Literature

I’ve always enjoyed the pleasure of reading, with my earliest memories being that of Nevil Shutes’ ‘A Town Like Alice’, however once I’d read ‘The Time Machine’ and ‘War of the Worlds’ I was primarily interested in Science Fiction for the remainder of my erly teen years, reading nearly all of Wells’ fantasy output as well as a great many of Jules Verne. While on holiday with my parents, around 1960/1, I purchased the paperback ‘The Pan Book of Horror Stories Volume 3’ and after just reading a couple of stories quickly got volumes 1 and 2. They introduced me to the names of Seabury Quinn, L P Hartley, Hazel Heald, Dulcie Gray, Nigel Kneal, William Hope Hodgson, C A Cooper, E F Benson, Basil Copper, among others and I discovered how easy it was to feel ill at ease in a darkened room. As good as many of these short stories were it was the Pan and Fontana paperback collections of ghost stories that really used to get my imagination working overtime when I turned the light off at night. I believe I still have most of the first 27 volumes of the Pan horror series packed away in the attic. Around 1963/4 I read my first H P Lovecraft paperback, ‘The Case of Charles Dexter Ward’ and quickly read my way through his entire, but small literary ouput. I was enthralled by the ‘Cthulhu Mythos’ tales and was really disappointed to discover that Arkham, Dunwich, Innsmouth, The Miskatonic University and the evil book, The Necronomicon were just fiction. I’d even searched maps for hours trying to find Arkham! I revisit Lovecraft regulary and they still reward me with fresh shivers. After reading ‘The Lord Of The Rings’ trilogy in mid 1973 I had tried to find other worthy fantasy trilogies, but everything I tried had failed miserably after Tolkien. Robert Bloch, Ray Bradbury, Brian Lumley, Arthur C Clarke, August Derleth, Peter Straub, Steven King and Terry Pratchet are just a few of the authors whose work I can often be found reading, Ramsey Campbell caught my attention very early because of his lovecraftian themes, but ‘Ancient Images’ is my favourite Ramsey novel, due to its storyline of a lost Karloff/Lugosi movie and seeing the name of an old pal Harry Nadler, a fellow film enthusiast and monster lover, turning up as a character. I’ve recenty read another batch of books filled with short stories from pulp magazines. During the last 20 years or so I have found a new interest, that of the who-done-it? and have read most of Agatha Christie’s output as well as a dozen or so others. Most of what I read is now generally on my Kindle Fire and this has introduced me to the work of Ben Aaonovitch, (I’m on my fourth ‘Rivers of London’ novel at the moment), James Lovegrove and David Hambling, I rarely go any where without my Kindle and even took it all the way to Japan…but once there I never turned it on!