Malpertuis


Jean Ray - 1943
    These are familiar ingredients for a Gothic novel, but something far more strange and disconcerting is taking place within the walls of Malpertuis as the relatives gather for the impending death of Uncle Cassave. The techniques of H. P. Lovecraft, when transplanted into the suffocating Catholic context of a Belgium scarred by the inquisition, produce in Jean Ray's masterpiece a story of monumental intensity from which events of startling ferocity break the surface - without ever lessening the suspense of the tale's approaching apocalyptic denouement.

Evernight


Claudia Gray - 2008
    Bianca knows she doesn't fit in. Then she meets Lucas. He's not the "Evernight type" either, and he likes it that way. Lucas ignores the rules, stands up to the snobs, and warns Bianca to be careful—even when it comes to caring about him. "I couldn't stand it if they took it out on you," he tells Bianca, "and eventually they would." But the connection between Bianca and Lucas can't be denied. Bianca will risk anything to be with Lucas, but dark secrets are fated to tear them apart . . . and to make Bianca question everything she's ever believed.

Let the Right One In


John Ajvide Lindqvist - 2004
    The body of a teenage boy is found, emptied of blood, the murder rumored to be part of a ritual killing. Twelve-year-old Oskar is personally hoping that revenge has come at long last—revenge for the bullying he endures at school, day after day.But the murder is not the most important thing on his mind. A new girl has moved in next door—a girl who has never seen a Rubik's Cube before, but who can solve it at once. There is something wrong with her, though, something odd. And she only comes out at night....

The Poor Mouth: A Bad Story about the Hard Life


Flann O'Brien - 1941
    Potatoes constitute the basis of his family's daily fare, and they share both bed and board with the sheep and pigs. A scathing satire on narratives of Gaelic Ireland, this work brought down on the author's head the full wrath of those who saw themselves as the custodians of Irish language and tradition when it was first published in Gaelic in 1941.

The Desert of Love


François Mauriac - 1925
    For Dr. Courrèges, Maria Cross is an opportunity to escape the mundane and experience a life of passion; for his son Raymond, possessing Maria is the final stage of his rite of passage into manhood. Maria herself is one of Mauriac’s most mesmerizing protagonists—mistress to an influential Bordeaux businessman, a mother grieving the death of her only son, and a woman of immense passion and power. Through these three characters, Mauriac crafts a captivating account of human desire, crowned with a subtly brilliant conclusion. In 1926, The Desert of Love was named winner of the Grand Prix du roman de l’Académie française.

The Little Vampire


Angela Sommer-Bodenburg - 1979
    Tony, a nine-year-old horror story addict is delighted when a little vampire called Rudolph lands on his windowsill one evening and, together, the two have a series of hilarious adventures involving visits to Rudolph’s home – The Vampire Family Vault – where Tony narrowly escapes the clutches of Great-Aunt Dorothy.

Don Segundo Sombra


Ricardo Güiraldes - 1926
    Ricardo Guiraldes, a friend of Jorge Luis Borges - they both founded the legendary magazine Proa - managed to develop a simple and modern language, a high quality mixture of literacy and colourful local camp expressions that earned him a major standing among the best representatives of "criollismo."Even though it may be considered as a continuity with Martin Fierro, more than an extinguished gaucho elegy Don Segundo Sombra proposes new ethical examples to a youth that Guiraldes considered disoriented and restless. Basically structured as lessons to be absorbed departing from inexperience, lessons on labour, amusement, morals, camp chores (horse taming, cattle rodeo, raw hide handy work, animal healing, etc.), they become an example of "lo argentino" supported by a very specific and precise lexikon.Our edition includes more than 300 lexicographic notes, conveniently placed at the bottom of the pages and intended to help the modern reader grasp the exact meaning of the text without obtrusive lengthy interruptions. The notes were made after a careful research work that included the critical Martin Fierro editions by Eleuterio F. Tiscornia, Ed. Losada, Buenos Aires, 1941; by Carlos Alberto Leumann, Ed. Angel de Estrada, Buenos Aires, 1945; and by Santiago M. Lugones, Ed. Centurion, Buenos Aires, 1948; their own notes compared between them and with the critical edition by Elida Lois y Angel Nunez, Ed. ALLCA XX (Association Archives de la Litterature Latinoamericaine, des Caraibes et Africaine du XX Siecle), Paris 2001; with Leopoldo Lugones en El payador, Ed. Centurion, Bs. As. 1948 (and Stockcero 2004); Francisco Castro in Vocabulario y frases del Martin Fierro, Ed. Kraft, Bs. As. 1950, and Domingo Bravo en El Quichua en el Martin Fierro y Don Segundo Sombra, Ed. Instituto Amigos del Libro Argentino, Bs. As. 1968; Horacio J. Becco en don Segundo Sombra y su vocabulario, Ed. Ollantay, Bs. As. 1952; Ramon R. Capdevila 1700 refranes, dichos y modismos (region central bonaerense), Ed. Patria, Bs. As. 1955; Emilio Solanet Pelajes Criollos, Ed. Kraft, Bs. As. 1955; and Tito Saubidet Vocabulario y refranero criollo, Ed. Kraft, Bs. As. 1943"

