Perełka kolekcji - "A Century of Creepy Stories"

Nie tak dawno chwaliłam się, że udało mi się uzupełnić zbiory o tę książkę. Dzisiaj do mnie dotarła, więc możemy jej się bliżej przyjrzeć:

Lista opowiadań (za stroną Vault of Evil):

• Hugh Walpole - The Snow, The Tarn, A Little Ghost, Mrs. Lunt
• Arthur Machen - The Islington Mystery, The Cosy Room, Opening The Door, Munitions Of War
• Flavia Richardson (Christine Campbell Thomson) - The Red Turret
• Oscar Cook - When Glister Walked, Si Urag Of The Tail, The Great White Fear, Boomerang
• Elizabeth Bowen - The Apple Tree, Telling, The Cat Jumps
• Walter De La Mare - Crewe, A Recluse
• Oliver Onions - Two Trifles, The Smile Of Karen, "John Gladwin Says ...."
• E. F. Benson - The Hanging Of Alfred Wadham
• Shane Leslie - As In A Glass Dimly, The Hospital Nurse, The Lord In Waiting
• Barry Pain - A Considerable Murder
• Lady Cynthia Asquith - The Lovely Voice, The Playfellow, "God Grante That She Lye Stille", The Corner Shop
• J. M. Barrie - Shall We Join The Ladies?
• D. H. Lawrence - The Rocking-Horse Winner, The Lovely Lady
• M. R. James - Rats
• L. P. Hartley - The Killing Bottle, The Travelling Grave, A Visitor From Down Under, The Cotillion
• W. B. Maxwell - The Prince, The Last Man In
• C. H. B. Kitchen - Dispossession, Beauty And The Beast
• Hilda Hughes - Those Whom The Gods Love, The Birthright
• Charles Dickens - The Haunted Man And The Ghosts Bargain
• May Sinclair - The Villa Desiree
• Mrs. Belloc-Lowndes - The Duenna, The Unbolted Door
• Daniel Defoe - The Apparition Of Mrs. Veal
• Dennis Mackail - The Lost Tragedy
• Clemence Dane - Spinster's Rest
• Edgar Wallace - Circumstantial Evidence
• Edgar Allan Poe - A Descent Into The Maelstrom, The Fall Of The House Of Usher, The Black Cat
• Charles Whibley - Twelve O'Clock
• Enid Bagnold - The Amorous Ghost
• Desmond MacCarthy - Pargiton And Harby
• H. G. Wells - The Country Of The Blind
• Washington Irving - The Spectre Bridegroom
• Mary Webb - Mr. Tallent's Ghost
• Ann Bridge - The Buick Saloon
• W. S. Morrison, M. P. - The Horns Of The Bull
• William Gerhardi - The Man Who Came Back
• Philip MacDonald - Our Feathered Friends
• Ambrose Bierce - The Stranger
• Michael Joseph - The Yellow Cat
• A. J. Alan - My Adventure In Norfolk
• Honore De Balzac - The Mysterious Mansion
• Algernon Blackwood - The Stranger.

Solidna cegła - prawie 1200 stron!

Ogólnie - cudo. Szkoda, że bez obwoluty, no ale trudno...

Wrześniowe nowości i zapowiedzi - po angielsku

01.09 ukazało się:

• Carol Birch - Orphans of the Carnival

The dazzling new novel, evoking the strange and thrilling world of the Victorian carnival, from the Man Booker-shortlisted author of Jamrach's Menagerie.

A life in the spotlight will keep anyone hidden

Julia Pastrana is the singing and dancing marvel from Mexico, heralded on tours across nineteenth-century Europe as much for her talent as for her rather unusual appearance.

Yet few can see past the thick hair that covers her: she is both the fascinating toast of a Governor's ball and the shunned, revolting, unnatural beast, to be hidden from children and pregnant women. 

But what is her wonderful and terrible link to Rose, collector of lost treasures in an attic room in modern-day south London? In this haunting tale of identity, love and independence, these two lives will connect in unforgettable ways.

