Showing posts with label Nonfiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nonfiction. Show all posts

#48. The Word "Secret" In The Title – Open Secret by Stella Rimington (Paperback)

In theory this should have been an easy category for me to find a book to read, but it wasn’t (well at least in terms of the books I hadn’t read on my bookshelves.) The Secret Keeper…read. Celia’s Secret…read. The Secret Garden…read. The Children’s Secret…read. Twelve Secrets…read. Surely to God there must be a book in this house with the word secret in it that I haven’t read yet! And there it was…a book signed by Stella Rimington herself which belonged to my partner. He has never read it, but I think he should. He’d enjoy it. 

“Stella Rimington worked for MI5 between 1969 and 1996, one of the most turbulent and dramatic periods in global history. Working in all the main fields of the Service's responsibilities - counter-subversion, counter-espionage and counter-terrorism - she became successively Director of all three branches, and finally Director-General of MI5 in 1992.

She was the first woman to hold the post and the first Director-General whose name was publicly announced on appointment. In Open Secret, she continues her work of opening up elements of the work of our security services to public scrutiny, revealing the surprising culture of MI5 and shedding light on some of the most fascinating events in 20th century history from the ultimate insider viewpoint.”

I suspect that this could be a ‘marmite’ type of book, which is a bit of a mean thing to say when it is a book about someone’s life. I really enjoyed it. It tells the remarkable story of how a woman managed to climb to the top ranks of the British Secret Service; however, it has been written in a style that is not the most engaging. By this, I mean the sentences are often long and rambling and need rereading several times to understand what point Stella is trying to convey to the reader. A lot of autobiographies are about celebrities; therefore you can ‘hear’ the voice of the writer in your head as you read. This can often help with understanding what point is being made and in what context the writer is mentioning it, as you would instinctively know what inflections they would make. 

As I have never met, or indeed heard much about Stella before, I found it took a while to gel with her informative, but matter of fact telling of her life story. And what a life she has led! Stella Rimington has quite a dry sense of humour, she’s also a bit sarcastic, so I found her character rather endearing! I imagine a lifetime spent exasperated by ‘the men in suits,’ who think women can’t accomplish anything other than raise children and keep the canapés and light-hearted conversation flowing at corporate events, would make you somewhat sardonic.

#43. About Finding Identity – Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami (Paperback)

I first tried to read a passage from Murakami’s novel ‘Norwegian Wood’ in the mid 1990’s. I say tried, it was written in Japanese (his books were yet to be translated into English) and formed part of my attempt to master the language when I was at university. I had largely forgotten about his work until the British actor Tom Burke mentioned his favourite book was Murakami’s ‘The Wind-up Bird Chronicle.’ 

I started trawling the internet and realised that I could now buy an English translation of ‘Norwegian Wood,’ which I could actually read, rather than listening to odd passages painfully translated by myself and fellow students. Whilst it might not be considered “classic Murakami,” I really enjoyed it and moved straight on to some of his other works. When I noticed this book in a local store, I was interested to see how Murakami was able to take the literary world by storm via this personal collection of essays written by the man himself.

 

“In this engaging book, Haruki Murakami shares his experience as an internationally bestselling author; his thoughts on the role of the novel in our society; his own origins as a writer; and his musings on the sparks of creativity that inspire other writers, artists and musicians.

 

Readers who have long wondered where the mysterious novelist gets his ideas will be fascinated by this highly personal look at the craft of writing.”

This is an interesting collection of eleven essays written by Haruki Murakami which offer reflections about his life and how he became a writer. Unlike a traditional autobiography, these short essays allow Murakami to drift from memory to memory to give a deeply personal view of his life. The book is filled with pages of thought and reflection on his past memories and give an insight into his writing style, him as a person, and his personal creative process which has given us some of the most unique novels that I have read.

I find Murakami’s work fascinating; it allows the reader to go down the rabbit hole (or in his world it’s down a well) with him and think deeply about the strange events and experiences which he writes about.

#41. A Sticker On The Cover – The Wicked Boy by Kate Summerscale (Paperback)


Obviously there are many books I could have chosen with a sticker on the front cover saying ‘buy one get one free’ etc, but I was interested in this book because the sticker said:

“BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE SUSPICIONS OF MR WHICHER.”

