A Goody Bag for Halloween
Monday October 31, 2016 in halloween |
Halloween picks. It’s good to be back.
This October the perfect read was Thin Air by Michelle Paver. I have been looking forward to this as Paver’s Dark Matter is my favourite supernatural novel from the last few years. Paver is carving her own genre in tales of isolation, fear and possible madness and Thin Air follows a mountain expedition in 1935 where the altitude has a disturbing effect on the tale’s narrator. Highly recommended.
This October the perfect listen was The No Sleep Podcast. Broadcasting since 2011, and now in season 8, I have slowly been working my way back through this and previous seasons. Each episode typically features one or more stories, all read from a first person perspective. Effects and musical background is low key, and so the listener is treated to a traditional approach to storytelling. Think of campside tales, or radio broadcasts before the genre was swamped by film.
Standout stories for me so far are:
Her Last Call written by S.H. Cooper and performed by Jessica McEvoy & Addison Peacock & Nichole Goodnight & Alexis Bristowe. A tale of bullying and featuring a disturbing Lady Gaga ringtone.
YUSDABEE written by Richard Jenkins & Amelia Hammal and performed by Erika Sanderson, concerning a post apocalyptic alternative London. Sanderson is my favourite narrator from the stories I’ve listened to so far.
Video Footage written by A.L. and performed by Alexis Bristowe & Atticus Jackson & Addison Peacock & Nichole Goodnight & Kyle Akers & James Cleveland, a clever narrative take on cinema’s found footage genre. After declaring I wanted no more to do with found footage horror I still lapped up this story.
The particular standout however was Stories for my Daughter written by J.M.Kendrick and performed by Erika Sanderson and David Ault, which is the perfect halloween short story. It is intriguing, chilling and moving.
Tonight I will be listening to The No Sleep Podcast Halloween edition, and reading The Travelling Bag and Other Ghostly Stories by Susan Hill. Happy Halloween.