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the past is never dead: a southern gothic rec list

this is a landscape of hell-fire and damnation, of murder and blood and a sky aflame. don’t trust the preacher, don’t fall in love with that beautiful belle. look elsewhere for heroes, there are none to be found here....

35. Doctor Sleep, Stephen King (2013)

***spoilers are all up in this, y'all***

I started reading this all the way back in October but life has happened since then (broke up with my boyfriend, moved to another part of the city) so I didn't finish it until recently. And I realized it wasn't so much me procrastinating reading it because I was busy--it was because it didn't hold my attention as much as I thought it would.

First things first: it helps to have read The Shining, but as long as you have a general idea of what went on, it's not going to throw you off. Okay. Doctor Sleep. Whatever happened to Baby Danny?

Here's what happened: he grew up to be an alcoholic with a guilty conscious. He drifts over to a small New England town where he finds a tight-knit community that supports his recovery and journey through AA. He aids the almost-dead in the hospice where he's an orderly, using his shine to see them on their way to the afterlife.

There's a golden child involved--a girl named Abra who's shine is blazing brilliant, disturbing her parents with her telekinesis and psychic abilities. A lot of the book's conversations between Abra and Dan (of course they meet eventually, like most King books this is set up in a series of vignettes as outward points that converge to a common situation near the end, like in The Stand) are telepathic.

The villains remind me once again of The Stand, of Randal Flagg's camp of baddies. But this time they're called the True Knot: a creepy RV-driving convoy of sorta-vampires. They suck out the essence of kids that shine, calling it "steam". Led by the beautiful and terrifying Rose the Hat, this group picks up on Abra's psychic scent and decides to claim the ultimate steamy child-prize.

So the throwdown is essentially when the True Knot and Abra, Dan, and their company of lovable Yankees finally meet at where? You guessed it. A camping ground built on what was once the Overlook Hotel. I won't give away the ending, but I bet you can make a guess about who comes out the victor.

If I sound disappointed...I am. I might sound like I'm glossing over things but really, it's all about the journey of everyone coming together, like The Stand and in a way, like IT. While it's also about the redemption of Dan Torrance, the way he redeems himself gets kind of ridiculous. He uses the spirit of his dead father to help kill the bad guys? I mean come on. And Dan's relationship with the preteen Abra makes me feel kind of uncomfortable, even though it overemphasized in it's safety and okay-ness. (also, it involves the most boring twist of all time) The True Knot is the best part of the book because we seen those RV and trailers traveling so innocently down every highway, and I think to touch on something so mediocre and so everyday and turn it into a carnival of beasts is pretty clever.

So what I'm saying is that unless you're a dyed-in-the-wool Stephen King fan, skip Doctor Sleep. It's neat to see someone write about something they obviously have a deep and intimate knowledge of (getting sober) but with the storytelling being played fast and loose, I'm not into it.

#doctor sleep #stephen king #fiction

blackballoonpublishing

My first real exposure to Latin American literature was in high school English, reading One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It was also my first encounter with magical realism, and I was bonkers over it in the same way that most high schoolers go crazy for...

unicornology

I always give books. And I always ask for books. I think you should reward people sexually for getting you books. Don’t send a thank-you note, repay them with sexual activity. If the book is rare or by your favorite author or one you didn’t know about, reward them with the most perverted sex act you can think of. Otherwise, you can just make out.

John Waters | NYT

(via kateoplis)

runa-b

It is likely I will die next to a pile of things I was meaning to read.

—Lemony Snicket (via closedforprayer)

notpulpcovers

Covers by Paul Rader

prettybooks

1949 Bookmobile

fuckyeahdinoart

udhcmh

1960 paperback of Arthur Conan Doyle’s dinosaur adventure classic The Lost World (1912), released to tie-in with the Irwin Allen movie adaptation.

Tyrannosaurus looks exactly like a Marx toy dinosaur I had as a kid. Definitely better than the iguanas with glued-on horns and sails that figured in the movie.

absurdical

Q: How many male novelists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: He lit a cigarette. His glass of whiskey lit a cigarette too. “I can only truly love my best friend,” he said, “but not in a gay way. Women wouldn’t understand it. They’re too gay.” Both of the cigarettes agreed.