That was a true crime book I had read many years ago and I found Kate’s writing and research fascinating, so I was excited to see that she had written another book based on a real crime. (It turns out, she’s actually written a few books which have passed me by, including The Haunting of Alma Fielding which I later read as #39 of this challenge!)

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, and so I was interested to read another case that was infamous at the time it was committed, but has now been relegated to the back of the history books.

“On 8 July 1895, 13-year-old Robert Coombes and his younger brother Nattie set out from their East London home to watch a cricket match. Over the next ten days they spent extravagantly, visiting the theatre and eating out. The boys told neighbours their father had gone to sea, and their mother to visit family in Liverpool. But when a strange smell began to emanate from the house, the police were called. What they found threw the press into a frenzy – and the boys into a highly publicised trial.”

A book about the real life murder of a parent could be a disturbing read, but Summerscale is a skilful writer, she manages to bring context to the killing, humanity to the boy who committed murder, and comes full circle to show that redemption is achievable in certain circumstances. The book becomes less disturbing and more contemplative and brings into question some of the concepts encountered in Dostoevsky’s ‘Crime and Punishment.’

Her research is thorough and factual. The start of the book shows the Coombes family tree, maps of West Ham and Plaistow as they were in 1895, and a floorplan of 35 Cave Road where the Coombes family lived. In order to take the reader back to the heart of Victorian England, and the working class terraces of the East End of London, she details the cost of goods such as bread, milk, rent and wages from the era. She also adds a note on pre-decimalised currency so that you can understand what times were like in the book and how people struggled to earn enough to eat. As the story progresses, you begin to feel like you are placed right at the centre of the crime and watching the events as they unfold.

This is not just the story of a murder though, it is an exploration of the Victorian attitude towards juvenile crime and how children were, and still are, often neglected and vulnerable; and how they can head down the wrong path if society is not there to keep an eye out or to lend a helping hand. It is a horrific case, but so too was the violent world that Robert and his brother Nattie inhabited.

“ ‘I did it’, Robert began. ‘My brother Nattie got a hiding for stealing some food, and Ma was going to give me one. So Nattie said that he would stab her, but as he could not do it himself he asked me to do it.’ ”

And so with a clear confession, and the post-mortem completed and the inquest commenced, newspapers were free to start reporting on “the most dreadful murder of the century.” Then, as now, the newspaper reports didn’t let a little thing like the truth get in the way, and many reported inaccuracies about the boys, and especially Robert’s mental capacity.

There was a popular theory raging at the time that the human race was in crisis and was heading back into the Dark Ages. “ We stand now in the midst of a severe mental epidemic, a sort of black death of degeneration and hysteria” wrote author Max Nordau. He pointed the finger of blame at Henrik Ibsen and Oscar Wilde for the decline of people’s mental health, apparently it was due to the outrageous literature they were publishing. And just like today’s society, the populous swallowed this disinformation without question. Good ole British media!

Unlike an Agatha Christie novel, we don’t need to know who did the murder, there has been a confession after all, instead, we want to know why a child would commit murder. Summerscale guides us through the inquest which questioned the boy’s characteristics (rude, impertinent, spoilt, bad, addicted to pilfering but also sharp and intelligent.) The influence of the 'Penny Dreadful' weekly publications which Robert enjoyed reading was questioned – which would be akin to today’s arguments about the video games children are allowed to play. These details all start to paint a picture of the lives the boys led, but what was most telling was Robert’s interview with the warder when he was remanded at Holloway gaol.

Robert explained to Dr Walker that he had “an irresistible impulse” to kill his mother due to the voices in his head; he had to kill her before she killed his little brother Nattie. He explained that she threw knives at Nattie and had threatened to hit him with a hatchet. Whilst physical force was often used to make children behave in Victorian society, what Robert was describing was a mother often losing self-control and becoming increasingly violent.

The question that remained therefore was Robert an evil and calculated killer, or were the voices in his head indicative of insanity? In the 1860s, criminals were increasingly found to be insane, and the figure was continuing to rise into the 1890s. Could the injuries inflicted on Robert when he was born (forceps compressing the brain) be responsible for Robert suffering from homicidal mania?

As you flick through the book there are a couple of sections of photographs and newspaper sketches of the house, the family members, Holloway gaol, the Old Bailey in the 1890s, “reconstructions” of the crime, Broadmoor and an adult Robert Coombes which add another layer of interest to the book.

