This book left perturbed, very perturbed but I liked still.

Guess this is a good book for the time of the year? (Not when I read it but when it was reviewed after I noticed something had made this book disappear from the reading challenge).

So read 3-4 July 2019
Reviewed 25 October

A mystery novel by shirley Jackson written in 1962 and the auhor's final work. The novel is written in the voice of 18 year old mary katherine "Merricat " Blackwood who resides with her Uncle and sister on their estate in Vermont. Not long ago there were seven Blackwoods until a dose of arsenic found its way into the sugar bowl.......

This was my first Shirley Jackson Novel and I really enjoyed her writing style and loved her characters. I enjoy novels where the author lets the reader be part of the story in that she allows you to use your imagination and this works well in this particular novel.
This was a strange book however I didn't get the creepiness or supernatural element I was expecting from this one and while I enjoyed the read I wanted a little more from this one but sadly it didn't deliver.

However I enjoyed the read and look forward to reading something else by this author in 2019.

More Alive and Less Lonely: On Books and... https://msarki.tumblr.com/post/157198453953/more-alive-and-less-lonely-on-books-and

Jonathan Lethem generally provides enough essays in any given collection that are certainly eye-opening and have the tendency to teach us something we did not know. Throughout his writing career he has proven to be adept at this exercise. And in More Alive and Less Lonely this is again the case. However, and for the most part, what actually interests Lethem in this book bores me to death. But when I eventually trudged my way to his essays and reviews on Thomas Berger I was immediately struck with how fortunate I was to have continued reading. And then I happened on the Bob Dylan piece which again made me grateful for not quitting on him. Lethem does that to me. He can win me over in no small measure. With still another 15% of the book to read I found myself sampling kindle editions of Berger’s work and then ordering whole copies to add to my queue to read. And for those moments I was excited again by literature, which is a feeling I get that most agrees with me. Life, in general, is not that way. Often there is much too much reality to deal with. Truth is, I love a good escape. And on this very day I cannot thank Lethem enough for providing me with additional exits from which to choose from.

Wow. What a way to start off the year. This was an excellent book.

I don't want to say too much for fear of spoiling anything, but this book while not outright scary was certainly plenty unsettling. We are set down in the middle of the lives of Merricat Blackwood, her agoraphobic sister, Constance, and their ailing Uncle Julian. The three are pretty much the village pariahs and have been since the remaining members of their immediate family died due to arsenic poisoning. Since then, Merricat only makes trips into town out of necessity (and has to face the taunts and jeers of the villagers who feel that Constance got away with murder), Constance (who was charged, but acquitted of the poisonings) won't venture further than her beloved garden, and Julian (a survivor of the poisoning), now weak in body and mind obsessively makes notes about the fateful night for a book he's writing.

The delicately balanced life the three have shared for the past six years is upset by the arrival of a cousin, Charles Blackwood.

The author does a fantastic job of setting the mood, you never quite feel comfortable while reading as a general sense of unease begins to gradually amp up to the book's climax.

I won't really say more than that for fear of spoiling, and this is definitely a book best read when one knows as little about the plot as possible.