Happy New Year, 2020, Let’s Read! Becoming Supernatural

Happy New Year, 2020!

What is your passion? Mine is books, reading, writing, discovering new authors and new stories. And, to dive into the imagination of good fiction.

 

 

Author Charles Lamb said that “books think for me.”

If you are an avid reader, you’ll likely find books that prove this true.

 

 

 

 

 

Goethe believed that “every reader reads himself into the book and amalgamates his thoughts with those of the author.”  Sometimes, yes, I can agree with that.

 

 

 

 

 

You might like what Emerson thought about reading:

“One must be an inventor to read well.”

This is absolutely true if you read fiction.

 

 

Fiction is not just amusement to disengage us from ourselves for a short escape. Reading fiction can illuminate life experiences. We all need to clarify the life’s mysteries and challenges in a dramatic way. Sometimes fiction can be transcendent. If you delight in the study of human nature and all the relationships, you will delight in the reading of novels, mysteries, literary, fantasy, and detective fiction at the top of your list.

This is one of the reasons I love to read and write about the supernatural—to enter that world beyond our mortal and earthly limits.  There is a wisdom in the supernatural that is not sourced from human intelligence or science.  The supernatural has magical realities, spiritual forces, and even mystical religion can bring us beyond our earthly limits.  How is it that the presence of a vase of bright flowers can bring a moment of beauty in just a glance? Why does a sunset streaking gold and purple create a feelings of awe and warmth?  At dawn, a hot pink sunrise is powerful to draw us to the window to encourage our day ahead. Conversely, have you ever seen a shapely fog arise to streak through the streets, and for some reason you can’t take your eyes off the path it’s making? Or a bird land at your feet and look at you for the longest moment as if it’s speaking to you. Little hauntings like these happen all the time. Why? Because we are instinctively drawn to the supernatural, to the language of the heart and soul, to the mysteries, secrets, and messages. So, let’s read the supernatural.

Here are a few classic supernatural novels you might want to read:

The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) by Anne Radcliffe. The quintessential Gothic romance.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson. Split personalities, science gone wrong, an inquisitive friend, and a trampled young woman.

Frankenstein; Or, The ModernPrometheus (1818) by Mary Shelley. This is the standard for the Romantic genre in science fiction.

The Shining by Stephen King. A classic winter ghost story that chills us from the other side.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. This timeless haunted house story will bring you into the world of spirits and desire.

Ghost Stories by M.R. James. One of the best writers of ghost stories in our literature.

The Woman in Black, a Ghost Story by Susan Hill. A chilling tale about a menacing spectre haunting a small English town.

If I may, I’d like to remind readers and followers here at Reading Fiction Blog of my own supernatural mysteries:

The Dazzling Darkness. A haunted cemetery, a little boy missing, and the transcendentalism of Ralph Waldo Emerson in Concord, Massachusetts. Discover the dazzling faces inside the darkened air of Old Willow Cemetery. BRONZE MEDAL WINNER, Readers’ Favorite International Book Award, 2014.

Night Sea Journey, A Tale of the Supernatural. A firehawk invades the dreams of artist Kip Livingston on Horn Island, where she finds romance with a priest struggling with his own demons. An Eric Hoffer Book Award Winner, 2015.

Greylock. Do you believe in music phantoms? Composer Alexei Georg is haunted by a music phantom who pursues him from Boston, to Russia, to Mt. Greylock, Massachusetts. Classical music, whale songs, and the mysterious power of  nature make this a “romance-laced mystery with unexpected twists and turns.” U.S. Review of Books. Chanticleer Book Award Winner 2015 and a Best Book Award Finalist 2017, American Book Fest. 

You can click on the tabs above for more information on each title (reviews too) or click the book covers in the right column on this page to  link to Amazon.com.

Many here know I have had several short stories published in literary magazines and journals over the years. These shorts are also available in the right column book covers, on this page, linked to Amazon.com. I will have four more short stories to come on Amazon in 2020.

Meantime, thank you all for reading my blog, commenting, and clicking LIKE. I hope you will continue to be a friend here at Reading Fiction Blog and keep this page as one of your literary hubs.

I will leave you with the thoughts of poet Rainer Maria Rilke (who is the subject in my next supernatural mystery that I am writing now. More on this in 2020!)

“Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

 

I wish you all a happy and successful 2020 and many reading adventures.

Ye Olde Christmas Grace

Old Christmas by Washington Irving (1875)

Tuesday’s Tale for Christmas,  December 10, 2019

Well done, Mr. Irving! If you are looking for a mite of wisdom and the blessings from old-time Christmas  to spark your holiday spirits, Washington Irving’s Old Christmas is a charming read that will warm you from your nightcap to your jingle toes.

