The Smell of Ink/Lukten av Trykksverte

Recently, I read the horror short story collection 3 Stones for the Nixie - Stories of Life and Death in Øyerstad by Kjell-Vidar Åhman Teig and today I'll post my review of the book. Description from Goodreads 3 Stones for the Nixie is a standalone book set in the same universe as A Battle Against Demons. It’s 1989. Robert Baastad, his family, and friends navigate their seemingly ordinary lives in Øyerstad, a village nestled deep in the forests and cornfields of Indre Østfold. Robert races through the streets on his Apache bike, his little brother Fredrik pedalling furiously behind on his BMX. They are the Hulk and Spider-Man, famous football stars, and the highest-paid actors—whoever they want to be. They fly past the gas station near their house, their grandparents’ home, and across the road, abandoning their bikes as they dash toward the kiosk. It’s Saturday. Scattered houses stand silent across the Haugen fields, framed by golden corn, blue skies, and vibrant green grass. They...

Recently I read the short story collection Ghost Camera by Darcy Coates and today I'll post my review. Description from Goodreads When Jenine finds an abandoned polaroid camera, she playfully snaps a photo without a second thought. But there's something wrong with the image: a ghostly figure stands in the background, watching her. Fixated on her. Moving one step closer with every picture she takes. Desperate, Jenine shares her secret with her best friend, Bree. Together they realize the camera captures unsettling impressions of the dead. But now the ghosts seem to be following the two friends. And with each new photo taken, a terrible danger grows ever clearer… INCLUDES CHILLING NEW BONUS STORIES: *A woman survives a plane crash in a remote arctic tundra, accompanied only by a stranger who seems fixated on something moving through the blinding snow. * A house stands empty. Hungry. Waiting for the children drawn to it like moths to a flame. *A woman finds a shoebox filled with ...

Earlier this year, I read The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe, a short story collection which also contained some of his other stories, and today I'll post my review. Description from Goodreads Introducing Little Clothbound irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. A Penguin Classic Hardcover Arguably America's most influential short story writer, Edgar Allan Poe's tales of suspense never fail to spook and amaze. Gathered in this selection are his very best horror stories, including the gothic tour de force "The Fall of the House of Usher," the other-worldly "The Masque of the Red Death," and the murderous "The Tell-Tale Heart." My Thoughts on the Book As I mentioned, this is a collection of several short stories, which I'll list. -The Masque of the Red Death -The Fall of the House of Usher -The Black Cat -Ligeia ...

Happy Halloween/Samhain everyone. As it is finally Halloween, I figured out I would post a review of the short story collection The Last Séance: Tales of the Supernatural by Agatha Christie, which I read earlier this month. Description from Goodreads From the Queen of Suspense, an all-new collection of her spookiest and most sinister stories, including an Agatha Christie story never before published in the USA, The Wife of Kenite! For lovers of the supernatural and the macabre comes this collection of ghostly and chilling stories from legendary mystery writer Agatha Christie. Fantastic psychic visions, specters looming in the shadows, encounters with deities, a man who switches bodies with a cat—be sure to keep the light on whilst reading these tales. The Last Séance gathers twenty stories, some featuring Christie’s beloved detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, in one haunting compendium that explores all things occult and paranormal, and is an essential omnibus for Christie fans...

As it's soon Halloween, it's only fitting that I review some Halloween-themed books. A good while ago, I read the short story collection Dead Leaves: 9 Tales from the Witching Season by Kealan Patrick Burke and today I'll post my review of the book. Description from Goodreads Two brothers find themselves drawn to the only house in the neighborhood not decorated for Halloween…A man returns to his hometown to bury his overbearing mother, and finds more than memories awaiting him in the shadows of his childhood home…A young girl walks a lonely country road, recalling a rhyme that brings with it memories of death…A teenager hoping for romance gets more than he bargained for when the object of his desire introduces him to the object of hers…An aging millionaire awakes buried in a cheap coffin with only a lamp and a bell for company…The son of a woman accused of being a witch accepts the villagers' peace offering at her funeral, but all is not quite as it seems…A woman with ...

