiosity than a piece of literature that can really be appreciated today, at least by me. I was curious about its status as “penny dreadful” greatly popular during the mid-19th century, a piece of Victorian pop fiction. Unlike more “classic” works that are still read today, (like Shelley’s “Frankenstein” or even Stoker’s “Dracula”) Wagner the Werewolf has little to offer modern readers. Word count is stretched, the plot is melodramatic and easily predictable, dialogue is sporadic and stilted, and characters are of hazy motivation. These problems may have been less noticeable by readers in the 1840s, but still Wagner the Werewolf is perhaps best as an example of what would be, in today’s terms, an average TV melodrama.

However, I was particularly interested in reading a 19th century imagining of the historical events of the 16th century, which roots the work in its particular time period, with rival European powers and the Inquisition providing a backdrop to the plot. Also, Reynolds put forward social ideals in his writing that were progressive for his day which were slightly evident in some of the plot (especially the equality of religions) but still the majority remains embedded in typical viewpoints of Victorian English society. In the end, Wagner the Werewolf remains an artifact of 19th century popular culture and I can’t recommend reading it for pleasure.

This was another book I randomly picked up at the library. I have to say that I’ve always found cannibalism to be among the most horrifying and disturbing of ideas, and perhaps that is why I found the book so absorbing. Travis-Henikoff argues that, contrary to what some have claimed in recent years, cannibalism was a common feature in all human societies throughout history and only recently have situations changed enough to permit the current attitude of horror towards what could mean life or death to a people. She backs her arguments with many interesting evidence from human genetic codes to civilizations throughout the world. In the end, Travis-Henikoff illustrates how even cannibalism can become an accepted practice in a culture. Often going back to theme that cannibals often chose life over death when situations demanded, she explains how such practices evolved into complex patterns of culture, from those who ate their enemies out of hatred to those who ate their dead family members out of love, with no group sharing the same attitudes.
However, I think she is a better anthropologist than historian, falling into common stereotypes to describe Medieval Europe society and often goes into long personal asides describing her interest in unusual delicacies in general, from delicious and nutritious brains to the flavor of tongues (I think I was most disturbed by these scenes, linked so closely to the books main themes, since in mammals, they all taste the same). In the end an extremely disturbing but interesting read that definitely makes one think about human nature and culture.