8/3/2019: Favorite Ghostly Tales

I love ghost stories, but they have to be just ghost stories - no veering into psychological horror, or slasher type stories.  My imagination is too impressionable and I value my sleep and the ability to stay home alone without sedation.  For this reason, my ghost story collection is small.

The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde has made several lists already.  I used to faithfully watch the US adaptation (b/c it was the only one aired in my area), and when I finally read the book I was bowled over by the hilarity; the tv adaptation focused on the ghost's redemption, and in doing so, short-changed the viewers.  As almost always, the book is better.

The Haunted Grange Of Goresthorpe by Arthur Conan Doyle is one of the first stories he ever wrote, and Holmes 'aficionados' consider it an amateur effort.  Horsefeathers.  It's delightfully spooky and creepy, especially given its short length.

The Haunting of Maddy Clare by Simone St. James, and all the other books I've listed by her, are the only ghost stories I've read by a current author.  I love her writing; she writes a tale that is spooky and a little hair-raising in the best old-fashioned sense.  For me, her books are just scary enough to make me wonder if I'll sleep that night, but not so scary that I actually can't.  There's an element of romance to most of them, but I don't care, because the ghosts get center stage.

Now I must check St. James' website... surely it must be time for a new book?

  Wow, that's a fine example of an author's early ant not-quite successful efforts. That would be an interesting project, to get several different people to take the same not-great story and rework it into something better. 

Another re-read; my original review is here, and I stand by it.  (4.5 stars)  The honorary president of the Arthur Conan Doyle Society goes to a lot of trouble apologising for the averageness of the story in the introduction and I can only wonder why.  It's a ripping haunted house/ghost story; it's fast-paced, tightly written, with tension that continues to ratchet up the reader's nerves until the very last page. 

It's fun, it can be found free online, it's Conan Doyle and I highly recommend it. 

I had 2 weeks of school holidays and Easter weekend in my favour this month, but unforeseen events put a hitch in my gitalong at the end of April.  Still I had a solid reading month and I'm not complaining at all.

28 books  / 7,511 pages read.

2 Five-star reads this time, although one of them is a re-read.  Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman  was so good in audio, I went out and bought a print copy for my shelves.  Fast Women by Jennifer Crusie is one of my all-time favourites and it never gets tired.

3 out of the 5 4.5 star reads were non-fiction, but one of those, Roger, Sausage and Whippet by Christopher Moore, a glossary of WWI terms, snuck a narrative in that was riveting, if only in its unexpectedness.  Her Brilliant Career: Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties by Rachel Cooke was great too, although as I said in my review, I'm not sure some of these women could be called roll models.  The Card Catalog: Books, Cards, and Literary Treasures by Carla D. Hayden, Library of Congress is one of those books you either appreciate, or you don't.  Obviously, I did.  

The Delight of Being Ordinary: A Road Trip with the Pope and the Dalai Lama by Roland Merullo is the fictional equivalent of The Card Catalog - it's not going to be for everyone, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and it left me chewing over more than a few things.

But by far, the breakout star of my month was The Haunted Grange Of Goresthorpe by Arthur Conan Doyle, a short ghost story that is believed to be one of the first Doyle wrote but was never published in his lifetime.  The only reason I dinged it 1/2 star is because the introduction is 30 pages longer than the story itself, and spends a lot of those 30 pages excusing the weakness of the story itself, which, by the way, isn't weak at all; it's a ripper of a ghost story.  If you like Doyle or ghosts, or both, you should find this story and read it.  

May your May be full of extraordinary reads.  And I don't mean maybe.  (sorry.)

Many thanks to Murder by Death for pointing me to this early short story by Arthur Conan Doyle written around 1870. 

Even if ACD experts don't think highly of this short ghost story, I enjoyed reading it. I was thrilled by it. And, as I read it right before bed, I was a little haunted by it.

In my book, this is a great story.

It's almost sad that people are likely to hear of it only because it was only re-discovered in 2000, not because it is a fun story and shows another side to ACD that is not connected with Sherlock Holmes.

If you're intrigued, you can find the story here.