I jeszcze kolejne dwie książki już wydane:

• Amy Stewart - Lady Cop Makes Trouble (kontynuacja wydanej i u nas "Dziweczyny z rewolwerem")

After besting (and arresting) a ruthless silk factory owner and his gang of thugs in Girl Waits with Gun, Constance Kopp became one of the nation’s first deputy sheriffs. She's proven that she can’t be deterred, evaded, or outrun. But when the wiles of a German-speaking con man threaten her position and her hopes for this new life, and endanger the honorable Sheriff Heath, Constance may not be able to make things right. 

Lady Cop Makes Trouble sets Constance loose on the streets of New York City and New Jersey--tracking down victims, trailing leads, and making friends with girl reporters and lawyers at a hotel for women. Cheering her on, and goading her, are her sisters Norma and Fleurette--that is, when they aren't training pigeons for the war effort or fanning dreams of a life on the stage. 

Based on a true story, Girl Waits with Gun introduced Constance Kopp and her charming and steadfast sisters to an army of enthusiastic readers. Those readers will be thrilled by this second installment--also ripped from the headlines--in the romping, wildly readable life of a woman forging her own path, tackling crime and nefarious criminals along the way.

Książka ukazała się 06.09., podobnie jak:

• Peter S. Beagle - Summerlong

Beloved author Peter S. Beagle (The Last Unicorn) returns with this long-anticipated new novel, a beautifully bittersweet tale of passion, enchantment, and the nature of fate.

It was a typically unpleasant Puget Sound winter before the arrival of Lioness Lazos. An enigmatic young waitress with strange abilities, when the lovely Lioness comes to Gardner Island even the weather takes notice. 

As an impossibly beautiful spring leads into a perfect summer, Lioness is drawn to a complicated family. She is taken in by two disenchanted lovers—dynamic Joanna Delvecchio and scholarly Abe Aronson — visited by Joanna’s previously unlucky-in-love daughter, Lily. With Lioness in their lives, they are suddenly compelled to explore their deepest dreams and desires.

Lioness grows more captivating as the days grow longer. Her new family thrives, even as they may be growing apart. But lingering in Lioness’s past is a dark secret — and even summer days must pass. 

Przejdźmy do zapowiedzi:

13.09.

• Benjamin K. Bergen - What the F: What Swearing Reveals About Our Language, Our Brains, and Ourselves

Nearly everyone swears—whether it’s over a few too many drinks, in reaction to a stubbed toe, or in flagrante delicto. And yet, we sit idly by as words are banned from television and censored in books. We insist that people excise profanity from their vocabularies and we punish children for yelling the very same dirty words that we’ll mutter in relief seconds after they fall asleep. Swearing, it seems, is an intimate part of us that we have decided to selectively deny.

That’s a damn shame. Swearing is useful. It can be funny, cathartic, or emotionally arousing. As linguist and cognitive scientist Benjamin K. Bergen shows us, it also opens a new window onto how our brains process language and why languages vary around the world and over time.

In this groundbreaking yet ebullient romp through the linguistic muck, Bergen answers intriguing questions: How can patients left otherwise speechless after a stroke still shout Goddamn! when they get upset? When did a cock grow to be more than merely a rooster? Why is crap vulgar when poo is just childish? Do slurs make you treat people differently? Why is the first word that Samoan children say not mommy but eat shit? And why do we extend a middle finger to flip someone the bird?

Smart as hell and funny as fuck, What the F is mandatory reading for anyone who wants to know how and why we swear. 

20.09:

• Jodie Archer, Matthew L. Jockers - The Bestseller Code: Anatomy of a Blockbuster Novel

Ask most people about massive success in the world of fiction, and you'll typically hear that it's a game of hazy crystals balls. The sales figures of E. L. James or Dan Brown seem to be freakish—random occurrences in an unknowable market. So often we hear that nothing but hype explains their success. But what if there were an algorithm that could reveal a secret DNA of bestsellers, regardless of their genre? What if it knew, just from analyzing the words alone, not just why genre writers like John Grisham and Danielle Steel belong on the lists, but also that authors such as Junot Diaz, Jodi Picoult and Donna Tartt had tell-tale signs of success all over their pages?

