stewartmack.bsky.social
Hoarder of books; listener of random music; watcher of utter crap. Enjoys cooking, beer, and writing weird little stories.
Glasgow, Scotland
73 posts
81 followers
133 following
Regular Contributor
Active Commenter
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Just as well. You could have alarmed him.
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I’d be a terrible live updater. Been such a busy week I’ve only managed the first two chapters. Safe to say the first was great, the prose really capturing the character’s mindset and creating a mystery. Second more a character exploration and a chance to fire up the plot’s movement.
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I’ve a long standing ‘one in, none out’ policy on books.
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Last year’s Xmas Love it had some crackers (no pun intended)
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And that blubbery pink thing with the dead eyes
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I fondly recall your Tutis posts. Personal favourite was the two folk cycling on the cover of Treasure Island.
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Good to know: I’ve seen this a few times but hadn’t seen anything (positive or negative) about it. Tentacles sort of pushing me to the ‘buy zone’.
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Turns out it’s the weekly adult singalong. 😩
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I never bought it. Was on a rack of vintage sci-fi at Abbey Books, a second hand shop in Paisley, Scotland. (For all I know it could have been Christopher Priest’s as he left his books to the shop.)
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Too early to say about foxing, but had no warping issues. And I do get some corkers when I leave a book lying around. And I leave lots of books lying around.
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If you want a closer look. Though just of the covers. Here’s my Insta:
www.instagram.com/p/DBygcSkAyWI/
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I don’t have them to hand, as out just now. But I don’t think they’re bad, especially for books printed in decent-sized batches.
Paperbacks are just like the Crime Classics. Sturdy cardboard, and thickish paper.
Hardbacks. Strong board covers and a decent quality paper.
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I read ‘Claimed!’, which was the intriguing one. Started well, but too action-based later.
The rest do, as you say, seem half-hearted choices. The lack of introduction to give ‘weird’ context to lay readers and also the copyright page doesn’t say when first published. Just look like 2024 releases.
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Nothing wrong with a refresher.
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Oh, to be 15 again, no responsibilities, and time to luxuriate in reading gulps of a book. 🙂
The truth is, I’ve always got one eye on the next book, so I’d be impatient to be on it. Hence why rationing a chunky to allow others through.
If Seth tweeted it, I could maybe doom scroll the novel. 😂
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From what I know, the series editor (Isabel Wall) got a promotion, so the series just sort of stopped there. Glad to see it’s returning.
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Correction to the 14 hardbacks. It’s actually 17. 😀
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Your wallet may have preferred you never did know of this. 😀
In addition, there’s an event this Saturday.
www.seetickets.com/event/tales-...
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I laid them all out when they hit 50. If they reach 100, I’ll do it again. 😀
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Yep. Number 54 came out this month (The Weird Tales of Dorothy K. Haynes).
They’re releasing one a month now and have a subscription service, which comes with some ephemera. Second only in numbers to their Crime Classics series, and that had a major headstart.
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I’m unsure if Penguin will continue this or if it’s a limited set like Penguin Worlds or Penguin Central European Classics. But I suppose as the weird tale peaked in 1920/30s, a lot is falling out of copyright, and makes for a cheap and easy series. Especially as these have no introductions.
2/2
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It all feels a bit slapdash. British Library has so far put out 54 ‘Tales of the Weird’ and another 14 ‘Hardback Classics’ in the same vein. And Handheld Press have several weird titles that unearthed new stuff with little overlap on British Library.
1/2
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Early, with his mother eating fish & chips I guessed we were in some sort of psychological state of mind. But I liked the childhood hints with the rocking horse, and going faster at home time, which hint at domestic fear, as seen with the darkness in bed. Normally we squeeze our toys when scared…
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“For a moment Stone had the impression of being shut in a dusty room where the toys, as in childhood tales, had come to life.”
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OK, read it now. Twice. Defo a killer last line. I like how it’s giving you small details of a larger picture/trauma but leaving you just as in the dark as Stone. For some reason - probably just the carousel - I’m reminded of an early Twilight Zone episode, just with an unhappy childhood.
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The first one was his The Inhabitant of the Lake, but he was - I think - 16 when that came out. In DBD he’d updated his style drastically between the two books, though no doubt still young and finding his way.
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Bedtime reading tonight. It’s the first I t he first volume. But it’s not yet bedtime. 👍
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Thus far, I’ve only read his second collection (Demons by Daylight) as I couldn’t get into the first, cod-Lovecraftian one.
In the UK, in 2019, PS Publishing put out this two volume collection of short stories, summing up his career so far, the same way AWTH summed it for the US market years before
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Obviously I didn’t learn it all too well, but maybe maybe that level of concept versus a variety of words for the same thing leads to the formality in translation.
Certainly if you get the words in the wrong order when making a statement it will come off as nonsense.
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1/2
I did a Mandarin course years back and the language was an odd jigsaw of a thing, based on banging concepts together.
人 (ren) = person
大 (da) = big
小 (xiao) = small
学 (xue) = study
大人 （da ren) = adult
小人 (xiao ren) = child
大学 （da xue) = university
中國人 （zhong guo ren) = Chinese person
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Well, it’s not self love.
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Although, thinking on this more, in a nice case of “swings-and-roundabouts”, I once ordered a copy of a book to replace the paperback I’d loaned (and lost) and the gods treated me to a signed first.