Book Review – The Cabin at the End of the World

What a fantastic book. Andrew and Eric are on a holiday at a cabin with their adopted daughter, Wen. Wen is playing outside when a man approaches her, the tallest man she's ever seen. He tells her that none of what is about to happen is her fault. Wen then notices three more people behind…

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These Are Your Favorite Books

I asked you about your favorite books on Twitter recently, and got more responses than I anticipated. About 955, as it turns out. https://twitter.com/johannthors/status/1161231619568676865?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Here are the books that were mentioned most often (including quite a few that surprised me.) The Phantom TollboothEast of Eden & Grapes of WrathTo Kill a MockingbirdHouse of LeavesA Tree…

5 Rather Excellent Noir Crime Books

I got to spend a week in Exeter this summer, as the International Writer-in-Residence at the Quay Words literary festival. Part of the deal was to give a talk on Icelandic crime writing and at the end of that talk (which I may post here later) I told the audience about the books that most…

This is the Best Pirate-themed Horror Story You’ll Read All Year

It's Pirates of the Caribbean in Hell. It's the best horror story of the year for me so far, possibly one of my favorite horror stories ever. It has Hell-monks with iron boxes locked over their heads forever, pirate ships, cannibal cults and last and definitely not least, flying, ship-destroying angel-possessed giant squid. I am,…

Talents With Typewriters

Nisar Masoon interviewed me for Literary Retreat a while back. They had some issues with their SSL certification but that's all fixed now and the interview is up. Some time passed between the interview and the publication so I was surprised to find the following (which, yes, are my words but I had forgotten them…

The Sublime Weirdness of Jeff Vandermeer’s FINCH

FINCH is one of my favorite books. I can't understand why it hasn't been made into a series, or why there aren't more people running through the streets, thrusting a copy of FINCH upon random strangers exclaiming "You need to read this!" Ok. That last one was maybe a bit much. It's about a detective,…

How Douglas Adams wrote The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

I was thumbing through my copy of Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (a book on Douglas Adams written by Neil Gaiman!) and came across a great passage. It certainly made me feel a little better about my glacial writing pace. This is Douglas describing how the Restaurant at the…

This is THE Perfect Gift for That Book-and-Booze Lover in Your Life.

There are few things finer in this life than books and booze. My personal heaven is when I get a moment to myself, make a drink (beer, more often than not) and read a good story. Enter, Molly Tanzer and Nickmamatas' Mixed Up, a collection of flash fiction and cocktail recipes. Oh, this book is…

Now That’s a Simile

These days I'm re-reading Raymond Chandler's masterpiece, The Long Good-bye. I do this as I'm nearing the completion of my own book; I don't avoid fiction as some writer's do to avoid being overly influenced but knowingly read books I want to be influenced by. In this case it's mostly four books I read and…

Raymond Chandler – A Growing Obsession

Raymond Chandler is the author I'm obsessing most over these days, and here's just a few of the reasons why: 1 - His prose Here are examples just from the start of The Little Sister, which I am now reading. The pebbled glass door panel is lettered in flaked black paint: 'Philip Marlowe... Investigations'. It…