Thanks to Jodie Archer and Matthew Jockers, the algorithm exists, the code has been cracked, and the results bring fresh new insights into how fiction works and why we read. The Bestseller Code offers a new theory for why Fifty Shades sold so well. It sheds light on the current craze for dark heroines. It reveals which themes tend to sell best. And all with fascinating supporting data taken from a five year study of 20,000 novels. Then there is the hunt for “the one”—the paradigmatic example of bestselling writing according to a computer’s analysis of thousands of points of data. The result is surprising, a bit ironic, and delightfully unorthodox. 

This book explains groundbreaking text mining research in accessible terms and offers a new perspective on the New York Times bestseller list. It is big-idea book about the relationship between creativity and technology that will be provocative to anyone interested in how analytics have already transformed the worlds of finance, medicine and sports. But at heart it is a celebration of books for readers and writers—a compelling investigation into how successful writing works, and a fresh take on our intellectual and emotional response to stories.

 27.09.

• Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run

In 2009, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed at the Super Bowl’s halftime show. The experience was so exhilarating that Bruce decided to write about it. That’s how this extraordinary autobiography began.

Over the past seven years, Bruce Springsteen has privately devoted himself to writing the story of his life, bringing to these pages the same honesty, humor, and originality found in his songs.

He describes growing up Catholic in Freehold, New Jersey, amid the poetry, danger, and darkness that fueled his imagination, leading up to the moment he refers to as “The Big Bang”: seeing Elvis Presley’s debut on The Ed Sullivan Show. He vividly recounts his relentless drive to become a musician, his early days as a bar band king in Asbury Park, and the rise of the E Street Band. With disarming candor, he also tells for the first time the story of the personal struggles that inspired his best work, and shows us why the song “Born to Run” reveals more than we previously realized.

Born to Run will be revelatory for anyone who has ever enjoyed Bruce Springsteen, but this book is much more than a legendary rock star’s memoir. This is a book for workers and dreamers, parents and children, lovers and loners, artists, freaks, or anyone who has ever wanted to be baptized in the holy river of rock and roll.

A co na świecie...?

Dawno nie pisałam o ciekawych zapowiedziach, na których przetłumaczone z angielskiego wersje będziemy musieli jeszcze poczekać - więc pora troszkę nadrobić zaległości.

• Annie Proulx - Barkskins (14.06.)

From Annie Proulx—the Pulitzer Prize-­ and National Book Award-­winning author of The Shipping News and “Brokeback Mountain,” comes her masterwork: an epic, dazzling, violent, magnificently dramatic novel about the taking down of the world’s forests.
In the late seventeenth century two penniless young Frenchmen, René Sel and Charles Duquet, arrive in New France. Bound to a feudal lord, a “seigneur,” for three years in exchange for land, they become wood-cutters—barkskins. René suffers extraordinary hardship, oppressed by the forest he is charged with clearing. He is forced to marry a Mi’kmaw woman and their descendants live trapped between two inimical cultures. But Duquet, crafty and ruthless, runs away from the seigneur, becomes a fur trader, then sets up a timber business. Proulx tells the stories of the descendants of Sel and Duquet over three hundred years—their travels across North America, to Europe, China, and New Zealand, under stunningly brutal conditions—the revenge of rivals, accidents, pestilence, Indian attacks, and cultural annihilation. Over and over again, they seize what they can of a presumed infinite resource, leaving the modern-day characters face to face with possible ecological collapse.

• Dan Flores - Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History (07.06.)

With its uncanny night howls, unrivaled ingenuity, and amazing resilience, the coyote is the stuff of legends. In Indian folktales it often appears as a deceptive trickster or a sly genius. But legends don’t come close to capturing the incredible survival story of the coyote. As soon as Americans—especially white Americans—began ranching and herding in the West, they began working to destroy the coyote. Despite campaigns of annihilation employing poisons, gases, helicopters, and engineered epidemics, coyotes didn’t just survive, they thrived, expanding across the continent from Anchorage, Alaska, to New York’s Central Park. In the war between humans and coyotes, coyotes have won hands-down.
Coyote America is both an environmental and a deep natural history of the coyote. It traces both the five-million-year-long biological story of an animal that has become the “wolf” in our backyards, as well as its cultural evolution from a preeminent spot in Native American religions to the hapless foil of the Road Runner. A deeply American tale, the story of the coyote in the American West and beyond is a sort of Manifest Destiny in reverse, with a pioneering hero whose career holds up an uncanny mirror to the successes and failures of American expansionism.
An illuminating biography of this extraordinary animal, Coyote America isn’t just the story of an animal’s survival—it is one of the great epics of our time.