Earlier this month, I read the short story collection This Is Halloween by James A. Moore and today I'll post my review of the book. Description from Goodreads Author James A. Moore offers up ten autumnal tales of the darker things that lurk just around the corner of Indian Summer. A man learns of a town's obsession with scarecrows and tries to find the answers as to why they are so important. Children move through familiar streets and find that Halloween makes everything different. Tis' the season when ghosts are real, witches soar through the night, and things in the Beldam Woods are not always what they seem. Sometimes it's the monsters that wear the masks. My Thoughts on the Book James A. Moore has a writing style that sucks you into the short stories and almost makes you feel like you're tagging along. I especially enjoyed some of his descriptions in the short stories. As with the short stories themselves, there were of course some I liked more than others, su...

Earlier this year, I read Halloween - A Collection of Short Stories by Matt Shaw and today I'll post my review of the book. Description from Goodreads October 31st. Halloween. A group of teenagers meet up in the woods, ready to tell camp-stories to a fellow (new) classmate. By the end of the night, the listening classmate has to decide which of the stories she has heard is "real", as opposed to just made up to try and scare her. The problem is, in this cruel world we live in, the "real" story really could be any of them... Is she prepared for the truth? Halloween is A collection of short stories, tied together with a central storyline. My Thoughts on the Book Halloween was a short and really fun read, especially if you've ever read other books by Matt Shaw (spoiler - the stories told in this book can be found in Shaw's other books). If you like gory, twisted, and dark tales, feel free to pick up this one,

Earlier this month, I read the short story collection Goth by Otsuichi and today I'll post my review of this book. Description from Goodreads Morino is the strangest girl in school - how could she not be, given her obsession with brutal murders? And there are plenty of murders to grow obsessed with, as the town in which she lives is a magnet for serial killers. She and her schoolmate will go to any length to investigate the murders, even putting their own bodies on the line. And they don’t want to stop the killers - Morino and her friend simply want to understand them. My Thoughts on this Book The prose is great in this book and the narrative is engaging, and I do enjoy reading about misfits. It is rather dark, creepy, and at times mentally disturbing though, and that comes from someone who LOVES reading dark and creepy stuff, so be warned if you want to pick it up. It's a good read though.

For those of you who's paid a bit attention to this blog, does perhaps know that I have a world literature project going on. A while ago I read the short story collection At the Bottom of the River by Jamaica Kincaid, who happens to come crom Antigua and Barbuda. Today I'll post my review. Description from Goodreads Jamaica Kincaid's inspired, lyrical short stories Reading Jamaica Kincaid is to plunge, gently, into another way of seeing both the physical world and its elusive inhabitants. Her voice is, by turns, naively whimsical and biblical in its assurance, and it speaks of what is partially remembered partly divined. The memories often concern a childhood in the Caribbean—family, manners, and landscape—as distilled and transformed by Kincaid's special style and vision. Kincaid leads her readers to consider, as if for the first time, the powerful ties between mother and child; the beauty and destructiveness of nature; the gulf between the masculine and the f...

A while ago I read the short story collection Mother's Beloved: Stories From Laos by Outhine Bounyavong, which enabled me to cross off yet another country in my World Literature Project. Today I'll post my review. Description from Goodreads This book presents 14 of Outhine Bounyavong's short stories in English translation alongside the Lao originals, marking his formal debut for an American audience. It is also the first collection of Lao short stories to be published in the English language. Peter Koret's Introduction explores the history of modern Lao literature and considers Outhine's writing within this broader context. My Thoughts on the Book Although I found some of the short stories a wee bit basic and simple, Mother's Beloved was still an entertaining read with glimpses from Laos and for that, it was worth the read.

Last year, I ended up reading the short story collection Bitter Leafing Woman by Karen King-Aribisala and today I'll post my review. Description from Amazon Set in Nigeria, Bitter Leafing Woman relates the experiences of Woman as she chews the bitter leaves of patriarchal oppression in a bid to transform them into gender balanced sweetness. Here Woman becomes a symbol of the oppressed; of women and men alike. The style of writing ranges from plain prose as in The Edi Kai Ikong War, magical realism as in World of the Fat/Thin House, the social satire of The Bone Eater, the densely poetic and symbolic Broken Plate and the biblical imbued style of Bitter Leafing Woman who finding herself drowning in the soup of gender oppression for forty years attempts to murder her Deacon fiancé. In this collection we become involved with serious issues of conflicts, which nevertheless we try to treat with sardonic humour and insight. My Thoughts on the Book It's a well-written short story col...

