I am on a Barker jag at the moment. I just finished re-reading Imajica and am now re-reading Weaveworld.  

This was my first foray into the wonderful fantasy world of Clive Barker - I had seen the Hellraiser movies but hadn't read anything by him until I borrowed this one years and years ago from a friend. I couldn't put it down and actually refused to stop reading until it got so dark I couldn't see properly!

I love the worlds he creates. This one in particular, the magical fantasy land inside a tapestry carpet, just got my attention. A world we dream of or only see it dreams, called The Fugue has been hidden in a carpet to save it from those who would rule and destroy it. 

The characters make this come alive and I am trying to read it slowly to make it last but yeah, that's impossible LOL    I guess I can console myself with knowing that I can then re-read The Great and Secret Show - or Cold Heart Canyon!  The possibilities and worlds, are endless.

Billy Whistler (Bayou Hauntings #4) - Bill Thompson

I think I sort of did this one backwards but work with me here LOL  This is from a series called The Bayou Hauntings that start with Callie, The Forgotten Men, The Nursery and this one, Billy Whistler.

I found them on my Amazon kindle while looking for spooky atmospheric books for October and these a perfect!  I can read one in a day and they have just the right touch of ghostly intrigue, haunted history and a fun setting.  I also liked that there were continuing characters from each of the novels going forward.

You don't have to read them in order to enjoy them but I suggest you do so you can follow their adventures as they come up. Haunted plantations, creepy jails, psychotic killers, sick cult members and ghosts that just need to move on - just a touch of what these fun books have waiting for you!

I keep meaning to do more of these and never get around to it but this book caught me off guard and I wanted to share my thoughts while they were fresh.

Summer of Night by Dan Simmons was - it was really good!  It was compared a LOT to Stephen King's, IT and a few "constant readers,"  also like this book so I gave it a go.  It is comparable to IT, there are a few plot/scene points that are similar, but most of it is original and kept me reading late into the night.

First and most important: READ THE INTRODUCTION LAST!
No, seriously, read it last - it is really interesting and while it doesn't have spoilers per se, it does talk about the characters and might give a few things away that are really need OH! moments in the story.

The story follows a handful of friends and their creepy AF summer in Illinois where they discover some really messed up goings-on in their town - it actually is pretty terrifying in its visuals!  I also loved that it had a bit of Crowley and the Book of the Law in it as well as some creepy history bits that add a lot to the overall ambience of the story.

To be honest, I think this book was scarier than IT, but I am not sure if that is because I've read IT so many times that I am used to what happens - but this book feels darker. Like if King and Dean Koontz had a book baby LOL

I like when I get to the end of a book and want to know more about what happens next. There are a few books that have grown up versions of the boys in the story: Fires of Eden, Children of the Night and Winter Haunting. I guess also, that Winter Haunting has a strong connection to Summer of Night and I am looking for that one next.

His website has 2 links to 2 short stories that sort of continue the story from the end of Summer of Night and give you a really neat forward view of what happens to these characters. He gives a warning that you may not actually like what happens to some and he was right LOL  But it was nice to read more on these  characters - it's something that adds a richness to the book that I love.

​If you read it - let me know what you think!

  I had been wanting to read this book since it came out 2 years ago and finally got to it yesterday.  I knew the outcome - and still, I sobbed at the end. His words just sang - they were poetry and prose and so beautiful. 

I have been reading a lot about the end of life and how the body dies - I am studying to be a death doula or something in that arena.  Books like Body of Work by Christine Montross and The Death Class by Norma Bowe really helped open that topic up.  Death seems to be relegated to the "do not discuss in polite society," arena and that is quite sad.

If one does not look at death... how does one live?

But I had only really been looking at that one side of it, the after the body dies, what happens part. Sam Parnia's AWARE studies totally grabbed my attention - you should look at his work with NDEs. I was fascinated by the whole thing.  But it wasn't until I finished When Breath  Becomes Air that it really hit me - the "how does one live" part - or even why does one live?  

To live a meaningful life.

Paul Kalanithi lived one his entire life - always searching and always learning - and he put all that he learned into his book. He died before he could finish it - his wife did an excellent job in the afterword of giving the book and the life of Paul, closure, but even though he didn't "finish," it, his words and his emotions, told the story perfectly.