• Frederic S. Durbin - A Green and Ancient Light (07.06.)

A gorgeous fantasy in the spirit of Pan’s Labyrinth and John Connolly’s The Book of Lost Things.
Set in a world similar to our own, during a war that parallels World War II, A Green and Ancient Light is the stunning story of a boy who is sent to stay with his grandmother for the summer in a serene fishing village. Their tranquility is shattered by the crash of a bullet-riddled enemy plane, the arrival of grandmother’s friend Mr. Girandole—a man who knows the true story of Cinderella’­s slipper—and the discovery of a riddle in the sacred grove of ruins behind grandmother’s house. In a sumptuous idyllic setting and overshadowed by the threat of war, four unlikely allies learn the values of courage and sacrifice. 

Teraz czytam - pierwsze zdanie

Popular myth has it that one of the most remarkable conversations in modern literary history took place on a cool and misty late autumn afternoon in 1896, in the small village of Crowthorne in the county of Berkshire.

Simon Winchester - The Professor and the Madman. A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary

Niezwykła - i prawdziwa! - opowieść.

Przeglądając najważniejsze tematy podejmowane w ogólnopolskiej prasie, zwykle można odnieść wrażenie, że pojawiają się one znienacka i równie szybko znikają.

Sylwia Breczko - Polityzacja ciała. Między dyskursem publicznym a teorią socjologiczną

Brzmi groźnie, ale warto przeczytać, daje do myślenia.

Czytelnicze podsumowanie prawie-dwóch-tygodni ;)

Coś mi nie wychodzi takie ładne, regularne, cotygodniowe podsumowywanie, ale pierwszy tydzień listopada miałam czytelniczo bardzo słaby, a drugi - tak dobry, że nie miałam kiedy pisać :P Pora w końcu zrobić porządek.

• Elizabeth George – Krwawa zapłata (Prószyski i S-ka 1997); czytałam lepsze książki tej autorki, ta mnie lekko znudziła, a w przypadku kryminału to bardzo źle
• Marjorie Bowen – The Bishop of Hell & Other Stories (Wordsworth Editions 2006); smakowita groza z jednej z moich ulubionych serii wydawniczych
• Tess Gerritsen – Ogród kości (Albatros 2009); z biblioteki; kilka dziwnych przeskoków, kilka telenowelowych smaczków, ale w sumie wciąga; jak to w przypadku książek z Albatrosa zdecydowanie za często się zdarza - fatalna jakość wydania, sypie się przeokrutnie :/
• Marcin Kącki – Białystok. Biała siła, czarna pamięć (Czarne 2015); znakomita książka, ważna, nie tylko dla ludzi z tamtych okolic, przeczytajcie koniecznie
• Aleksander Kondratiew – Na brzegu Jarynia. Powieść demonologiczna (Stowarzyszenie Wspólnota Kulturowa Borussia/Wydawnictwo UKSW 2014); kolejna rzecz, którą z czystym sumieniem mogę polecić; z Listopadowego Planu Minimum
• Andrzej Sapkowski – Narrenturm (SuperNOWA 2002); z biblioteki; jeszcze niedokończone, ale zapowiada się bardzo przyjemnie

Teraz czytam - pierwsze zdanie

Trochę mi się zrobiło zaległości.

Ellery Queen stał na peronie dworca w Wrightsville, wśród sięgającego mu po kolana stosu walizek.

Ellery Queen - Przeklęte miasto

Znam Johna Slatera całe życie.

Peter Carey - Historia pewnej mistyfikacji

Obie z sierpniowego planu minimum.

A przecież pysznię się swym niepowodzeniem i skoro na taki przywilej zostałem skazany, prawie raduję się, że nie przyszedł ratunek; wydaje mi się, że jak daleko sięga ludzka pamięć, jestem jedyną istotą naszego rodzaju, która została rozbitkiem na opuszczonym okręcie.

