[books i've been reading]

The Mist, by Stephen King. Sound so visual you're literally engulfed by its bonechilling terror! Stephen King's sinister imagination and the miracle of 3-D sound transport you to a sleepy all-American town. It's a hot, lazy day, perfect for a cookout, until you see those strange dark clouds. Suddenly a violent storm sweeps across the lake and ends as abruptly and unexpectedly as it had begun. Then comes the mist...creeping slowly, inexorably into town, where it settles and waits, trapping you in the supermarket with dozens of others, cut off from your families and the world. The mist is alive, seething with unearthly sounds and movements. What unleashed this terror? Was it the Arrowhead Project---the top secret government operation that everyone has noticed but no one quite understands? And what happens when the provisions have run out and you're forced to make your escape, edging blindly through the dim light? The Mist has you in it grip, and this masterpiece of 3-D sound engineering surrounds you with horror so real that you'll be grabbing your own arm for reassurance. To one side---and whipping around your chair, a slither of tentacles. Swooping down upon you, a rush grotesque, prehistoric wings. In the impenetrable mist, hearing is seeing---and believing. And what you're about to hear, you'll never forget. (Signet Publishers)

Carrie, by Stephen King. Stephen King's legendary debut, about a teenage outcast and the revenge she enacts on her classmates. Carrie White may have been unfashionable and unpopular, but she had a gift. Carrie could make things move by concentrating on them. A candle would fall. A door would lock. This was her power and her sin. Then, an act of kindness, as spontaneous as the vicious taunts of her classmates, offered Carrie a chance to be a normal and go to her senior prom. But another act--of ferocious cruelty--turned her gift into a weapon of horror and destruction that her classmates would never forget. (Amazon)

[books i've been reading]

From A Buick 8, by Stephen King. "Unlike earlier King works, there is no active threat here; no monster is stalking the heroes of the story, unless you count the characters' own curiosity. In past books, King has terrorized readers with vampires, werewolves, a killer clown, ghosts, and aliens, but this time around, the bogeyman is a more passive, cerebral threat, and one for which they don't make a ready-to-wear Halloween costume--man's fascination with and fear of the unknown. While some readers may find this tale less exciting than the horror master's earlier works, From a Buick 8 is a wonderful example of how much King's plotting skills and literary finesse have matured over his long career. And, most of all, it's a darn creepy book." (Benjamin Reese)

Pet Sematary, by Stephen King. "When the Creeds move into a beautiful old house in rural Maine, it all seems too good to be true: physician father, beautiful wife, charming little daughter, adorable infant son—and now an idyllic home. As a family, they’ve got it all...right down to the friendly car. But the nearby woods hide a blood-chilling truth—more terrifying than death itself—and hideously more powerful. The Creeds are going to learn that sometimes dead is better." (from Amazon)

Cell, by Stephen King. "Cell, the king of horror's homage to zombie films (the book is dedicated in part to George A. Romero) is his goriest, most horrific novel in years, not to mention the most intensely paced. Casting aside his love of elaborate character and town histories and penchant for delayed gratification, King yanks readers off their feet within the first few pages; dragging them into the fray and offering no chance catch their breath until the very last page. In Cell King taps into readers fears of technological warfare and terrorism. Mobile phones deliver the apocalypse to millions of unsuspecting humans by wiping their brains of any humanity, leaving only aggressive and destructive impulses behind. Those without cell phones, like illustrator Clayton Riddell and his small band of "normies," must fight for survival, and their journey to find Clayton's estranged wife and young son rockets the book toward resolution." (from Amazon)

[books i've been reading]

 

Waterloo: the History of Four Days, Three Armies and Three Battles, by Bernard Cornwell. "On June 18, 1815 the armies of France, Britain and Prussia descended upon a quiet valley south of Brussels. In the previous three days, the French army had beaten the Prussians at Ligny and fought the British to a standstill at Quatre-Bras. The Allies were in retreat. The little village north of where they turned to fight the French army was called Waterloo. The blood-soaked battle to which it gave its name would become a landmark in European history." (from Amazon)

The First Total War: Napoleon's Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It, David Bell. "The twentieth century is usually seen as “the century of total war,” but as the historian David Bell argues in this landmark work, the phenomenon actually began much earlier, in the age of Napoleon. Bell takes us from campaigns of “extermination” in the blood-soaked fields of western France to savage street fighting in ruined Spanish cities to central European battlefields where tens of thousands died in a single day. Between 1792 and 1815, Europe plunged into an abyss of destruction, and our modern attitudes toward war were born. Ever since, the dream of perpetual peace and the nightmare of total war have been bound tightly together in the Western world—where “wars of liberation,” such as the one in Iraq, can degenerate into gruesome guerrilla conflict. With a historian’s keen insight and a journalist’s flair for detail, Bell exposes the surprising parallels between Napoleon’s day and our own in a book that is as timely and important as it is unforgettable." (from Amazon)

[books i've been reading]

World War One: A Short History, by Norman Stone. "For readers trepidatious about plowing through a weighty standard World War I history, there is the brief alternative Michael Howard offered in The First World War (2002) and now Stone’s précis. Setting the table for 1914, Stone defines the lineups of the Entente and Central Powers, their underlying conflicts of interest, and their military preparations for a general European war. That done, he paraphrases the strategic thinking of German leaders—better war now than wait for France and Russia to complete their armament programs—that induced them to risk an international explosion in 1914. From the illusions of rapid victory in one campaign, Stone elides to the hopeful successor strategies shattered by trench warfare, rendering his synopses of failed offensives East and West in vernacular language that conveys history’s summary judgments of generals’ performances. A concise anticipator of his audience’s implicit questions, such as what protracted a seemingly futile war, Stone, with distinctive wryness, introduces WWI’s origin, conduct, and consequences with emphasis on essentials." (from Booklist)

World War I Companion, edited by Matthias Strohn. "2014 sees the centenary of the start of World War I, the Great War - the war to end all wars. This four-year conflict saw the major powers of the world commit their forces on an unparalleled scale, principally in the trenches of the Western Front, but also throughout the world from the colonies of Africa to the Chinese city of Tsingtao. This was a period of intense development in military technology, technique, and innovation as the belligerent powers sought to break the deadlock. The rise of airpower, coronation of artillery, and development of the tank as a means of restoring mobility to the battlefield all came about in this period and have had a lasting influence through to the present day. This study consists of separate articles by 13 respected academics focussing on different aspects of the Great War, ranging from the war at sea, through the Gallipoli campaign to the final offensives of 1918 to give a wide-ranging companion to this truly global conflict." (from Amazon)

*the fourth of july*

#summerstorms

Fucking epic.