Whilst the tale of a boy murdering his mother is dark and disturbing, the true heart of this tale arrives whilst Robert is imprisoned. Let us not forget, this boy was 13 when he carried out his crime. He spent his years in prison locked up with adults including a curate who had slit a vicar’s throat and a man who had killed his daughter on Brighton beach. However, Coombes was also in the company of a man who contributed to the Oxford English Dictionary and therefore was allowed an additional room in which to keep his books which Robert read. Other men would allow Robert to enrich his life learning how to play chess, cricket and musical instruments; these men gave him opportunities he hadn’t experienced whilst living at 35 Cave Road, the home where instead, he endured an abusive mother and an absent father.

Summerscale’s account of what happens after the trial gives the book its extraordinary twists and makes the second part of the book far more interesting than the original events leading up to the murder. It allowed the characters to regain some humanity and redemption. An added irony was that the adventures read about in the penny dreadfuls, seen as the cause of evil behaviour, ended up becoming the foreign adventures an abused East End boy could have only dreamt of.

This is an extraordinary and gripping tale, told in such vivid detail, that at times it is hard to believe that this isn’t a work of fiction!

 

Genre: Nonfiction, True Crime, History, Crime, Mystery, Biography, Victorian British Literature, 19th Century

Release Date: 1st January 2017

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Pages: 382

 

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#39. Non Fiction Recommended By A Friend – The Haunting of Alma Fielding by Kate Summerscale (Paperback)

I love ghost stories. I don’t think Christmas or Halloween would be the same if I didn’t get to read or watch a good ghostly tale. Do I believe in ghosts? I’m not sure. It’s a question that is always open to discussion, especially when darkness falls and you’re staying in a really old house for the weekend! I don’t believe that spirits walk the earth, but then there are some things that defy explanation. There will always be those that can engineer ghostly experiences, but should we quickly dispel those people who would swear to their dying day that they had seen a ghost?  Could it be simply explained that it was just a trick of the light, or perhaps something more obscure? I would love to have the definitive answer, but that would spoil the magic of the ghost story. 

“It is 1938. As the shadow of fascism darkens over Europe, strange things are happening in Alma Fielding’s suburban home in Croydon. Crockery flies off the shelves; stolen rings appear on Alma’s fingers, and white mice scuttle out of her handbag.

 

Nandor Fodor – chief ghost hunter for the International Institute for Psychical Research – arrives on the scene, determined to crack the case. As Fodor’s obsession deepens, and Alma becomes ever more disturbed, the pair find themselves in a treacherous battle of wills...” 

The Haunting of Alma Fielding is not a ghost story in the sense of a fun supernatural tale. The book examines early 20th century history, what people were experiencing at the time, and what their beliefs were. The narrative is carefully woven around lengthy historical details, but they are so intriguing, you don’t want to put the book down. It is hard to believe whether the episodes Alma Fielding experienced were real, or if they were the work of a very clever trickster. Kate Summerscale has researched these events, and whilst she treats Alma with respect and dignity, the facts are laid before the reader so that they can reach their, hopefully unbiased, conclusions about both Alma Fielding and Nandor Fodor.

Lord Rothermere had brought Nandor Fodor, a Jewish Hungarian journalist, to the UK in the 1930s as an adviser on Hungarian affairs. He was also the chief investigator for the International Institute for Psychical Research, trying to uncover whether weird experiences were governed by spirits. He wanted to find out the truth as to whether there was life after death. Fodor wondered whether strange manifestations were a catalogue of marvels, signs of mental breakdown, or nothing but pranks and petty crimes.

When thirty-four-year-old Alma Fielding, an ordinary housewife, was recovering from a bout of ill health, she reported strange happenings in her bedroom. Objects started to fly about her head. Understandably she was terrified. Events were witnessed by newsmen who came to see what all the fuss was about. They claimed they had seen an egg flying towards them, coal appearing to float above the grate, and a tin opener suddenly tearing a gash across Alma’s thumb. Would Alma finally be the person who could assist Foder with his investigations into the paranormal?