Umberto Eco -Wyspa Dnia Poprzedniego

W naszym domu umarło dziecko.

Toivo Pekkanen - Moje dzieciństwo

Książka czytana w ramach wyzwania "Czytamy Książki Nieoczywiste".

Once upon a time, a girl named September grew very tired indeed of her parents' house, where she washed the same pink-and-yellow teacups and matching gravy boats every day, slept on the same embroidered pillow, and played with the same small and amiable dog.

Catherynne M. Valente - The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

Książka z wrześniowego planu minimum.

Książki, na które czekam 2

Niedawno pisałam o wrześniowych (i późnosierpniowych) zapowiedziach, na które czekam, uwzględniłam jednak tylko książki ukazujące się u nas. Dziś chciałabym rzucić okiem na kilka obiecujących wrześniowych anglojęzycznych propozycji. Zaznaczam, że przegląd jest całkowicie subiektywny.

• Margee Kerr - Scream: Chilling Adventures in the Science of Fear

Fear is a universal human experience, but do we really understand it? If we’re so terrified of monsters and serial killers, why do we flock to the theaters to see them? Why do people avoid thinking about death, but jump out of planes and swim with sharks? For Kerr, there was only one way to find out.

In this eye-opening, adventurous book, she takes us on a tour of the world’s scariest experiences: into an abandoned prison long after dark, hanging by a cord from the highest tower in the Western hemisphere, and deep into Japan’s mysterious “suicide forest.” She even goes on a ghost hunt with a group of paranormal adventurers. Along the way, Kerr shows us the surprising science from the newest studies of fear—what it means, how it works, and what it can do for us. Full of entertaining science and the thrills of a good ghost story, this book will make you think, laugh—and scream.

Brzmi nieźle! Strach - i fascynacja strachem - to tematy bardzo dla mnie interesujące. Ksiażkę zdecydowanie wciągam na listę rzeczy do obowiązkowego przeczytania, niezależnie od tego, czy ukaże się Polsce, czy nie. Premiera - 28.09.

• Eileen Pollack - The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science Is Still a Boys' Club

A bracingly honest exploration of why there are still so few women in the hard sciences, mathematics, engineering, and computer science

In 2005, when Lawrence Summers, then president of Harvard, asked why so few women achieve tenured positions in the hard sciences, Eileen Pollack set out to find the answer. In the 1970s, Pollack had excelled as one of Yale’s first two women to earn a bachelor of science degree in physics. But, isolated, lacking in confidence, and starved for encouragement, she abandoned her lifelong dream of becoming a theoretical physicist. Years later, she thought back on her experiences and wondered what had changed in the intervening decades, and what challenges remained. Based on six years of interviewing dozens of teachers and students and reviewing studies on gender bias, The Only Woman in the Room is an illuminating exploration of the cultural, social, psychological, and institutional barriers confronting women in the STEM disciplines. Pollack brings to light the struggles that women in the sciences are often hesitant to admit and provides hope that changing attitudes and behaviors can bring more women into fields in which they remain, to this day, seriously underrepresented.

Ważny i ciekawy temat. Premiera - 15.09.

•  Zen Cho - Sorcerer to the Crown

Magic and mayhem collide with the British elite in this whimsical and sparkling debut.

At his wit’s end, Zacharias Wythe, freed slave, eminently proficient magician, and Sorcerer Royal of the Unnatural Philosophers—one of the most respected organizations throughout all of Britain—ventures to the border of Fairyland to discover why England’s magical stocks are drying up.

But when his adventure brings him in contact with a most unusual comrade, a woman with immense power and an unfathomable gift, he sets on a path which will alter the nature of sorcery in all of Britain—and the world at large…

Opis pachnie nieco książkami Susanny Clarke, co jest dla mnie bardzo zachęcające. Premiera - już pierwszego września!

• Ann Cleeves - The Moth Catcher

This case was different from anything Vera had ever worked before. Two bodies, connected but not lying together. And nothing made her feel as alive as murder.

