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Haunted Houses: The Perils of Home Ownership

Some article in the Guardian that claimed horror was dead suggested that real life is fraught with enough peril–greedy corporations, mortgages, and so on. Well, okay, those things are pretty scary even without demon-worshiping CEO’s, politicians who deal with the devil, and haunted houses. Clearly, real life isn’t scary enough, though, because we keep seeing requests for books about ghosts and haunted houses. It’s actually a good time of year for ghosts. The holidays stir up memories, and with the change of the year the veil thins. So I thought I’d provide some titles for those of you who are seeking a haunting holiday– or, in the case of the readers’ advisory librarian, helping someone else find that great ghostly read. Some of these are more frightening than others, and while we have reviewed some of them here, we certainly haven’t reviewed them all (although this list is far from exhaustive)… so make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into before you crack the covers open!

So now, alphabetical by the author’s last name, just a few books to guarantee that the next time you consider buying a house, you have a really good home inspection:

The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson
The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian (reviewed here)
The Jonah Watch by Jack Cady
House on Nazareth Hill by Ramsey Campbell
The Manse by Lisa Cantrell
Nightmare House by Douglas Clegg (reviewed here)
Infinite by Douglas Clegg
Abandoned by Douglas Clegg (reviewed here)
Maybe This Time by Jennifer Crusie (reviewed here- her answer to Henry James’ Turn of the Screw)
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (reviewed here)
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (not technically a ghost story, but I can’t resist including it)
The Dark Sanctuary by H.B. Gregory
Julian’s House by Judith Hawkes
The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
An American Haunting by Scott A. Johnson
Ghost Walk by Brian Keene (reviewed here)
The Shining by Stephen King (reviewed here)
Bag of Bones by Stephen King
Harbor by John Ajdve Lindqvist (reviewed here)
The Resort by Bentley Little
The Elementals by Michael McDowell
Charnel House by Graham Masterson
The House That Jack Built by Graham Masterson
Hell House by Richard Matheson
Here I Stay by Barbara Michaels
Hell Manor by Lisa Morton (reviewed here)
The Castle of Los Angeles by Lisa Morton (reviewed here)
House of Fallen Trees by Gina Ranalli (reviewed here)
December by Phil Rickman (reviewed here)
The Harrowing by Alexandra Sokoloff (reviewed here)
The Unseen by Alexandra Sokoloff (reviewed here)
The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons
A Winter Haunting by Dan Simmons
Julia by Peter Straub
Ghost Story by Peter Straub
Phantom by Thomas Tessier
Cinema of Shadows by Michael West (reviewed here)
The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde (this has been made into a very enjoyable movie with Patrick Stewart as the ghost)
A Manhattan Ghost Story by T.M. Wright
Cold House by T.M. Wright

Posted on December 12, 2012 by , Reply

Teen Read Week: It Came From The (Classroom) Library! Teen Nicholas Harris on the Unwind Trilogy

What’s the point of Teen Read Week? This is what it’s all about– bringing YA fiction to the forefront in the minds of everyone– librarians, educators, parents, and teens (although not necessarily in that order). Nicholas Harris, an eighth grader at Clark Pleasant Middle School in Greenwood, Indiana, was assigned to read Unwind by Neal Shusterman last year in class, and he agreed to write a review for us of the Unwind Trilogy (two books, so far). Want to see an end to readicide? Bring the right book into the classroom and library and bored teens like Nicholas Harris are hooked.  Thanks, Nicholas!

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Unwind by Neal Shusterman

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2009

ISBN-13: 978-1416912057

Available: Hardcover, paperback and Kindle edition

 

UnWholly by Neal Shusterman

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2012

ISBN-13: 978-1442423664

Available: Hardcover and Kindle edition

 

I read Unwind last year for my 7th grade English class. The book was a trip that you never wanted to end. At first, I thought this book was going to be a bore because most books that you have to read in class are unreadable. After the first chapter though, I was hooked for Unwind. I liked how it switched from between the main characters points of view and it just captured my attention and I couldn’t put the book down. I found it interesting how the parents could choose to “unwind” or have their kid taken apart when they reached thirteen years old if the kid was bad or didn’t act like they wanted him to behave. I finished the book the first week we started reading it.

This year, when I found out that the author was coming to our school to speak and I could buy the second book when he was there, I was overjoyed because I wanted to read the next book so bad. I even was able to get my book signed. It was so popular at my school that they ran out of books and had to go buy more copies at the book store. I rushed home that afternoon and began reading it immediately and finished this one in only two days. UnWholly, the second book was even better! I love the continuation of the storyline and how the kid was made of different “unwind” parts.

I can’t wait for the third book to come out so I can see how the story ends. I think everyone that reads these books will really like them and they are not boring like many of the books that you read in school.

Reviewed by: Nicholas Harris

Posted on October 18, 2012 by , Reply

Integrity in Writing Reviews

Integrity is so important. It is the value of emphasis that the master teacher is reinforcing with my kids in tae kwon do. Truthfulness, along with kindness, are the things that we want them to know we value. And it’s also something we work hard to model, both in our lives and in the kinds of reviews we write and publish.

There are a lot of review sites that will only publish positive reviews. If the reviewer doesn’t like the book he doesn’t write the review. That’s okay, everyone has a different philosophy, but here we think that to serve you the best you ought to know what isn’t worth your time or money as well as what is so astonishing that it’s worth it to pay the extra money. We try to be professional and tell you what we think, but without being nasty. There are librarians who write reviews for us, and people who truly love the genre, and we support them in their views. It’s hard to give out a negative review, especially a respectful one, and I so respect those of our reviewers who are honest when it comes to writing a difficult review (sometimes those reviews pay off in unexpected ways– like a writer revising his book, or a reader who really appreciated the review).

I know there are a lot of fake reviews out there– reviews that rave about how great a book is, or are really negative about one, that are with cynical intent, or even to drive (or decrease) sales. It saddens me that there are so many, because the way most books end up in someone’s hands is when someone they trust recommends the book to them. But with so many fake reviews, who can you trust? If I only bought the books the book critic at the Wall Street Journal recommended I’d end up frustrated because her tastes are different from mine… but at least I can trust her to give her honest opinion. I’d like to be able to trust that the opinions I see in reviews are genuine, too, since they’re more likely to live on the same planet with me.

But even if a review isn’t written with integrity, and the number of these that aren’t is expected to increase, Digital Book World reports that reviewers who are compensated for writing positive (or negative) reviews may be committing a crime. Incentives to write positive paid reviews are expected to increase as companies attempt to increase their market share, but every time someone writes a paid review he or she deprives the rest of us from making an informed choice.

We don’t take compensation here. Although we are sent review copies, anyone who contacts us ought to know that sending us a book doesn’t guarantee them a positive review. But we write honest reviews. You can count on that.

Posted on September 24, 2012 by , Reply
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