#21. Written By A Ghostwriter – There’s a Hole in my Bucket by Royd Tolkien (Kindle)

This is another of my forgotten Amazon First Reads – this time from July 2021. I picked this book because of the Tolkien name, but I knew it wasn’t going to be anything like the Lord of the Ring books due the difficult and sensitive subject matter. I did think it would be a harrowing but interesting read and would be treated with suitable gravitas. I was wrong.

 

“Having grown up on their great-grandfather’s stories, Royd Tolkien and his brother, Mike, have always enjoyed adventures. So when Mike is diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease, the brothers decide to use the time they have left to tick off as much as possible from Mike’s bucket list, from remote camping in Norway to travelling through Royd’s beloved New Zealand.

Yet, when Royd loses Mike, he discovers his brother had been writing another kind of bucket list: fifty things he wanted Royd to do after his death. His first task? Mike wants his mild-mannered brother to trip up on his way to the lectern to deliver his eulogy. What follows is a set of emotionally charged tests that will push Royd firmly out of his comfort zone.

This is the story of Royd’s journey to accomplish a challenging, humorous, and often heart-breaking list of unknown tasks that chart the brothers’ lives from childhood to adulthood. But above all, it is a story of the sibling bond, of grief—and of treasuring every moment.”

 

Due to the subject matter, I really wanted to be more positive about this book, but I found it hard to keep engaged reading, so I could only read a couple of the short chapters each evening until I eventually got to the end. The 357 pages seem to go on forever.

I cannot imagine how hard it would be to watch my adventurous brother become ill, health gradually declining, desperate to find an answer from doctors to what is wrong, only to finally be told it was Motor Neurone Disease. It doesn’t bear thinking about, and I wouldn’t wish that sort of suffering on anyone, but this book just feels like a self-indulgent bit of therapy cashing in on the Tolkien name.

It is clear from the book that Royd and Mike loved one another dearly but were very different people. Mike might have been the younger brother, but he would tease Royd mercilessly and always push that little bit further; whether it was how high he could climb a tree or how high he could throw himself out of an airplane, Mike always had to get the better of Royd who didn’t share the same bon homie as his brother, he seemed happier with his feet on the ground with a cuppa.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil & The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt (Paperback)

I'm sat in a gorgeous chalet in the middle of a working farm, bedecked with Christmas lights, surrounded by various livestock in Lauder, Scotland. Being December, it means long evenings in which to amuse oneself; it is the perfect setting to sit wallowing in a hot tub but I needed books I wouldn't mind getting a bit damp! Two books I bought in a charity shop were the solution:

"Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" is based on a true story. A crime classic published in 1994, set in a world of highly original literary characters who only require the author to weave their tales together to produce this compelling gothic tale of a Savannah society. Settling back, mug of tea in hand, I travelled to America to be alarmed, entertained, to laugh out loud and gasp in shock with these overtly colourful characters.

The main narrative of the book is the shooting of Danny Hansford. Shots are heard ringing out of the home of respected antiques dealer Jim Williams in the early hours of 2nd May 1981. For a decade, the question that required an answer was whether the shooting was murder or self-defence. Jim Williams maintained that the killing was in self-defence and that Danny (his employee and also a male prostitute) was prone to losing his temper, and, on this occasion, had grabbed a gun that was on display and pointed it at him. He had therefore shot back to protect himself and he testified that the murder had not been premeditated in any way. The complexities around the shooting, and a desire for the truth led to four murder trials taking place; the fourth eventually being moved outside of Savannah so that a different jury could be sworn in. 

“there is truth in the Hebrew fable, that the knowledge of Good and Evil brings forth Death.” Alestair Crowley

How to Kill a Narcissist and Killing Narcissism by J H Simon (Kindle)


“The Penny Drops.The fact that you’re reading this book means you’re onto something. Maybe a particular event burst the bubble and a small gap opened up as a result. A gap in what, you’re not sure, but you felt it. It happened when a significant person in your life went that little bit too far, and you finally said to yourself: “This is not normal. Why am I tolerating this crap?””

What makes you start questioning the friendship/relationship you’re in?

Is it one-sided? When you try to express an opinion is it always side-lined as stupid or irrelevant? Does your friend twist things so that they become the focal point again? Are they able to manipulate you by putting up so many arguments or obstacles that it’s pointless carrying on? Do you get tired of walking on eggshells around the person because you know that one slip of the tongue will cause an unnecessary emotive reaction? Do they try to supress you from being yourself…to make you feel inferior? Does this person always have a drama unfolding around them that they just have to share with everybody around them? Are you actually getting any real pleasure from the relationship, or are you just kidding yourself that you're having fun?

