Cannonball Read 15

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Dracula sucks…but the book doesn’t!

Dracula by Bram Stoker

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Dracula sucks but the book doesn’t. I go through phases of reading classics or otherwise tackling books with reputations of being difficult. Sometimes it’s easy to see why books are classics – they’re timeless and engrossing. A Tale of Two Cities is that way for me. So is Dostoevsky’s The Idiot. Other times the classics feel like archaeological work. The reader is excavating and extrapolating. Dracula felt like work to me, but the reader can definitely appreciate the book’s influence on future work. In particular, […]

Later that summer, when Mrs. Penmark looked back and remembered, when she was caught up in despair so deep she knew there was no way out…

The Bad Seed by William March

Dracula's Guest and Other Stories by Bram Stoker

Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M.R. James

The Dare by RL Stine

The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson

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The Bad Seed – 3/5 Stars The book about a bad kid hurting and killing other people, and the questions around what makes her tick. I guess I think I have seen the movie of this years ago, but other than “bad kid” I don’t recall much of it. The book dives into the psychology and especially the genetics of the questions of “bad kid” in ways that I imagine are pretty early for the genre. So this is the book that sort of started […]

Less Bite Than I Imagined

Dracula by Bram Stoker

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Written in 1897, Bram Stoker’s Dracula is obviously one of the most famous horror stories of all time, introducing the character of Count Dracula and a slew of vampire lore. The story of the count travelling to England to spread his evil, and a group of men and women led by expert on the undead Abraham von Helsing trying to stop him, is told through a series of diary and journal entries, letters, telegrams, and newspaper articles. And herein already lies one of the fundamental […]

If you’re patient it’s not a bad read.

Dracula by Bram Stoker

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Dracula as a phenomenon has pretty much taken on a life of its own to the point where I thought I knew all about it.I mean, Dracula is Dracula right?! Turns out I don’t! Dracula isn’t at all what I expected. It is told through a collection of diary entries, letters, notes and telegrams following various people through the novel. The story opens with Jonathan Harker traveling from London to the estate of Dracula in Transylvania. It’s all very spooky and mysterious, Dracula doesn’t eat, […]

“How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no dreads; to whom sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams.”

Dracula by Bram Stoker

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I don’t have the time or energy to write as much or as deeply as I would like to about this strange, 100+ year old book, so I’m just going to settle with posting some brief thoughts below. Somehow I managed to make it out of years and years of schooling, with two English degrees, without reading this book. Which is right up my alley! All that discussion of monsters and things that are taboo swathed in metaphor. I love that shit. When I first […]

A Supernatural, Romantic Thriller-Adventure with a Side of Misogyny

The Mystery of the Sea by Bram Stoker

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At the end of the 19th century, Englishman Archibald Hunter moves to Scotland and comes into possession of some documents dating back to the Spanish Armada. He then goes on a treasure hunt with young Marjory Drake, an American heiress, whom he just met. One of the main problems with the book is that it really doesn’t know what it wants to be. In the beginning, Archie has a vision and meets a seer who explains to him that he has the second sight. Shortly […]



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