"Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light."

My spirit animal.

Like Bookwomble, I often forget to wear trousers when I go out, but I never forget to take my book! ☺️

Algernon Blackwood never disappoints: TheTarn of Sacrifice is a story of reincarnation set in the Lake District just after WWI. Veteran, John Holt, seeks the balm of nature to soothe the horrors of war, Blackwood making trenchant comments about the political hypocrisy of that conflict. Hearing the legend of Blood Tarn, Holt discovers his immemorial connection to both the myth & the strange man & his bewitching daughter who live at the tarn's side.

#TuesdayTunes @TieDyeDude
"The festival was over, the boys were all plannin' for a fall
The cabaret was quiet except for the drillin' in the wall
The curfew had been lifted and the gamblin' wheel shut down
Anyone with any sense had already left town
He was standin' in the doorway lookin' like the Jack of Hearts" ?♥️?

The introduction to H. R. Wakefield's 1940 story, "The First Sheaf" says it's an early example of the folk horror genre, and there are definite vibes of the films The Wicker Man and Hot Fuzz (without the humour), set in an isolated farming community in darkest Essex.
Told as a reminiscence of a childhood incident, the feeling of oppressive threat is well handled.

"I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—'La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!'

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gapèd wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill's side."

These are two of my favourite verses from Keats's "La Belle Dame Sans Merci", and this AI image creation based on them gave me a shiver! ?

"O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel‘s granary is full,
And the harvest‘s done."

The third story, "The Spirit of Stonehenge" by Jasper John (pseudonym of Rosalie Muspratt), covers a little of the terrain traversed by Benson in the previous story, though not as skillfully. It's still an interesting tale, atmospheric but no physical shivers with this one. John didn't build up the tension quite so well, but I'm happy to give it 3½ ?for locale and mention of occult histories ?
I should, perhaps, mention a CW for suicide in both.

The first story is an extract from a novella, "Ringstones", by Sarban, which is really just a taster to set the scene for the rest of the stories, but it has piqued my interest to track down the complete tale.
The second is by the magnificent E. F. Benson, "The Temple", set in a rainy July (so exactly fitting my reading circumstances!) and it gave me gooseflesh more than once!
The narrator and Frank take a too-cheap-to-be-true holiday let in an ⬇️

I read this article and (despite shade thrown on JRRT) thought Burnside's love of Peake's "Gormenghast" and Powys's "A Glastonbury Romance" made him my "spirit animal". I was saddened, then, to see that he died earlier this year ?

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/feb/02/john-burnside-my-stoner-friends-we...

#BookmarkMatching ?
Hmm, I don't have many megalithic/Neolithic themed bookmarks as the sites tend to be in isolated muddy fields without tourist gift shops (obviously a good/bad situation), but I'm pleased to have the ones I've got. La Hougue Bie is a fantastic "passage tomb" on Jersey, the others speak for themselves ?
I've decided to use the Stonehenge one for this book - I mean, it's the Guvnor isn't it?! ?

I bought this in Kendall on May Day 2024 following a visit to Castlerigg Stone Circle: a collection of weird stories featuring British ancient monuments. Probably should read it at a solstice or equinox, but never mind: I'll consider it an early samhain read!

Kawabata's novel is a fictionalisation of the real life final tournament of Go master, Hon'inbō Shūsai (photo), which he covered for a newspaper.
Knowing the game would undoubtedly enhance the experience, but it's not necessary (luckily!) as the novel is actually about the characters of the Old Master and the Young Pretender, and how they respond to the stress of a historic match that will define the future of a cultural institution.⬇️

"Shūsai, Master of Go, twenty-first in the Honimbō succession, died in Atami, at the Urokaya Inn, on the morning of January 18, 1940."

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

"The sea shone with a light so dull that one could not guess its source. The colour, at the edge of darkness, was of winter."

Teenage Elvira has an unhealthy obsession with her widowed father, a penchant for gothic literature, an indifference to her younger sister's night-fears of ghostly cats and whispering witches, disdain for everybody else, an eating disorder, and darkening fantasies about dispatching her father's new girlfriend.
Elvira's an unreliable first-person narrator, and gradually Rendell peels away the layers of delusion to reveal... 🖤
CWs in comments.

This was a quick read, being a booklet to accompany an exhibition at the Yorkshire Museum, York, about the Mesolithic settlement at Star Carr near Scarborough. It's aimed at the general reader, so no references or footnotes, but it's written by one of the archeologists working at the site & an acknowledged expert, so trustworthy. Lots of images of artefacts, and it's a signed copy, I find 😊 The exhibition is on until 2026, if you're in the area.

#ClassicLSFBC
I enjoyed these stories more than I recalled, so an upgrade to 5⭐ for me.
The last couple of stories deal with the political and economic consequences of robotic contributions to human culture and governance, with the rise of a fundamentalist Pro-Human faction being harnessed to electoral manipulation and (kind of) culture wars that sparked with contemporary relevance.
I may read "The Rest of the Robots" before the year's end.