Male Novelist Jokes (via The Toast)

cryptofwrestling

WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER

So the winner of First Annual Busted Spines Halloween Book Giveaway is sitdownhannibal! Thanks for following!

#sitdownhannibal

So due to unforeseen technical problems (which mean a trip to the Apple store tomorrow), I'm not going to choose a winner of the giveaway until Monday. So reblog it up, nerds

riverheadbooks

Thought Junot Diaz’s THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE her couldn’t get any better? Think again! Limited edition illustrated edition with stunning images by superstar artist Jaime Hernandez is on-sale today! Hop over to Buzzfeed for a sneak peek!

(via The Illustrated Junot Diaz)

ladiesofliterature

The LADIES OF LITERATURE zine is now available for online pre-order! Featuring the work of 36 talented artists, this volume includes 56 pages of female book characters and authors spanning several genres and time periods!

AVAILABLE ON STORENVY

Teaser art by Trung Le Nguyen (Gerda and the Snow Queen), Grace Fong (Alanna of Trebond, Daine Sarrasri, Luna Lovegood, and Hermione Granger), Viktoria Ridzel (Bianca di Angelo), and Rachel Royale (Persephone).

All proceeds are being donated to charity projects promoting classroom literacy. First 20 orders include a free gift! Please allow at least one month for turnaround time. Also note: A few pieces feature language and tasteful nudity.

Edited and produced by Arielle Jovellanos with a little help from the fierce and fabulous Janet Sung.

fishnbacon-deactivated20191024

yo i’m in this ahahha please check it out thanks!!!!

yearningforunity

Ajamu Brown closed up his father’s book store, True South, on Sunday. The Bedford-Stuyvesant shop has had financial trouble since July, when its owner suffered a stroke.

The page has been turned for the final time at a beloved black bookstore in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

True South Bookstore sold its last book Sunday after struggling to stay open since its owner, Monroe Brown Jr., suffered a stroke in July.

Brown, 71, opened the Nostrand Ave. bookstore in 2007, not just to sell books, but to champion black heritage.

Fans and customers rallied at the shop in an effort to save the cultural center shortly after he fell ill. The 40 people who attended the fundraiser raised several thousand dollars.

But that wasn’t enough to keep pace with rent that, for some, is just too damn high.

"At the end of the day how many fundraisers can you do?" asked his son, Ajamu Brown, 36. "You have to be able to generate a profit in order to keep the business open."

The store’s rent was recently raised from $2,200 to $3,500 a month, he said.

That’s a common phenomenon in the neighborhood as landlords seek to cash in on Bed-Stuy’s increasing trendiness.

That’s put the squeeze on mom and pop spots like the bookstore.

nototherwisestated

WHAT THE FUCK! $3,500!!

#independent bookstores

inkandvanillin

1973 photo credit unknown

via Things Magazine

bustedspines-blog

Ink & Vanillin has curated a really beautiful collection of book covers and ephemera. So much good design.

#inkandvanillin #books

unholyheathen-deactivated201709

Beware the autumn people. For some, autumn comes early, stays late, through life, where October follows September and November touches October and then instead of December and Christ’s birth there is no Bethlehem Star, no rejoicing, but September comes again and old October and so on down the years, with no winter, spring or revivifying summer. For these beings, fall is the only normal season, the only weather, there be no choice beyond. Where do they come from? The dust. Where do they go? The grave. Does blood stir their veins? No, the night wind. What ticks in their head? The worm. What speaks through their mouth? The toad. What sees from their eye? The snake. What hears with their ear? The abyss between the stars. They sift the human storm for souls, eat flesh of reason, fill tombs with sinners. They frenzy forth. In gusts they beetle-scurry, creep, thread, filter, motion, make all moons sullen, and surely cloud all clear-run waters. The spider-web hears them, trembles—breaks. Such are the autumn people.

Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962)e (via amber-and-ice)

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