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While her short stories don‘t have the same depth as her novels, this was a great collection. Witty and charming with several standouts that I‘d read again. In the future I think I‘ll recommend this to anyone looking for an intro to Agatha Christie‘s writing, as it has a combination of Hercule Poirot stories, Miss Marple stories, and standalone stories. #Booked2023 #ShortStoryCollection @alisiakae @Cinfhen @BarbaraTheBibliophage

Winner of the 2021 Lambda Award for Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror, this short-story collection is variously described as body-horror fairy tales and/or queer fabulism and it‘s every bit as good as I was led to believe. Standouts for me were “Self Care,” “Estranged Children of Storybook Houses,” and “The Nothing Spots Where Nobody Wants to Stay.” Definitely an interesting collection and one I will likely revisit in the future.

Week 4 Points: #TeamSlaughter

The book wasn't listed but I did suggest it.
Six stories: A Watcher By the Dead by Pierce, The Body Snatchers by Stevenson, The Adventures of the German Student by Irving, Dickon The Devil by LeFanu, The Fall of the House of Usher by Poe & The Open Window by Saki.
#TeamMonsterMash @StayCurious
#LittenListen #LittenListenBingo #aclassic @aperfectmjk #AutumnBingo2022 #Gothic @Ann_Reads #StabbyBingo #shortstorycollection #31By31 @Catsandbooks

When you grab coffee with a fellow book lover, of course you have to include a trip to the bookstore. Tagged book was my friend‘s recommendation. The Plot has been on my radar for a while as have the other three books—Who Fears Death, Piranesi, and Riot Baby—which all came from the sale shelves. Book trivia game was a present from a friend I saw yesterday. A weekend full of bookish delights!

While Peter Taylor‘s work has often been compared to Chekhov, several critics have viewed him as a Southern regional writer of memoir stories. I'm not sure where he'll ultimately land in the pantheon. While he wrote mostly from the perspective and heady pedestal of Southern genteel privilege, I think it can still be argued that his work was hardly conventional, as he remained a keen observer and critic of the very class in which he came from.

“It was the moment one yells, and, with luck, wakes up, during a long nightmare; the moment that, of its nature, can never be quite examined, quite elucidated, or quite extinguished.“-The Strangers
This quote, from one of my favorite pieces in this collection, could very well describe the overall effect of reading Aickman. As Michael Dirda writes in the Washington Post, “As for Aickman: Nobody ever quite understands his stories, but nobody👇

I just read the first four stories in the tagged book, comprising roughly a third of this collection. I don't exactly remember when I ordered this volume but I pulled it off my TBR shelves a few months ago after listening to the Backlisted episode. Darnielle is right. Aickman really unnerves the reader & it's difficult to pin down the moment in the story that this happens. Great stuff.

Now we're getting started!!! 😍

I give this a pick with an *. Chapters 9-25 are great Ellison stories, mostly written in the 50s and 60s but still wonderfully witty and inventive. Chapters 1-8 contains two introductions, one from the original and one from the 2015 reissue, plus essays about Ellison's favorite subject: Harlan Ellison. If you make it through the first 8 chapters, you'll find some great stories. 3 💥💥💥 1/2