At the point you start asking yourselves these questions, you’re also probably trying to find an answer to them….just to make sure you haven’t actually gone insane. Google becomes your best friend as you start reading up on Narcissistic Personality Disorder and the various articles make you realise that you have been trapped into a world you didn’t believe you were stupid enough to be dragged into.

Phrases like “gaslighted” are used. I’ve seen the play Gaslight from which the term derives from…surely not? I’m savvy…aren’t I? I couldn’t be manipulated like that…or could I? Why would I befriend someone like that? Algorithms point to an interesting book, you buy it and as you read it you realise it's about you and how you managed to fall down the rabbit hole so easily.

The problem is trying to establish what is normal human behaviour and what is narcissistic behaviour. This book tries to unravel this question by looking at who narcissists are and to whom they are most likely to target and why. If you can understand the core of the problem, you are better equipped at dealing with it and ensuring you are not the target of other narcissists in the future.

The Horror of Philosophy - Eugene Thacker


philosophy
/fɪˈlɒsəfi/
noun

1.    the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline.

2.     a theory or attitude that acts as a guiding principle for behaviour.



horror
/ˈhɒrə/
noun

1.     an intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust.


      • a literary or film genre concerned with arousing feelings of horror.
      • intense dismay.

The world is becoming an increasingly strange place. People take things and each other for granted. We live in a world where everyone is striving for material objects not worth having. Since when did the horror of living in the modern world overtake the horrors of the fictional world?

November 2015. I travelled to Newcastle Comic Con to meet Tom Burke. A couple of weeks earlier I had stumbled across a duology of books called “Tom Burke of Ours” and to this day Tom has read more of those two books than I have. The first book commences with a letter written by the titular character Tom Burke. I thought it would be fun to get actor Tom to sign the page as though he had written the letter. 

Books have always formed a huge part of my life and the “Tom Burke of Ours” books were an instant ice-breaker. I asked Tom if he would recommend any interesting books he’d read (nothing wrong with expanding your reading genre.) He looked at me and asked if I ever went to dark places. 

It seemed a strange thing to say, but I do love dark places, they are thought provoking. Age 13 I painted my bedroom various shades of battleship grey and marked out brickwork like an old castle with ivy and moss painted on the brickwork…my dad was not thrilled! I grew up listening to The Cure and The Sister’s of Mercy and was entranced by Tarot cards. As I nodded to Tom, I remembered the circle of people I was with. They had their own opinions about “the dark side” and they weren’t positive. 

I quickly stuttered, “well, you know, just as much as most people do”…I didn't want anyone thinking I was suicidal or in a deep dark depression or the person to be avoided at all costs. As it happened Tom recommended two books to me, one being The Conspiracy Against the Human Race by Thomas Ligotti. It was an interesting book, although it made my head hurt and I needed to keep referring to the internet for further explanation. At some point, I’ll read it again, but on the back of that one book, I bought a trilogy of books by Eugene Thacker, of which Ligotti wrote:

“Thacker’s discourse on the intersection of horror and philosophy is utterly original and utterly captivating…In the Dust of This Planet is an encyclopaedic grimoire instructing us in the varieties of esoteric thought and infernal diversions that exist for the reader’s further investigation, treating to a delightful stroll down a midway of accursed attractions that alone are worth the ticket of this volume.”



In the Dust of This Planet – Horror of Philosophy Vol. 1 by Eugene Thacker.

“The world is increasingly unthinkable – a world of planetary disasters, emerging pandemics, and the looming threat of extinction. In this book, Eugene Thacker suggests that we look to the genre of supernatural horror as offering a way of thinking about the unthinkable world. To confront this idea is to confront the absolute limit of our ability to understand the world in which we live – a central motif of the horror genre.”

In the first book, Thacker uses philosophical arguments to explore our increasingly destructive world by introducing various themes such as occultism, demonology and mysticism and seeing how they manifest themselves in fiction, comic books and film. Care is taken to show the arguments are not about the philosophy of horror, but the horror of philosophy; in which he reveals the constraints and limitations in the field. He argues that one of the biggest problems we face today is trying to comprehend a world in which we live both a human and non-human existence.

