House on the Borderland is a book that I have had for some time and thankfully the challenge of reading books for R.I.P. encouraged me to pick this up and enjoy it.
Bram Stoker, Neil Gaiman, and Edgar Allan Poe…three authors whose works I can scarcely go through a few months without reading. In the case of Poe, this time of year always results in the digestion of several of his tales and poems in addition to my Poe shrine that goes up closer to Halloween.
This is my second reading of Neil Gaiman’s haunting young adult book, Coraline, but I have to admit that I enjoyed it much more than the first time. Perhaps it was because my expectations weren’t at a fever pitch like they are whenever a new Neil Gaiman novel comes out or perhaps it was the fact that I was reading the story under a dull gray September sky. I enjoyed it the first time; I reveled in it this time.
Illusion, magic, trickery, sleight of hand….these are at the very heart of film, the phrase “movie magic” is not a misnomer. The Illusionist, Writer-Director Neil Burger’s lastest conjuring, is based in part on Steven Millhauser’s short story “Eisenheim the Illusionist” and plays up this aspect of film-making throughout its almost 2 hour run time. Is anything what it seems?
This is a Friday Favorites that has been on the back burner for some time and since this past week has been almost entirely about books I decided it was the perfect opportunity to combine the art of literature, the art of photography, and the art of the female form into this week’s Friday Favorite.