Life seems perfect in Valley Farm, a quiet community in Northumberland. Then a shocking discovery shatters the silence. The owners of a big country house have employed a house-sitter, a young ecologist named Patrick, to look after the place while they're away. But Patrick is found dead by the side of the lane into the valley - a beautiful, lonely place to die. 

DI Vera Stanhope arrives on the scene, with her detectives Holly and Joe. When they look round the attic of the big house - where Patrick has a flat - she finds the body of a second man. All the two victims have in common is a fascination with moths - catching these beautiful, rare creatures. 

The three couples who live in the Valley Farm development have secrets too: Annie and Sam's daughter is due to be released from prison any day; Nigel watches, silently, every day, from his window. As Vera is drawn into the claustrophobic world of this increasingly strange community, she realizes that there may be deadly secrets trapped here... 

Nowa Vera zawsze cieszy, to jedna z moich ulubionych serii kryminalnych! Akurat w tym przypadku będę raczej czekać na polskie wydanie, jako że nie ja jedna w domu to czytam, ale i tak wiadomość warto odnotować. Premiera - 10.09.

Ewentualne zmiany daty publikacji to wina wydawców, nie moja, więc to do nich proszę udawać się z pretensjami ;)

Teraz czytam - pierwsze zdanie (ale nie całkiem):

Wszystko przez upały (na co będziemy zrzucać winę, kiedy pogoda się zmieni? ;)). Nie wrzucałam tu przez jakiś czas tytułów na bieżąco - i prawdę mówiąc nie mam siły tego w tej chwili nadrabiać. Umówmy się, że podam tylko tytuły zaległych książek, a potem zacznę na nowo od aktualnie czytanej, już bardziej tego pilnując, ok?

No to zaległości:

• Alice Munro - Uciekinierka
• Lee Child - Poszukiwany
• Jean-Claude Carriere, Umberto Eco – Nie myśl, że książki znikną
• Kamil Janicki - Pierwsze Damy II Rzeczpospolitej 

A teraz zaczynam:

Historian Norman Hamson, in a review of recent studies on the French Revolution, has argued that scholars often fail "to see that peasant society was largely motivated by a conception of the world that has little in common with the enlightened abstractions of the revolutionary legislators" and rarely consider that 95 percent of the population at that time ascribed different meaning to political change, indeed, entertained dissimilar beliefs about the basic constructions of the universe.

Jerome Friedman – Miracles and the Pulp Press During the English Revolution. The Battle of the Frogs and Fairford's Flies

Teraz czytam - pierwsze zdanie:

W decydującej fazie bitwy pod Alcañiz 23 maja 1809 roku, kiedy miał już wydać rozkaz do desperackiego ataku Francuzów na środkową linię wojsk hiszpańskich, pułkownik Pierre-François-Marie-August Dejean spojrzał przypadkiem w dół.

Richard Coniff - Poszukiwacze gatunków. Bohaterowie, głupcy i szalony pościg, by zrozumieć życie na Ziemi

On a summer's evening in 1837, in a room in one of the fanciest addresses in all of London, a teenage girl called Alexandrina sat down with her diary.

Jeremy Clay - The Burglar Caught by a Skeleton and Other Singular Tales from the Victorian Press

Teraz czytam - pierwsze zdanie:

Najoględniej można powiedzieć, że Krzyżacy nie mają w Polsce dobrych notowań.

Ludwik Stomma - Polskie złudzenia narodowe. Księgi wtóre (muszę dopaść pierwszą część, ale akurat sklep miał tylko drugą)

There are reasons I hate to drive fast.

Jim Butcher - Grave Peril

Teraz czytam - pierwsze zdanie:

This book is the fault of a fellow called Kevin.

David Aaronovitch - Voodoo Histories. The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History

Teraz czytam - pierwsze zdanie:

A fourteen-year-old girl is kidnapped while hitchhiking with a young male companion.

Roy Hazelwood, Stephen G. Michaud - Dark Dreams. A Legendary FBI Profiler Examines Homicide and the Criminal Mind

Teraz czytam - pierwsze zdanie:

As the twentieth century dawned, forensic science in Europe was finally coming of age.

Colin Evans – The Father of Forensics: How Sir Bernard Spilsbury Invented Modern CSI