Rosaura a las diez


Marco Denevi - 1955
    When this woman is murdered and Camilo is accused of the homicide, the mystery takes on bizarre proportions. The gradual un­folding of the mystery involves the reader intellectually, but also holds him captive to the special interests of several narrators. And the unravel­ling and ultimate resolution of the mystery permit the reader to be gratified that his efforts at following the narrative carefully have finally been rewarded.

The Haunting of Hill House


Shirley Jackson - 1959
    Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a "haunting"; Theodora, the lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its powers—and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.

Dracula, My Love: The Secret Journals of Mina Harker


Syrie James - 2010
    Struggling to hang on to the deep, pure love she's found within her marriage to her husband, Jonathan, she is inexorably drawn into a secret, passionate affair with a charismatic but dangerous lover. This haunted and haunting creature has awakened feelings and desires within her that she has never before known, which remake her as a woman.Although everyone she knows fears him and is pledged to destroy him, Mina sees a side to him that the others cannot: a tender, romantic side; a man who is deeply in love, and who may not be evil after all. Yet to surrender is surely madness, for to be with him could end her life. It may cost Mina all she holds dear, but to make her choice she must learn everything she can about the remarkable origins and sensuous powers of this man, this exquisite monster, this...Dracula!

Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead


Barbara Comyns - 1954
    It begins mid-flood, ducks swimming in the drawing-room windows, “quacking their approval” as they sail around the room. “What about my rose beds?” demands Grandmother Willoweed. Her son shouts down her ear-trumpet that the garden is submerged, dead animals everywhere, she will be lucky to get a bunch. Then the miller drowns himself . . . then the butcher slits his throat . . . and a series of gruesome deaths plagues the villagers. The newspaper asks, “Who will be smitten by this fatal madness next?” Through it all, Comyns’ unique voice weaves a narrative as wonderful as it is horrible, as beautiful as it is cruel. Originally published in England in 1954, this “overlooked small masterpiece” is a twisted, tragicomic gem.

The Neon Bible


John Kennedy Toole - 1989
    David's voice is perfectly calibrated, disarmingly funny, sad, shrewd, gathering force from page to page with an emotional directness that never lapses into sentimentality. Through it we share his awkward, painful, universally recognizable encounter with first love, we participate in boy evangelist Bobbie Lee Taylor's revival, we meet the pious, bigoted townspeople. From the opening lines of The Neon Bible, David is fully alive, naive yet sharply observant, drawing us into his world through the sure artistry of John Kennedy Toole.John Kennedy Toole, who won a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for his best-selling comic masterpiece A Confederacy of Dunces, wrote The Neon Bible for a literary contest at the age of sixteen. The manuscript languished in a drawer and became the subject of a legal battle among Toole's heirs. It was only in 1989, thirty-five years after it was written and twenty years after Toole's suicide at thirty-one, that this amazingly accomplished and evocative novel was freed for publication.

Mythago Wood


Robert Holdstock - 1984
    Now, after his death, his sons have taken up his work. But what they discover is beyond what they could have expected. For the Wood is a realm where myths gain flesh and blood, tapping primal fears and desires subdued through the millennia. A realm where love and beauty haunt your dreams -- and may drive you insane. Mythago Wood won the World Fantasy Award on its first publication in 1984, and secured Robert Holdstock's reputation as one of the major fantasy writers of our time. Now it returns to print in America for the first time in nearly a decade.

Legion of the Damned


Sven Hassel - 1953
    He is graphic, at times brilliantly so, but never brutal or bitter. He is, too, a first rate storyteller' - Washington PostConvicted of deserting the German army, Sven Hassel is sent to a penal regiment on the Russian Front. He and his comrades are regarded as expendable, cannon fodder in the battle against the implacable Red Army. Outnumbered and outgunned, they fight their way across the frozen steppe...This iconic anti-war novel is a testament to the atrocities suffered by the lone soldier in the fight for survival.Sven Hassel's unflinching narrative is based on his own experiences in the German Army. He began writing his first novel, Legion of the Damned in a prisoner of war camp at the end of World War Two.

Vamps: Deadly Women of the Night


Martin H. GreenbergFritz Leiber - 1987
    Sixteen short stories by Stephen King, William Tenn, Robert Bloch, Fritz Leiber, August Derleth, Richard Matheson, Tanith Lee, and others deal with the nightmarish theme of female vampires.