What I kept coming back to over and over was what makes a life meaningful?  And how do we live in a meaningful way?  

Some quotes from the book and there are so many good ones - you should read the book:

“You can’t ever reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving.” 

“Human knowledge is never contained in one person. It grows from the relationships we create between each other and the world, and still it is never complete.” 

“There is a moment, a cusp, when the sum of gathered experience is worn down by the details of living. We are never so wise as when we live in this moment.” 

“Years ago, it had occurred to me that Darwin and Nietzsche agreed on one thing: the defining characteristic of the organism is striving.”

When faced with his coming death - this is what was asked - in how he wanted to live and what his main focus would be in living during his illness - “What makes life meaningful enough to go on living?” 
He was a brilliant surgeon, did he want to continue that life as he dealt with his cancer - or was there another path he wanted to try?  And when did he want to stop... at what point would he say this is enough?

And then this:
To his daughter, who was only months old when he died - “That message is simple: When you come to one of the many moments in life when you must give an account of yourself, provide a ledger of what you have been, and done, and meant to the world, do not, I pray, discount that you filled a dying man’s days with a sated joy, a joy unknown to me in all my prior years, a joy that does not hunger for more and more, but rests, satisfied. In this time, right now, that is an enormous thing.” 

I guess, for me, I need to find something to bring meaning, not just to me, but to leave behind me. We all strive, but for what? To what end? What gives each of us a meaningful life? I think that is why we are here. To use this one life to find meaning and to make the world we share a better place. 

 .... and I hope I've made them right.*

I just finished reading The Book Thief and I am gutted, and heart-broken.  I knew it was going to be sad - I was aware of that potential from the moment I put it on my wish list to buy, but I had no idea just how hard it would be to finish the book.

The author painted such amazing pictures with his own use of words, he created the colors that formed the people in this story.  In the  2 days it took me to finish it, I felt like I knew each of the people, which is why I felt like a knife twisted in my heart when I got to the second to the last chapter and lost it so hard, I had to put the book down.

Every aspect of Human Nature is touched upon in this book. From the extreme cruelty and ignorance to the love and comforting touch of friends and strangers, The Book Thief encompasses it all and then some.

I don't want to post any spoilers, but if you love excellent characters, word play and fabulous descriptions and a good story of course, then read this book.  As a warning, you will need kleenex, a lot of it. I haven't cried this hard since I watched the season finale of Fringe, so there you go. 

As Liesel says, "words are heavy," and so they are, but they are also beautiful and I am so glad I read this book.   I am honestly not sure I could handle watching the movie.



*Quote from Liesel's book

For the longest time death was an abstract thought to me.  It happened at some point but that was as far as I went with it. But after my brother committed suicide in 1997, it suddenly stopped being so academic. 

In having to deal with the fine points of after death care, I learned a lot more than I ever wanted to know about death. And because I have no idea why he did what he did, I read everything I could that could enlighten me. That included his very detailed autopsy report.  Those are some mental images I will never get rid of, but in a way, they made it all the more real, in a good way. A way that says this really happened and is not a bad dream.

During the year after his death I started studying EVERYTHING about the topic. Religions and philosophies. Books on the afterlife and what happens to the body as it dies or after it has gone.

It ended up being - not so creepy as I once would have imagined it to be.  All the isms and beliefs and thoughts from all those studies, led me to realize that dying may suck, or it may be beautiful, but in the end, we all do it.  

I just finished reading Body of Work by Christine Montross and it really added another angle to my own body of knowledge and thoughts of dying, death.  She tells the story of her first year in med school, dissecting her first body, Eve.  At some points graphic and others poetic she talks about her own thoughts and emotions with cutting into a human body.  It ended with the realization of the gift that Eve gave her and of giving a stranger hope, in healing.  

It brings me back to the memories and thoughts I had of needing to view my brother's own body after death and all the inherent nightmares that brought. But after a time, those horrors faded, leaving me with a much more open? informed? thoughtful, mind about what happens to us when we die.

My takeaway?
I imagine a lot of people would consider this topic gory or distasteful but to me it is another facet of life. It makes me much more aware of how I live my life NOW. I am alive now and someday I will not be. And no matter how frustrating my life can be sometimes, it is still a gift I do not want to waste.