Monday, July 23, 2007

British horror

So, you know how I found some interesting stuff in an Oxfam book shop a while ago? Well, I had the same success in a Barnardo's bookshop. I'd not read anything by R. Chetwynd-Hayes before, but was familiar with his name due to Jeremy Dyson talking about him on a documentary about the old BBC Ghost Story For Christmas (genius) series and because his work was adapted into 'The Monster Club' and 'From Beyond the Grave' films, which, coincidentally, were the two books I found. So far I've read a few stories in FBTG, and they're great, a lovely mix of cosy British quirks and horror, one making the other stand out nicely.
In the meantime I've started 'Obsession' by Ramsey Campbell, it's very good so far. I've only read short stories by Campbell before, they're very good indeed, he has a nice prose style, it's occasionally wanders a bit, but he seems to know where he's going.

2 comments:

Katy said...

I've just bought my first Lovecraft book! Very exciting! And I want the complete Arthur Machen but it's 35 quid. Have you read any Machen? What do you think?

paulhd said...

Well done, Katy, you've taken your first step into a larger world.
I've not read Machen, but I did recently find a nice edition 'The Hill of Dreams' by him, looks very good - it's also cheap, 2nd hand on amazon. He sounds like he was an interesting chap indeed. Also got The King in Yellow in the same haul. Think someone's been chucking out dodgy nutter books. Only too happy to pick thewm up:)