It’s almost that gift-giving time of year, and what could make a better present than a book? Books always make up the majority of my wish list, so I figured I would share with you some of the books I’d love to receive this year:
With Thanksgiving just around the corner, I figured it would be appropriate to reflect on some of the books that have significantly influenced my life and my growth as a reader. From childhood favorites to more recently discovered masterpieces, here are five books that I feel extremely thankful that I’ve read:
A couple months ago, I posted about some of the foundational female writers of gothic literature. There was one woman on that list whose works I had not read before, and so I decided to seek her out. Thus, I found myself downloading the audiobook of Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. Rebecca is essentially a Gothic novel in the traditional sense, though it was written much later than its 18th– and 19th-century fellows. Ambiguously set in the 1920s or ‘30s, Rebecca contains no elements of the supernatural, no true evil villain, and no attacks on the heroine’s life. Instead, what makes Rebecca a Gothic novel is its focus on the core Gothic trope: the present haunted by the past—although in Rebecca’s case, this haunting is purely psychological. Continue reading Rebecca Review–A Haunting Tale
Last week, I reviewed a modern illustrated edition of the vampire classic, Carmilla. As you can see from my last post, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this story of a teenage girl who discovers her friendly new houseguest may not be as innocent as she looks. However, if reading books from the 1870s still isn’t your thing, even after it’s been disguised as a modern paranormal romance—or if you’re just a huge fan of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries and love seeing classic texts brought to life in front of the webcam—then I definitely suggest that you check out the Carmilla web series.
Continue reading Modern Takes on the Vampire Classic, Carmilla (Part Two)
As of today, it has been exactly six months since I first launched this blog. Can you believe it? It seems like only a few weeks have gone by to me. I’d been dreaming of starting a blog forever, but back in June I could hardly imagine finding the time and inspiration to write once a week. I decided to plunge in anyway, and it’s all worked out so far!
I wrote some of my best stuff in my early days, since I had plenty of time to contemplate topics and save up the good ones. Since many of you are new to my blog, don’t forget to go back and look at some of my old posts! In honor of my six-monthiversary, I’ve rounded up six of my favorite posts that I’ve written since beginning my blog: Continue reading The Gothic Library is Six Months Old!
Now you may remember that back when I wrote my Vampire Literary Canon post, I had yet to read one of the celebrated classics of vampire literature—Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. An early vampire tale, this novella was written decades before Bram Stoker dreamed up Dracula. And now that I’ve finally gotten around to reading it, I can say that in my personal opinion, it’s significantly better than Dracula, too. Perhaps simply because it doesn’t drag on as much. And it also seems somewhat better suited to a modern context. For those of you that don’t normally spend your Sundays reading tomes from two centuries ago, you can still enjoy this charming vampiric classic. In this post, I will review the fun illustrated version I found, which would fit in on your bookshelf right beside your twenty-first century vampire novels. If reading the classics still isn’t your thing, stay tuned next week for my post on the modernized Carmilla webseries! Continue reading Modern Takes on the Vampire Classic, Carmilla (Part One)
