Party time...

-
These guys and gals know how to party...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What I read in 2025 (and my favourites)

-
Favourite reads of the year Although I completely ran out of reading energy towards the end of the year and switched to serial podcast consumption, I still managed to get through over 200 books in 2026. Here (excluding rereads, of which there were a fair few) are my favourites, followed by the whole list.  Fiction An Echo of Children by Ramsey Campbell -- a hugely readable thriller with all of its author's elegant prose and subtle, suggestive, slowburn menace. Caledonian Road by Andrew O'Hagan -- although it reads at times like someone desperately trying to be Martin Amis circa  The Information , this novel depicts the contemporary scene with knowing omniscience and never ceases to be entertaining.  The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict -- an absolutely fascinating  roman a clef account of the life and dual career of Hollywood icon Hedy Lamarr. She might be responsible for your mobile phone, you know ...  Americanah by Chimimanda Ngozi Adiche -- a ty...
Read more

13 DAYS BY SUNSET BEACH by Ramsey Campbell -- a review

-
THIRTEEN DAYS BY SUNSET BEACH by Ramsey Campbell – a review by Gary Fry   For a long time I’ve felt that a collection of Ramsey Campbell’s short fiction set in countries other than in the UK would make a great book. Remember such tales as ‘The Same in any Language’, ‘All for Sale’, and (more tangentially, perhaps) ‘Seeing the World’? I personally loved every one, and I strongly believe that stories taking place amid alternative cultures and geographical landscapes offer horror an additional layer of unease, of potential alienation. And so it seems unusual that – with the exception of a few chapters in the likes of The Claw and The Count of Eleven , along with a significant chunk of Pact of the Fathers  – none of Campbell’s novels has been set wholly abroad. Until now, of course. All the events of his latest, Thirteen Days by Sunset Beach , take place on a fictional Greek island. The plot is relatively straightforward. Focusing exclusively on the perceptions of an older...
Read more

What I read in 2024

-
  2024 was another remarkable year for reading. Somehow I got through 264 books. Here are my favourites .       Fiction     The Incubations , Ramsey Campbell – another fantastically inventive and labyrinthine experience from one of the finest prose stylists in the business. Unique and memorable.     You Like it Darker , Stephen King – the master’s best book in years; a stirring collection of powerful tales, including one short novel surely coming soon to a cinema near you. He still has it.     Yellowface , R F Kuang – a brilliantly caustic look at contemporary PC culture and the publishing business under the shade of sensitivity reading and cultural appropriation. Blackly comic.     None of T his is True , Lisa Jewell – one of the darkest thrillers I’v e ever read and topped off with a twist so ingenious you’l l have to go back to the start and see if its suggestion bears out. Jewell has always been a fine storyteller...
Read more