Alan Garner comments on his reading

The book I could never read again
I never enjoyed CS Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia. I read the books with horrid fascination. They were, in my opinion, and remain, nasty, manipulative, morbid, misanthropic, hectoring, totalitarian and atrociously written.

The full article is at The Guardian, here. 

 

Re-wilding by Lord Dunsany

The current Lord Dunsany, Randal Plunkett the 21st Baron Dunsany, is re-wilding a part of the land of the Dunsany estate. The Irish Independent gave it a somewhat reasonable write up here, but it takes The Guardian to snark it up into a caricature. (If you must compare, the link is here.)

Hodgson in an Unusual Place

 A 1921 reprint edition

William Hope Hodgson's 1908 novel The House on the Borderland is acclaimed in an unlikely place, The Paris Review.  Read the article here. 

New Issues with Following Blogs by email

The short version:  Most blogs I'm involved with have a "Follow by email" option. The "Follow by email" function worked (fine) via Google's Feedburner since I started using it.  Google is eliminating Feedburner in July, which means I have had to find an alternate source. I have transferred this following-by-email function to follow.it. I already have seen anomalies, and hope they won't be numerous. This blog has a new "Follow by email" widget that goes directly to follow.it. I have migrated the subscription list there too, but I suspect there will be issues. I'll try to fix errors if they are reported to me.

H.P. Lovecraft Goes to the Movies

On Dracula (1931):  Lovecraft was bored by the "dreariness" and walked out. 

On Frankenstein (1931): "It made him both drowse and seethe at the insult to Shelley’s original. “Ugh!” he wrote."

See the full article, "HPL at the movies," by David Haden at his Tentaclii: H.P. Lovecraft blog here.

Ted Chiang interviewed by Ezra Klein

 Ted Chiang is always worth reading or listening to.  Here's a new interview.