#TuesdayTunes @TieDyeDude
So many catchy tunes on this album, but "Hard to Beat" is kinda that!
https://youtu.be/ch6qy0qdifc?si=dZA9Wcu5eeSRqbvg

#ClassicLSFBC
Little Lost Robot: The more advanced the positronic robots get, the more human their flaws seem. The basic idea of this one - a fugitive robot blending indistinguishably into a group of identical models - was used in the film adaptation, and as great a scene as it was, the story is more than a game of cat and mouse. There seems to be a developing Frankenstein theme, with Shelly's ambiguity about which character is the monster.

#ClassicLSFBC
Liar!: Asimov gives the solution to this problem fairly readily, but it's still a blackly humorous story of human vanity, pride & vindictiveness.
Susan Calvin tells an episode from her younger days, & certainly not to her own credit: Through some imponderable glitch on the production line, Herbie (RB-34) is telepathic & the department heads of US Robotics & Mechanical Men need to find out how that happened as a matter of urgency!⬇️

I've had this a little while on my wishlist, but had only seen the hardback and wanted the paperback, which I found today, and with the (admittedly-largely-unnecessary-due-to-lack-of-impulse-control) prompt of @AnneCecilie 's recent intriguing posts, I acquired it, along with these charming vinyl stickers, the cat one being for my niece, the other being for myself, though I'm not sure where to stick it (suggestions not required!).

#ClassicLSFBC
Catch That Rabbit: DV-5 is a swarm-bot, it's primary designation unit, Dave, controlling six robotic "fingers". Dave performs impeccably under human supervision, but left unsupervised doesn't fulfil its function of asteroid ore extraction, low quotas imperiling company profitably, and P&D's employment prospects if they don't solve the problem!
⬇️

#ClassicLSFBC
Powell and Donovan are roboticist troubleshooters, ironing out kinks in new robot designs before they go to market.
Cutie (QT-I) has the most advanced positronic brain yet. Assembled by P&D on Solar Station No. 5 with no direct experience of earth, Cutie rejects the notion that humans, being inferior sapient forms, could possibly have created it and given it purpose. Can Powell's philosophical arguments about the limitations of ⬇️

Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics 🤖

The First Law: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

The Second Law: A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

The Third Law: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

#ClassicLSFBC

#ClassicLSFBC
Coming up with the Three Laws of Robotics was inspired, but Asimov's genius was taking something another writer would have been rightly proud of and testing it to destruction.
"Runaround" introduces the Three Laws and takes the robot stories off Earth to a frontier mining facility in the hazardous heat-wastes of Mercury, where Speedy (S.P.D. 13) the robot's erratic behaviour seems due to intoxication! Unfortunately, this ⬇️

Robbie: Asimov's stories are set within a frame focusing on 75 year-old roboticist Susan Calvin, who charts the development of positronic robots from their simpler forms, starting with Robbie, a childminder for Grace.
Grace's focus on Robbie worries her mum in the same way that today's parents worry about excessive screen time and lack of socialisation. The first AI talking robot in the story is as clunky as those from a few years ago. Visionary!

I'm starting these SF short stories about robots (and realising I'm introducing the book as if it isn't one of the most popular books by one of the most popular authors with an extremely popular film adaptation! 🤖) for this month's #ClassicLSFBC read.
I've read it several times before and love it, so I'm expecting that “comfortable slippers“ feeling. 😌
I've always thought the cover image has a look of Asimov, but not sure if that's intended.

Set against the lead up to the Cuban Missile Crisis, Desnoes's MC is a petite bourgeois whose furniture shop was nationalised during the revolution, who lives off his compensatory income, and who by turns supports and hates the social changes with a mix of disdain, arrogance, timidity and self-loathing. He's also misogynistic, sexually objectifies women and is completely self-centred. Desnoes is certainly making a socio-political comment, ⬇️

#NYTBest100
😂
I'm unreasonably pleased at my lack of interest in contemporary literature!

"Parquear la tiñosa: park the buzzard; leave an unsolved problem in someone else's hands."

I like this Cuban saying, and will be looking for an opportunity to tell somebody they can't park their buzzard with me! ??

"At the moment the U.S. embargo is effectively cutting off communication with Cuba."
- Introduction by Jack Gelba (March 1967)

"All those who loved me and kept bothering me right up to the last minute have left now."
- Edmundo Desnoes

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

"I'm all screwed up because I've looked into things more than is good for my own health; don't know why the hell I read so much. That's why I'm here all paralysed." ???

#TuesdayTunes @TieDyeDude
I found Big Star thanks to This Mortal Coil's covers of their songs "Holocaust" and"Kangaroo, and references to band member Chris Bell by Richard Ashcroft of The Verve.
Their album "#1 Record" is a great mix of pop-rock and ballads, and I'll link to one of the rockier tracks, "In the Street", but 'The Ballad of El Goodo", and "Thirteen" are great, too.