As I’m having the World Literature Project, I decided to read the short story collection Our Dead World by Liliana Colanzi, who is from Bolivia. Today I’ll post my review.  Description from Goodreads A young woman suffers a mental breakdown because of her repressive and religious mother. A group of children is fascinated by the sudden death of a friend. A drug trafficking couple visits Paris at the same time as a psychopathic cannibal. A mysterious wave travels through a university campus, driving students to suicide. A photographer witnesses a family's surface composure shatter during a portrait session. A worker on Mars sees ghostly animals in the desert and longs for an impossible return to Earth. A plastic surgeon botches an operation and hides on a sugar cane plantation where indigenous slavery is practiced. Horror and the fantastic mark the unstable realism of Our Dead World, in which altered states of consciousness, marginalized peoples, animal bodies, and tensions betw...

I fjor kom jeg over novellesamlinga Døden på Slottsfjellet av Glenn Johansen (redaktør), hvor det bare var krimnoveller. Da samlinga hørtes interessant ut, i tillegg til at den ble utgitt av et lite forlag, endte jeg opp med å kjøpe den. Nå har jeg lest den og i dag kommer omtalen. Beskrivelse fra forlaget Som den eneste av sitt slag blader "Årets krim" noen av Norges beste krimforfattere med nye og spennende krimstemmer i en novellesamling som passer like godt i påsken og i sommerferien, som i de mørke høstkveldene. I årets utgave av "Årets krim" finner du 19 spennende noveller. Tretten historier skrevet av veletablerte forfattere, og seks noveller skrevet av vinnerne i LIV Forlags årlige krimnovellekonkurranse. De fleste novellene i samlingen har aldri tidligere vært publisert. Så lukk vinduene, trekk for gardinene, lås døren og sett deg godt til rette. Gjør deg klar til å møte Varg Veum, Svend Foyn, Lensmann Lund og mange flere i Årets Krim 2014, Døden på Sl...

For en stund tilbake leste jeg novellesamlinga Trist som faen av Ari Behn og i dag kommer omtalen. Beskrivelse fra forlaget 'Fortellinger' har Ari Behn kalt sitt debutarbeid, og det er nettopp fortellerkunsten som står i fokus i boken Trist som faen. I femten fortellinger av varierende lengde greier Ari Behn, med få setninger og korte riss, å gi leseren den skarpt sette situasjonen som kjennetegner en god fortelling. Mine tanker om boka Trist som faen er en stilistisk og velskrevet novellesamling og et gjennomgangstema er folk som prøver å finne sin plass i en ofte komplisert tilværelse. Novellene er lettleste og såpass korte at det tar ikke lang tid å lese gjennom samlinga.

I fjor var jeg såpass heldig at jeg fikk tilsendt et leseeksemplar av novellesamlinga ... som duften av en drøm ... (Kybernetiske fabler) by Bjarne Benjaminsen fra forlaget. Nå har jeg lest boka og i dag kommer omtalen. Beskrivelse fra forlaget Se på fuglene!, pleide far din å si. Den grove fingeren hans pekte på en sjøfugl i ensom majestet, svevende inn fra havet med en sprellende fisk i nebbet … Slik må også du la kroppen bære deg gjennom livet, sa far din. Men når så du sist en levende fugl … i trad.-virkeligheten? Du klipser 3V-brillene på plass foran øynene dine. Hvor verdifulle er sanseinntrykk av tapte naturlandskap? Hvem fortjener å dele ditt nervesystems innerste signaler? Hva kan meditasjon brukes til i den digitale hverdagen? Henger suget i bringen sammen med de elektriske uværene som herjer planeten? Og hva slags stoff er egentlig drømmer vevet av? I disse ti ”kybernetiske fablene” stilles vågale og skremmende spørsmål. Gjennom science fiction og fabelpr...

Last year I was fortunate enough to recieve an ARC of the fantasy short story collection Maiden, Mother, Crone: Fantastical Trans Femmes Edited by Gwen Benaway through Netgalley. I read it shortly afterwards and today I'll post my review. Description from Goodreads Maiden, Mother, and Crone: Fantastical Trans Femmes is a Bedside Press anthology of new fantastical short fiction by trans women and trans feminine writers curated by celebrated poet and author Gwen Benaway. Drawing on high fantasy and other genres of fantasy writing, Maiden, Mother, and Crone is the first anthology by trans femme authors to explore the realms of magic, supernatural beings, and alternate universes. Enter a universe of wonder where trans femmes are powerful heroines, sorceresses, and warriors fighting against dark forces in vivid magical worlds. With celebrated trans femme writers like Kai Cheng Thom, Casey Plett, and Gwen Benaway, and featuring art by Alex Morris, this anthology will transform the l...

