BW40: Ominous October - Bwahahahaha!

Courtesy of Antero Haljand

Welcome to Ominous October and our reading spooktacular where we read all things chilling and thrilling,  What do you think of when you hear the word horror?  My idea of horror lends itself to psychological thrillers, spine tinging, fingernail nibbling, keep you awake reading till all hours of the night, type of stories.  I remember years ago reading a science fiction story  and someone else curious about the book, classified it as horror.  I was taken aback and left me wondering what's the difference and asking how can you say that? There isn't any blood and guts.  

The official definition is:

an overwhelming and painful feeling caused by something frightfully shocking, terrifying, or revolting; a shuddering fear.

  

The Horror Writer's association says horror really can't be defined and the genre lost its way back in the 80's with Stephen King's Carrie and all who jumped on the bandwagon and followed his style. Now the genre has come full circle. 

As the horror boom of the eighties turned into the drought of the nineties, horror went underground. In order to save itself, it became a chameleon, masquerading as other genres, hiding itself in other styles. And therein lay its salvation.

 Horror has once again become primarily about emotion. It is once again writing that delves deep inside and forces us to confront who we are, to examine what we are afraid of, and to wonder what lies ahead down the road of life.

That leaves quite an open field of books and authors to explore.  Our author flavors of the month are Anne Rice and Kurt Vonnegut.  Rice is one of those authors I've always said I'd get around to reading some day. She took a 5 year break from supernatural fiction and returned back in 2012 with her Wolf Gift Chronicles. Her newest release, Beauty's Kingdom continues her 1980's Sleeping Beauty series.  

Vonnegut is one who defies definition when it come to genre.  Besides writing, he is also a graphic artists and samples of his art work may be found on his website. The book he's most well known for is Slaughterhouse Five which was actually banned in 2011 from the libraries in a Missouri school district.  Free copies of the book were given out to district students (if they asked) through the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library. 

Our spooktacular wouldn't be complete without reading one of the classics.  We've read Frankenstein, Dracula, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. If you haven't read any of them yet, now is your chance.  Put away your expectations, because you just may be surprised when they don't turn out how you suspect they will.     This year decided it was time to give a little book love to The Strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 

Also on my nightstand are Henry James' The Turn of the Screw and Arthur Conan Doyle's Lost World as well as two more contemporary novels, Horrostor by Grady Hendrix and Night Film by Marish Pessl.  We'll see how far I get.  *grin* 

Join me in reading all things spooktacular this month! 

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History of the Medieval World 

Chapter 48 - The Abbasids  pp 363 - 370

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