I haven't read a Cuban author yet, so though I'd remedy that with this recent acquisition #Cuba 🇨🇺
Written in 1967 and set at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the blurb on this 1971 edition says it's written in the form of the diary of a Havana businessman trying (and apparently failing) to come to terms with the political turmoil of his times.
Pretty short - 128 pages - sounds good🤞

All the stories have a suitable Holmesian atmosphere, the first two of the twelve being somewhat ridiculous, but then they tend to get better with each one. There's a degree of trope-dumping to be expected of a pastiche, and some recycling/redressing of plots, but Doyle Snr. did that himself.
No telling of the Giant Rat of Sumatra case, the most evocative title for me of all the Untold Tales, but otherwise a pretty strong offering. 4🔎
👇

The 1997 Code of Honor miniseries by Chuck Dixon follows Jeff Piper, a NYPD beat cop trying to keep his integrity on Marvel's dirty streets of the '70s & '80s, and feeling that he's failing his badge, his parents, his wife and children. Superheroes and supervillains are prominent in walk-on/walk-off parts, but the story focuses on Jeff's struggles to be a human hero when gods walk, fly and swing through the streets. 3.5⭐

#SundayFunday @BookmarkTavern
This is one of my favourite books: What could be better than ghosts and pirates? Ghost Pirates! 👻☠️
Actually, as it was written in 1909, it's quite slow and tame by today's standards, but if you don't mind horror that is more suggestive and atmospheric than graphic, and which gradually builds, you might find this ok ☺️

Beautifully sad poems revealing EBB's sorrow & resignation to a life of loneliness, her disbelief at becoming the object of RB's ardent love, her low self-esteem & feelings of unworthiness, gradually, and only partially, transformed by hope & constancy of affection.
I don't know enough about their lives, but from the little I do, it seems Elizabeth and Robert did find happiness together, and I hope she came to feel herself worthy of being loved ❤️

"Let the world's sharpness like a clasping knife
Shut in upon itself and do no harm
In this close hand of Love, now soft and warm,
And let us hear no sound of human strife
After the click of the shutting."
?️???

- Sonnet XXIV

This was definitely an indulgence buy! A 1962 Folio edition of "Sonnets from the Portuguese". I already have a nice old copy, but this was soooo prettyyyyy! ? I can't take a photo that does justice to the beautiful cloth covering. The gold-coloured slip case is a little battered, but aren't we all from that vintage?
I have a couple of books on order, but otherwise I *must* make a real effort to pause buying books!
#Folio

#BookHaul Mainly #OldPenguins with a couple of #OldPelicans ?

Top row, two Japanese novels and one Cuban. ??????
Bottom row, anti-capitalist feminism: a 1968 manifesto giving a "socialist alternative to Labour government policies" which should be interesting given our recent election result, and; a set of Arendt essays, including "Lying in Politics", which couldn't be more relevant!

#BookHaul
Out of this newly-arrived, as yet unshelved stack of #OldPenguins 🐧 at the bookshop, I liberated six!
@Leftcoastzen My attempt to reduce my book-buying rate is going as well as yours! 📚🤪📚

"I find recorded in my notebook that it was on the afternoon of Wednesday, the 16th of November, 1887, when the attention of my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes was first drawn to the singular affair of the man who hated clocks."

- The Adventure of the Seven Clocks

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

📔 The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes? ✅ Check!
🔖 Sherlock Holmes bookmark? ✅ Check!
🧦 Sherlock Holmes socks? ✅ Check!
🔎 The game's afoot! 😁

Having read the full Canon last year, I'd decided I would read my TBR Holmes pastiche books, and as we're halfway through the year it's time I got started!
This one is almost canonical as it was co/written by Doyle Jr. (some dispute between him and Carr as to who wrote what).

Having snorted derisively earlier this month at a quiz giving 4+ books per month as its highest category, I find my tally for June is actually pretty slim when accounting for the Gorey's taking 5 minutes each to read (but, admittedly, 5 glorious minutes). I liked all these books in their own ways, but I'm probably most gratified at finally having read the Asimov I bought 44 years ago 👴
⬇️

I let out a little Marxist squeal when I saw this on the charity table at the supermarket. Who the hell else in my sadly staunch Tory stronghold of a village is reading Freire?!
I'm all the more encouraged to read it because of a one-star GR review that begins, "This book is Marxist indoctrination of poor people dressed up as a revolutionary education theory," which they've shelved as "Not to be read". Sounds right up my street! ✊?

#TuesdayTunes @TieDyeDude
This was one of my favourite '80s albums (1984), the only LP by Swans Way which spawned one Top 20 single, "Soul Train", so a definitive one-hit wonder, but brilliantly so. Mixing jazz, orchestral and baroque pop, it's Ultra Cool! Reconnecting with it over the past week I think it still really stands up as a great record. Definitely back on my play rotation.
You Tube album link in comments ?

"The place I am in seems real, but the places I passed through to get here are the surroundings of a dream."

- Over the Bridge, by Tom Hopkinson

Illustration by Douglas Percy Bliss

"After they married they both stuck close to the land. They seemed to fit into their farm life as certain people fit into the clothes they wear. I have noticed something about people who make a go of marriage. They grow more and more alike. They even grow to look alike."

'The Corn Planting', by Sherwood Anderson ?‍??‍??