Tatt i betraktning at jeg har et "Land i verden"-prosjekt, endte jeg opp med å lese novellesamlinga Anklage av Bandi for å krysse av Nord-Korea og i dag kommer omtalen. Beskrivelse fra forlaget En samling noveller skrevet under pseudonym av en offentlig tjenestemann som lever i Nord-Korea. Forhistorien til Anklage, er nesten like interessant som selve teksten: Bandi, som forfatteren kalles - det er av gode grunner et pseudonym -- lever i Nord-Korea, hvor han har en offentlig stilling med en viss makt, og er en velutdannet mann. Gjennom mange år har han i all hemmelighet skrevet noveller, og nå har han lykkes i å smugle dem ut av landet, med folk som har flyktet til Sør-Korea. Gjennom sju noveller blir vi kjent med ulike deler av dagens, og tidligere tiders, nordkoreansk hverdagsliv. De sju tekstene foregår på svært ulike steder: landsbyer, større provinshovedstader eller Pyongyang, og vi blir kjent med fabrikkarbeidere, partibyråkrater, landbrukere, leger og studente...

Last year I read the short story collection Lust, Caution and Other Stories by Eileen Chang. I haven't published my review until now as I wanted to focus on Asian author this month. Description from Goodreads In 1940s Shanghai, beautiful young Jiazhi spends her days playing mahjong and drinking tea with high-society ladies. But China es occupied by invading Japanese forces, and in wartime things are not always what they seem. Jiazhi's life is a front. A patriotic student radical, her mission is to seduce a poweful employee of the occupying government and lead him to the assassin's bullet.Yet as she waits for him to arrive at their liasion, Jiazhi begins to wonder if she is cut out to be a femme fatake and coldly take Mr Yi to his death. Or is she beginning to fall in love with him? A passionate tale of espionage, deception and love, accompanied here by four further short stories by Eileen Chang. My Thoughts on the Book The short stories are well written, with...

Last year I was fortunate enough to recieve an ARC of the short story anthology Swords, Sorcery, & Self-Rescuing Damsels edited by Lee French and Sarah Craft through Netgalley. I read it shortly afterwards, but I haven't published my review until now. Description from Goodreads THESE LADIES AREN'T WAITING. Twenty bestselling and award-winning authors offer enchanting tales of women and girls forging paths through darkness and peril. Cleverness, curiosity, and determinations make worthy heroines in fantastical new worlds. Featuring stories by: Jody Lynn Nye Katie Cross Robyn Bennis Raven Oak Frog and Esther Jones Dawn Vogel Matt Youngmark Lee French Connie J. Jasperson Jeffrey Cook Katherine Perkins Jeremy Zimmerman Edward J. Knight Elmdea Adams Fulvio Gatti Robert J. McCarter Lou J. Berger Ian Berger Sarah Bartsch My Thoughts on the Book This short story anthology was a fun read, especially if one is in search for women rescuing themselves...

Sent i fjor fikk jeg tilsendt et leseeksemplar av novellesamlinga Kvinnen som ble saget i to av Kari Slaatsveen fra forlaget og i dag kommer omtalen av boka. Beskrivelse fra forlaget En dag slo Otto Knagenhjelm hendene i bakebordet så melskyen sto! Og dro! Otto K er bare en av mange skikkelser vi møter i denne boka. De er alle midt i livet, et liv de prøver å finne seg til rette i, eller bryte opp fra. Her er det oppbrudd og opprørstrang, som utvalgte lesere nok kan kjenne seg igjen i på svært overraskende og tankevekkende måter - for i neste øyeblikk, eller på neste side, forstå at verden også henger sammen på et vis. Tekstene tar leseren med ut i skogen, inn i et kontorlandskap der en regnskapsfører drømmer seg bort i snirklete brosteinsgater i små italienske fjellandsbyer og et lite reisebyrå som har spesialisert seg på gruppereiser for enslige globetrottere, men også til Roar Smebyhaugens bryllup i den vesle kirka på Kapp, en tidlig junidag, der Totenlandet ligger nygrønt ...