lunababymoonchild

There’s an idea!

I’m opening nominations for the subject for the last group read of the year. Nominations?

Further to the scariest thing you’ve ever seen, what is the funniest? For me the funniest man ever would be Billy Connolly, but the funniest thing I think I’ve ever seen was a sketch on a long ago TV show called Not The Nine O’clock News (anybody remember that?). It was a spoof advertisement for a product for deaf people. Rowan Atkinson was playing the deaf person and the product was a headband with a thing coming from the back of it, over the head, with a light on it. The light flashed to indicate that the phone was ringing. I was just young enough at the time to wonder what the punchline was. Atkinson was moving about the room ‘proving that he was deaf’ and then the phone rang. Naturally he couldn’t hear it and then the light flashed. He didn’t see it at first then he did. He picked up the phone and the audience heard the other person talking but Atkinson didn’t. I was completely taken in and laughed long and loud. So, what’s the funniest thing you’ve ever seen?

Daughter of the Otherworld, Shauna Lewis

I've never watched either of those. When Alien came out I saw the trailers and decided against it. I did go to the cinema as a teenager - before video recording and Sky TV - and lied my way into an over 18 film (some zombie apocalypse film which was popular at the time), which scared the livin' daylights out of me so much that I was too scared to get up out of my seat in the dark to go to the toilet. It put me off lying about my age for life!

I’ve just finished reading The Monkey which is 50 pages (in my copy) from Skeleton Crew. Different Seasons contains four very good novellas including the now famous Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption.

Inspired by @France ‘s horror of clowns, what have you seen or read that scared you the most? Mine is, without doubt, the Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Even now, as an adult I cannot watch the parts of the film with him in it. Played by Sir Robert Helpmann at the very end of his career as a classical ballet dancer (well practiced in the art of non-verbal communication, he didn’t need to have lines to speak) he gives me the shivers every time. As a child I had to leave the room, as an adult I turn it over or leave the room. The most horrific thing I ever read was Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Hit far too close to home for me.

Stephen King has some short stories and novellas if you don't want to commit to a long novel right away.

You’re probably right. I’ll give it a go

I was totally smitten the first time I read Faulkner (The Sound and the Fury) in a group read on BGO and have been ever since. Except for The Mansion. I intend to pick it up at a later date and it won’t put be off reading him again. I thought Of Mice and Men was a towering work of brilliance and still do but I’m never going to read it again. I have very much enjoyed everything else I’ve read by Steinbeck, though.

Hello and welcome

I have now finished my scarf and it’s a dog’s breakfast of mistakes so I’m not photographing it let alone posting it, but it is finished. Can’t decide what to do next.

I enjoyed it. I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve read by Steinbeck except for Of Mice and Men which we did at school and positively horrified me because it struck far too close to home (four of my mother’s siblings were mentally and physically disabled). I am a little sad that I had to give up on Faulkner. I don’t mind not understanding him I still manage to enjoy it but this time I just couldn’t get interested. I’ll pick it up at a later date and see how I get on.

Yes, @muggle not I thoroughly enjoyed the Le Guin but had to put the Faulkner down as I wasn’t enjoying it at all. This has me disappointed as I usually do enjoy Faulkner. I might pick up later and see How I get on.

The Strangers in the House, Georges Simenon

I enjoyed that

Throwing Shade, Deborah Wilde This is about a witch who works with a werewolf to rescue her best friend, whom she does not know has magical powers, who has been kidnapped by – they both think – a vampire. The best friend does not know that the witch has magical powers either. There is a lot of supernatural action going on and the author has described a very different approach to how all of these disparate fictional beings relate, or not, to each other. Supernatural beings get killed in the process, the crime gets solved and I found it entertaining. However, it’s not especially well written, in my opinion, for example: “All in all, I looked hot enough to work out at the snooty gym that our firm paid memberships to” What? I refuse to read a book that I’m not enjoying but kept reading this one because overall I enjoyed it but I wouldn’t recommend it and I won’t be pursuing the other books in this series.

Throwing Shade, Deborah Wilde

Saw this on my insta and it made me laugh out loud

I’m loving the heavy rain we are experiencing just now and the sun shining through it so that I can see how heavy it is.

Dreams of Chaos, Shauna Lawless

Very nice indeed. I’ve only just started my scarf so that will take a while, I don’t knit very fast!

I am now knitting a scarf (and still solving Kurosu)

The Mansion (Snopes 3), William Faulkner.

Interesting. I went to a mixed school - and oh boy the boys were annoying! - and we read loads of things. Not Dickens though, that I remember. And none of the Brontes. Did Lord of the Flies, The Power and the Glory, To Kill a Mockingbird, and I was absolutely horrified by Of Mice and Men. Flight of the Heron, about the Jacobite rebellion, Stig of the Dump. The Thirty-nine Steps. Loved that, then read it as an adult and was underwhelmed by it. That’s all that I remember.