At the Library Sale, Christmas 2023

At the Library Sale

Christmas, 2023

I spend Christmas in my hometown in Upstate New York. One of the libraries there has a used book sale timed to coincide with the holidays. So a week ago I stopped in at the library sale, sweating in my overcoat as I crouched and squatted to peer at the shelves, and discovered that someone named 'R. M. Keating' (or someone who knows that person) had donated a collection of Paperbacks from Hell............!

There are some true gems and obscurities here. I mean, I don't think that Will Errickson, over at the 'Too Much Horror Fiction' blog, has some of these on his shelves........?!

I've never heard of 'The Beast'.........nor 'Night of the Wolf'.

Nothing wrong with a vintage Graham Masterton title.......with a stepback cover, of course ! 

According to Errickson, 'Manitou' is '...tasteless and outrageous fun.' Can't go wrong with that endorsement..........!

I'm not all that sure about the Dennis Etchison novel 'Shadow Man', but Errickson judged his short story collection, 'Cutting Edge', as worthwhile.

Errickson regarded Alan Ryan's 'Dead White' as a competent, if not particularly memorable, novel.

'The Dogs' is a novelty......not sure if it will rise to the heights of 'Hell Hound' / 'Baxter' and 'Manstopper'.

Errickson says that 'The Totem' is a 'gripping read', which makes me glad I picked the book up.

Regarding the 1979 anthology 'Shadows 2', Errickson is decidedly lukewarm: mostly filler and mostly too tame and polite to offer any real horror. I can't say I'm surprised, as Charles L. Grant's approach to editing horror fiction was not exactly dynamic and transgressive. And in '79, Splatterpunk was still some years away.

And so, as 2024 arrives, I have a  stack of reading material awaiting me. Some promising titles, some not so promising. But the message is the same: you never know what you might find at the Library Sale...........