h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

For anyone interested in my entry on Robert Aickman, I would like to offer the chance to read The Coffin House, one of his shortest stories as a taster in an email. I also have the book Dark Entries that I reviewed, to pass on too as I have finished reading it and am close to finishing Compulsory Games by him as well. I am willing to post these second class to anyone in the UK and surface mail elsewhere (too expensive for airmail I believe but I can check again).

Being a fan, I want to promote his work as you do with anything you love. By the way, Wood in the latter named collection, is also the kind of story whose imagery sticks in your mind, long after you have finished reading it. No Time Is Passing is another of his brilliant stories but not in the horror story mould. I believe it is based on a mixture of Greek mythology and a character at the centre who may well be modeled on Gurdjieff, the Armenian mystic.

It suggests Hades, with reference to drinking the waters of Lethe, crossing the Styx and the marshy wastes where the five rivers of the underworld meet but that might just be my interpretation

Before you send the on anywhere, make sure you take a selection of photographs of the book (showing plenty of background as well as the front cover).

I would be tempted but I've got a giant pile of books I've not read yet.

<BB<

My biggest pile of unread books is a pile of books borrowed from my local library. Once I finish reading them, they go back.

I've just now requested "Compulsory games."

I know nothing of Robert Aikman, but I do know something of stacks of unread books. The Japanese even have a word for such stacks, "tsundoku".

They don't stay unread when you have to return them within a little more than a month (assuming one renewal).

Let me know what you think of the ones I mentioned as they are some of Aickman's finest in my opinion. I am just finishing off the last story, Strangers and found Residents Only a mix of humorous and monstrous

So much to read, so little time.

Dont worry BB you have just fixed your retirement recreation

Just discovered that my favourite Aickman story wasn't by him but his collaborator in We Are For The Dark, Elizabeth Jane Howard (3 Miles Up).

I'm about two-thirds of the way through "Compulsory Games." There's a definite dreamlike quality about most of the stories, in that you can try to go back to find something you've seen before, but it's different or not there at all. It's a very, very fine book to read if you want to get in the halloween spirit.

Talking of which, nearly a year later, it is time to get in that spirit again

I'm thinking of just buying a few pumpkins and putting them in front of my house.

Pump kin - isn't that what you do, when you want answers from your cousin?

Yes. \

And there are some cousins who have sworn off my branch of the family, so I won't likely be talking to them, let alone pumping.

I suppose it could also refer to giving your cousin a ride on your handlebars. "Give me a pump", was the vernacular when I was a kid for hitching a ride on a bicycle. I really have no idea why.