The Conspiracy Against The Human Race - Thomas Ligotti (Paperback)

When I was in London I was asked if I'd thought of putting some book reviews on my blog. Well the answer was no I hadn't. I wasn't really sure anybody would be that interested in my thoughts on reading matters, so I thought posting a list of the books I had read would suffice! When I spoke to the actor Tom Burke at the Newcastle Comic Con he did suggest a couple of books he thought I might like to read. I know Burketeers love the lowdown on anything vaguely Tom related, so here are my observations about one of those recommendations, "The Conspiracy Against The Human Race."

Human's are a pointless and evil part of civilisation

The Conspiracy Against The Human Race centres around Ligotti's claims that the worst horrors we encounter are not those that are produced by our imaginations in the field of horror films or writings, but in actual fact they are here, all around us in reality. The human condition, according to Ligotti, is not a nice one, in fact it is quite dreadful to be a human. Essentially we exist, and that is where the good news starts and ends! I think perhaps I need to read Ligotti's fiction, and then re-read this book again. It certainly requires more than one reading! The themes might be too stark for those who have not read the horror genre of Lovecraft or Edgar Allen Poe. Life is a strange and unexplained universe which is full of hate, so just why are we born? Life is inflicted on us, we have no say in the matter, and therefore we need the anaesthetic of optimism to get us through life, just so that we can say that life is alright really! The basic notion in comparison to the rest of the animal kingdom is that humans have a consciousness and on that basis are alone in their awareness of mortality. An animal is born, it reproduces & survives, then it dies. The human being has streams of consciousness so is aware that there is more to life than that of a mere animal, or is there? There are those who will agree with Ligotti's arguments, and those who will forcibly deny them. Those who live in a state of denial, saying that to be human is the greatest thing on earth, have fallen into Ligotti's trap, they have just helped to perpetuate the title of the book!

There's an argument in here for everyone to take away and think about...

I found the book fascinating, and I'm not just saying that because Tom told me to read it! I met him a few weeks later at a Christmas Carol service and as soon as he was within earshot I shouted, "Oi Tom, I've got a bone to pick with you!" Looking slightly concerned, he sauntered over to find out the cause of my consternation. He looked quizzically at me and asked if I'd read both books he'd recommended. He was surprised I'd obtained and read both books in such a short space of time, and laughed when I said, 
"You do realise I needed the use of a dictionary to get through Conspiracy." I did point out it was also a most interesting read and was glad it had been sent in my direction. Fortunately I wasn't the only one in need of the dictionary and I think we both briefly confirmed we should both read some more Ligotti in the future.

As you've now probably guessed, the book is not an easy read by any stretch of the imagination, but I think that is why I found it so compelling, it really does require you to think long and hard about what you are reading. You can read the book in a variety of ways, you can skim it without much thought, if you do that I don't think you'll get much from it. You can read it as an optimist, a pessimist, a realist and dependent upon that, you will find yourself agreeing or arguing with the points raised in the book. The book is extremely dark and subversive, and I could reflect on my personal thoughts, but I feel that would be too revealing about my own psyche and I'm not that type of person. Despite my foray into social media, I am actually a private person, and I will choose what type of person I present to the world; remove the veneer and the deep and meaningful stuff is reserved purely for those closest to me who I can trust with my secrets, as I will always do with theirs.

Travel into the depths of a dark mind

If you want to reach the darkest corners of Ligotti's mind, please go ahead, it makes for interesting reading, and it was an enjoyable journey for me; although I have to say that many of the points raised were not new to me. I have had such thoughts even as a teenager, only I have never been able to make them so eloquently! For some of you who read it, you will think it a voyage of disparaging nonsense, whilst others will find elements which strike a chord with them. Whilst this was my kind of reading material, I can fully understand those who would truly hate it. Someone listening into our conversation at Carols told Tom that since I had read this book, they were going to read it too. "Good luck with that" he said!!

If you don't wish to read the book, here are a couple of graphs which sum up the basis of the book.




Genre: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Horror, Psychology, Essays,Weird Fiction, Dark, Theory

Release Date: April 2011 (Paperback)

Publisher: Hippocampus Press

Pages: 248

 

“Disclosure: If you buy books linked to this site, I may earn a small commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops, at no extra cost to you.”





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