This anthology has been the perfect palate-cleanser between books for me. None of the stories are more than a few pages long, and it's a fun mix of classic and modern authors, with very few duds so far. I just finished stories by Henry Slesar, Richard Chizmar, Avram Davidson, and Gary Raisor. Chizmar is the only one I'd even heard of. 

I've been reading a few short stories as a palate cleanser between books, and there's a good mix of vintage and new horror here. I had read Poe's Berenice before, but the two by Ambrose Bierce were new to me: Beyond the Wall and The Boarded Window. 

Boxes, by one of the editors, Al Sarrantonio, used wonderful imagery and good shivers, but I genuinely have no idea what was going on in that story. 

Previous Updates: 

4/9/20 - pg. 12

4/9/20 - pg. 13

4/10/20 - pg. 20

Well, I don't know who Chet Williamson is, but his little short story was FUN. Ol' Ben got what he deserved, but he still ought to consider himself lucky he doesn't live in fire ant country. 

Ok but this made me smile:

He was, in a manner, a literary ghoul, feeding in the charnel-house of decayed literature.

I’m on the 3rd story by Washington Irving and I’m not quite sure what this means:

“Gottfried Wolfgang was a young man of good family. He had studied for sometime at Göttingen, but being of a visionary and enthusiastic character, he had wandered into those wild and speculative doctrines which have so often bewildered German students.“

I don’t suppose any of my European BL friends have any insight? He goes on later to mention Swedenborg and his spiritual essences. It looks like Swedenborg founded a braIt looks like Swedenborg founded a branch of Christian religion inspired by personal revelations similar to the Mormons? But what does that have to do with German students?