 

Old Christmas is a series of short stories about a young man who travels to a companion’s family mansion, The Bracebridges. Our narrator describes the mansion as “thrown in deep shadow and partly lit up by the cold moonshine … heavy stone-shafted bow windows jutting out and overrun with ivy, from among the foliage of which the small diamond-shaped panes of glass glittered with the moonbeams. The grounds about the house were laid out in the old formal manner of artificial flower-beds, clipped shrubberies, raised terraces, and heavy stone balustrades, ornamented with urns, a leaden statue or two, and a jet of water.”

Can you see this setting? Of course you can. Irving was an American original in his prose style of lighthearted but dramatic, exemplifying the writing style of the Romantic era. He set the bar quite high for all short story writers.

[Frontispiece of Old Christmas]

 

We begin with an beautiful introduction of Christmas, and then in Yorkshire, we take The Stage Coach ride with our narrator. If you’ve ever wondered what it is like is to go bumping along in horse-laded coach, this ride is a witty jaunt through village and countryside.

The third story is Christmas Eve. Voluptuous fires in the hearth, friendly neighbors, snowy sky, plums and spice, sweets and cider. There is a harmony going on this Eve.

“The family meeting was warm and affectionate … old uncles and aunts, comfortably married dames, superannuated spinsters, blooming country cousins, half-fledged striplings, and bright-eyed boarding-school hoydens fully engrossed by a merry game; and a profusion of wooden horses, penny trumpets, and tattered dolls, about the floor, showed traces of a troop of little fairy beings, who, having frolicked through a happy day, had been carried off to slumber through a peaceful night.”

They feasted on wheat cakes and mince pies, danced to harp and violin and even recited poetry—”Night-Piece to Julia”—when not admiring the romance of the young women in long lace dresses.

Christmas Day opens with “When I awoke the next morning, it seemed as if all the events of the preceding evening had been a dream, and nothing but the identity of the ancient chamber convinced me of their reality. While I lay musing on my pillow, I heard the sound of little feet pattering outside of the door, and a whispering consultation. Presently a choir of small voices chanted forth an old Christmas carol.”

At Christmas Dinner “The dinner was served up in the great hall, where the Squire always held his Christmas banquet. A blazing, crackling fire of logs had been heaped on to warm the spacious apartment, and the flame went sparkling and wreathing up the wide-mouthed chimney.”

 

And at Christmas day’s finish our narrator discovers what is likely the true benevolence of this celebration: “I was in a continual excitement, from the varied scenes of whim and innocent gaiety passing before me. It was inspiring to see wild-eyed frolic and warm-hearted hospitality breaking out from among the chills and glooms of winter, and old age throwing off his apathy, and catching once more the freshness of youthful enjoyment.”

 

In our modern fashionable Christmases, we desire to break out from the chilly glooms of winter. We need to throw off the apathy of old age. We long to awaken, to catch at least one day fresh with youth to become wild-eyed and warm to our family and friends. In these stories Irving captures not only the beauty and community of olde Christmas cheer, but also the Christmas Grace of  sharing human love, kindness, and generosity.

 

Wishing you all the sacred joys of Christmas!

 

 

Read all five short stories here at Gutenberg.org:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1850/1850-h/1850-h.htm

Famed 19th century American author, Washington Irving is known for his biographical works (most famous the five-volume Life of George Washington), stories  Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Considered to be the first true American writer, Irving fought for stronger laws to protect writers from copyright infringement.

 

 

 

This book would make a lovely Christmas gift! Find it on Amazon. This edition has some of the sketches you see here on this blog. https://www.amazon.com/OLD-CHRISTMAS-Washington-Illustrated-Stage-Coach/dp/170749696X

 

 

 

 

Don’t forget to view the INDEX above of more free reading at Reading Fiction Blog. This is a compendium of over 200 short stories by more than 100 famous storytellers of mystery, suspense, supernatural, ghost stories, ‘quiet horror,’ crime, sci-fi, and mainstream fiction.

Follow or sign up to join me in reading two short stories every month.

Comments are welcome. Feel free to click “LIKE” or post a Christmas cheer.

  

Other Reading Web Sites to Visit

Kirkus Mystery & Thrillers Reviews

Books & Such    Bibliophilica   NewYorkerFictionOnline

 Lovecraft Ezine    HorrorNews.net   Fangoria.com   

Slattery’s Art of Horror Magazine   Chuck Windig’s Terrible Minds

   Horror Novel Reviews    HorrorSociety.com     

Monster Librarian       The Story Reading Ape Blog

For Authors/Writers:  The Writer Unboxed

Literature Blog Directory   

Blog Collection

Blog Top Sites

PEACE TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT.