From the opening line — It was during the time I wandered about and starved in Christiania: Christiania, this singular city, from which no man departs without carrying away the traces of his sojourn there.— Hunger, the 1890 novel by Norwegian author Knut Hamsun, pulls us into the narrator’s inner and outer worlds. This compelling story of […]
Tag Archives: reading
June
03
Therese Raquin: A novel of passion and crime by Emile Zola
posted by sugarskullpress
First published in 1890, Therese Raquin — Emile Zola’s classic tale of forbidden love and murder — has served as the basis for television programs, radio plays, operas, movies (including 2013’s In Secret starring Jessica Lange and Elizabeth Olsen), and stage plays (including the 2015 Broadway production starring Keira Knightley). The story follows impoverished orphan […]
May
12
L.A. SLEEPERS (Hollywood Ghostwriter Mystery #1) by Dakota Donovan
posted by sugarskullpress
When elderly Hollywood producer Milton Kingman says he’s dying and needs someone to write his memoir, Dakota Donovan takes the job. The pay is lousy and the hours are worse, but the ghostwriter has no other options at the moment. What starts out as a standard “as told to” assignment soon becomes a long, strange […]
May
12
The Haunted Hotel by Wilkie Collins
posted by sugarskullpress
First published in 1878, The Haunted Hotel is among the later works of Wilkie Collins, famous for his 1868 novel The Moonstone, widely considered as the first modern English detective novel. The Haunted Hotel is notable for its atmosphere–a decaying palace in Venice–as well as intrigue among members of the aristocracy. “Wilkie Collins invented the […]
September
21
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
posted by sugarskullpress
The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only case he had met in which such […]
September
21
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
posted by sugarskullpress
“…Stevenson’s short novel, written in 1885, is one of the ancestors of the modern mystery story…not only a good ‘bogey story,’ as Stevenson exclaimed when awakening from a dream in which he had visualized it…It is also, and more importantly, a fable that lies nearer to poetry than to ordinary prose fiction, and therefore belongs […]
September
18
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
posted by sugarskullpress
“I busied myself to think of a story…one which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature, and awaken thrilling horror — one to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart.” MARY SHELLEY (introduction to the 1831 edition) “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a […]
September
15
Death at the Excelsior and Other Stories by P.G. Wodehouse
posted by sugarskullpress
The title story, “Death at the Excelsior,” introduces readers to British private detective Elliot Oaks and his more experienced boss Paul Snyder in P.G. Wodehouse’s only attempt at a detective story, which he pulls off with his signature comic twists and turns. The collection also offers a selection of other classic Wodehouse tales, including those […]
September
14
The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne
posted by sugarskullpress
“…one of the three best mystery stories of all time.” ALEXANDER WOLCOTT “…an agreeable book, light, amusing in the Punch style, written with a deceptive smoothness that is not as easy as it looks.” RAYMOND CHANDLER ”This droll whodunit from the creator of Winnie-the-Pooh sparkles with witty dialogue, deft plotting, and an amusing cast. In […]
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