If you’re like me, you might enjoy reading spooky stories all year round. If you only like to read them along with horror and supernatural ones during the Halloween season, we’ve found resources for you. Halloween reading is alive and well (yes, we said it). We found a Paste article listing the best 50 horror novels of all time, a fun Halloween book club you can join from a multitude of online places, and an intriguing novel we weren’t familiar with but will be ordering ASAP. If we love nothing at all, we do live for a good fairy tale! Have you lain awake at night wondering what the 50 best horror novels of all time are? No? Well neither have we, however, we were curious since it is October. Paste made a list in 2018 written by Steve Foxe and their staff and it’s pretty comprehensive. Yes, you can…
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I couldTo where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair,And having perhaps the better claim,Because it was grassy and wanted wear;Though as for that the passing thereHad worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally layIn leaves no step had trodden black.Oh, I kept the first for another day!Yet knowing how way leads on to way,I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere ages and ages hence:Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference. Robert Frost in 1943. (Eric Schaal/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images) Cover photo credit: Jennifer Graham
OCTOBER is finally here!!! Our most favorite time of the year. Featured below is Disney’s “The Skeleton Dance”. Makes us think of the season every year! We’ll be posting the following all month long: HalloweenStyle ideasParty ideasRecipesCocktailsEventsShopping We’ll mix Halloween content in with other stories all month long as we celebrate the most wonderful 31 days of the year. Happy Haunting and enjoy Disney’s 1929 “The Skeleton Dance”. https://youtu.be/vOGhAV-84iI
Ever been puzzled why the words fall and autumn are exchanged at times during this wondrous season of the year? It’s my favorite with cooler days/nights, firepits, football, pumpkin pies, and comfy clothes. I really live for it. I get regular email newsletters from one of my favorite online magazines: AtlasObscura.com, and they published this piece by Dan Nosowitz again today. He wrote it in November 2017, but of course, nothing’s changed as far as the roots and meanings of these two words. So, let’s read Dan’s own words so the next time this pops up we’ll know! This post contains affiliate links. If you click a link and make a purchase, Poe in Wonderland will earn a small commission for the referral at no cost to you. Usage of the word “fall” first appeared in England in the mid-16th century; “autumn” pre-dates it to sometime in the late 14th…
This post may contain affiliate links and we may earn compensation when you click on the links at no additional cost to you. Where do you find your latest books these days? I’ve been discovering and ordering ones that cross my Instagram feed from book reviewers. I enjoy their breakdowns and honest opinions of what’s on their To Be Read (TBR) lists. It’s been my main source since the continuing state of the world has drastically cut down on my trips to bookstores. I dart into Barnes and Noble and used stores if not crowded. In and out. I decided I’d Google top books of 2020 to see what’s new. After scrolling through title lists, I’ve picked 5 out to tell you about today from some key categories. The source I used was FiveBooks.com which is a site where experts and authors make recommendations on what they consider the top…
The teens and I have spent the summer, and now early fall, watching horror movies. We do our research and been lucky so far in picking decent, if not great ones. We’re only asking for entertainment and jump scares “Ready or Not” is a 2019 movie that we didn’t read up on. We’d heard it was fairly good so we took our chances and watched it last night. It is a fast-paced movie that plays into a lot of horror movie tropes, villains are mostly moronic, and you know what the ending is likely to be. All of this said we liked it. It did its job and provided 90 minutes of macabre fun. Its main saving grace is the lead character played by Samara Weaving, an Australian actress and the niece of the great Hugo Weaving. Hugo is well known for the “Matrix” and “Lord of the Rings” trilogies.…
The Night of the Hunter is a 1955 black and white classic that wasn’t as lauded when it originally debuted. The premise is a tough one today let alone in 1955. Based on the novel written by Davis Grubbs, it tells the story of an itinerant preacher, the Reverend Harry Powell, turned serial killer who tries to charm a widow out of $10,000 left to her by her executed husband. Her husband robbed a bank, hid the money, told the secret location to his children, and was later hanged for his crime. He shared a jail cell with Powell who gets released and then pursues his prey, mainly the children. The “preacher” is based on a real-life serial killer by the name of Harry Powers who in reality committed far more heinous crimes. Executed in 1932, he was one of the first men in U.S. history to truly be labeled…
One of my favorite poets is Emily Dickinson. She was born on December 10, 1830, in Amherst Massachusetts. She wrote 1,800 poems in her lifetime that we know of for certain. I vividly remember sitting in class as a junior in high school and having to analyze her poem “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” and it made a lasting impact on me. For a woman who lived in only one place, and had little outside social discourse later in life, she had an extraordinary grasp on the natural and spiritual worlds. We can only piece together what we’ve found for certain to know what her life was like. A fascinating character who lived and died within the 19th century and whose poetry made intangible things into the tangible. Who was influenced by Wordsworth and Emerson yet wrote in her own unique voice. Photo Credit: Britannica.com Because I could…
Ever experience the phenomenon where a movie or tv show gets savaged by critics and Youtubers, but you really like it? Where reviewers pick apart plots, performances, timelines, and well really everything about a show? That would give you “Space Force” co-created by Greg Daniels and Steve Carrell who brought us the American version of “The Office”. We thought it was hysterical. Of course, I laugh at Carrell’s expression on award shows. He can be subtle and say so much with a look. In “Space Force” he finds himself in the middle of ridiculous situations and has to play them off like they can be saved. He’s the cheerleading captain for a team which constantly crashes into themselves or the ground yet keep trying. https://youtu.be/l4mY2asIjWk The amount of talent in the cast is amazing: Steve Carrell, Lisa Kudrow, John Malkovich, Jimmy O. Yang, Fred Willard, and more. It’s funny to…
Robert Frost wrote a poem “Mending Wall” in 1914 as part of an anthology of poems, North of Boston. I recently wrote about a public art organization in Richmond called Mending Walls RVA. Mending Walls’ mission is to bring together artists from different cultures and backgrounds to create murals to inspire healing and connection within communities. I discovered them through their collaboration with the Poe Museum. Their name was inspired by the Frost poem about two neighbors who meet every year in a pastoral setting to repair the wall between their properties. Mending Walls RVA takes inspiration in the narrator of the poem posing the question of what life could be like if we did tear down walls between us. This is a simplified statement of what these words mean to them, and I would encourage you to visit their site to learn more about how they interpret the words…