Member Blogs > Gothica Books

• HBO's gothic Southern porn: "True Detective" has a "Duck Dynasty" problem – Salon.com

  Wed, 12 Mar 2014 01:53:00 Permalink
  Women were not the only ogled objects in “True Detective.” The bouncing breasts of young ladies, the slut-shaming sex between Maggie and Rust, not to mention the ritualized rapes and abundance of hookers in the series, almost cover up the most compelling, leer-inducing aspect of the show — the impoverished South. via HBO’s gothic Southern […] Read More

• A Lesbian Vampire Classic Gets an Update (GO!) | Public Spectacle | Los Angeles | Los Angeles News and Events | LA Weekly

  Tue, 11 Mar 2014 05:35:36 Permalink
  Long before vampire mythology was reduced to twee Hollywood allegories about tween sexual angst, 19th century gothic writers like Bram Stoker and Sheridan Le Fanu employed it to explore the psychological no man’s land between their era’s forbidden carnal desires and British society’s tyrannical puritan repression. via A Lesbian Vampire Classic Gets an Update (GO!) […] Read More

• An Illustrated Field Guide to Mythic Monsters, from Gremlins to Zombies to the Kraken | Brain Pickings

  Mon, 10 Mar 2014 04:00:29 Permalink
  “Legendary lands … have only one characteristic in common: whether they depend on ancient legends whose origins are lost in the mists of time or whether they are an effect of a modern invention, they have created flows of belief,” Umberto Eco wrote in his illustrated meditation on imaginary places. via An Illustrated Field Guide […] Read More

• EXCLUSIVE: Mignola Welcomes New Writers To "Witchfinder: The Mysteries of Unland" – Comic Book Resources

  Sat, 08 Mar 2014 05:09:45 Permalink
  The world of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy stretches back millennia in story terms, but perhaps the most important figure on the road to the B.P.R.D. is the mysterious Sir Edward Grey. The Victorian occult detective remains a shadowy part of Hellboy’s world thanks to repeated appearances by his ghost in "Hellboy In Hell," but the original […] Read More

• How ruins reveal our deepest fears and desires | Art and design | The Guardian

  Sat, 08 Mar 2014 05:08:12 Permalink
  As an exhibition opens at Tate Britain, Frances Stonor Saunders traces how the aesthetics of decay and dilapidation have been recast by artists to reflect our most profound feelings via How ruins reveal our deepest fears and desires | Art and design | The Guardian. Read More

• Catholic Pro-Life Magazine Compares Me To A Nazi For Supporting Biotechnology

  Sat, 08 Mar 2014 04:08:30 Permalink
  Godwin’s Law ought to be enshrined next to Newton’s Laws or Kepler’s Laws for all posterity. For the uninitiated, Godwin’s Law states, “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.” The concept was devised by Mike Godwin in 1990 and officially codified into law in a […] Read More

• The Grub Street Project

  Thu, 06 Mar 2014 10:45:32 Permalink
  On March 4, 1714, Bernard Lintot published Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock in five cantos. In addition to a title page in red and black, Lintot had accommodated the expense of a frontispiece and a plate for each of the five cantos, along with headpieces, initial letters, and a tailpiece. This was highly […] Read More

• Review: Jeff VanderMeer's 'Annihilation' a mind-bending gothic thriller | Tampa Bay Times

  Thu, 06 Mar 2014 10:41:15 Permalink
  About 50 pages into Jeff VanderMeer’s new novel, Annihilation, I felt the onset of a panic attack. Annihilation is successfully creepy, an old-style gothic horror novel set in a not-too-distant future. The best bits turn your mind inside out. via Review: Jeff VanderMeer’s ‘Annihilation’ a mind-bending gothic thriller | Tampa Bay Times. Read More

• Rape, porn and Cheesy Wotsits » The Spectator

  Thu, 06 Mar 2014 10:39:01 Permalink
  Interesting times at Soho Theatre. One of its outstanding shows of last year, Fleabag, was an offbeat Gothic love story written by and starring Phoebe Waller-Bridge. The director of Fleabag, Vicky Jones, has penned another offbeat Gothic love story. And it stars Waller-Bridge. The action plunges us into the weird, manipulative love life of beautiful […] Read More

• Savannah's Casket Girls have gothic background | Pop Music & Jazz | San Francisco | San Francisco Examiner

  Tue, 04 Mar 2014 11:52:29 Permalink
  Flannery O’Connor could not have imagined a better Southern gothic tale than the origin story of Savannah, Ga., trio The Casket Girls. via Savannah’s Casket Girls have gothic background | Pop Music & Jazz | San Francisco | San Francisco Examiner. Read More

• Her next SoGoth shoe is about to drop

  Tue, 04 Mar 2014 11:50:52 Permalink
  Southern Gothic playwriting in Philadelphia theater has no better friend or practitioner than Jacqueline Goldfinger. Since her arrival in 2008, the Tallahassee, Fla., native – who came here when her cellular biologist husband Larry got a job at Temple University – has displayed a knack for blackly comic eccentricity, decay, and alienation the wretched likes […] Read More

• What Became of the Jewish Books? : The New Yorker

  Tue, 04 Mar 2014 11:44:48 Permalink
  In the recent film “The Monuments Men,” George Clooney and his ensemble play a fictionalized version of a group of allied officers who shot their way through Europe during World War II, rescuing big, beautiful Old Masters’ paintings and sculpture plundered by the Nazis and stored in mines and other hideouts. But what the movie […] Read More

• The Magic of Gabriel García Márquez

  Tue, 04 Mar 2014 08:34:19 Permalink
  Born March 6, 1927, Gabriel García Márquez is one of the 20th century’s leading authors. The earliest living recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, García Márquez is best known for his novels, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), Autumn of the Patriarch (1975), and Love in the Time of Cholera (1985). Carlos Fuentes called García Márquez, […] Read More

• bram stoker – UK Horror Scene

  Tue, 04 Mar 2014 07:25:59 Permalink
  In a post-TWILIGHT world, perhaps there is no better time than now to re-introduce Dracula, as Bram Stoker envisioned him, to the movie-going public. A true Prince of Darkness, his tale should be one of Old World tyranny forged in the flames of war, a noble predator barely able to contain a feral bloodthirst. It should […] Read More

• Stine, Jones Win Horror Writers Association's Lifetime Achievement Award

  Tue, 04 Mar 2014 07:21:21 Permalink
  The Horror Writers Association has chosen Stephen Jones and R. L. Stine as the recipients of its 2014 lifetime achievement award. via Stine, Jones Win Horror Writers Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Read More

• Yvonne Arnaud Theatre presents Bram Stoker's Dracula

  Tue, 04 Mar 2014 07:19:26 Permalink
  Adapted for the stage by John Ginman, five actor-musicians take to the stage as Bram Stoker’s Dracula comes to Guildford’s Yvonne Arnaud Theatre on Monday 31st March and 1st April. via Yvonne Arnaud Theatre presents Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Read More

• Book Collectors and Book Dealers – Fine Books and Collections

  Tue, 04 Mar 2014 02:10:15 Permalink
  It’s a cliché, but it’s true: Things aren’t the same as they used to be. Over the last twenty-five years, we’ve transformed the way that we buy books and build our collections, and most of the familiar bookshops, old and new, have disappeared. There aren’t nearly as many local places to browse and buy books […] Read More

• Gothic tale told in Nevermore – Vernon Morning Star

  Sun, 02 Mar 2014 04:55:10 Permalink
  While Edgar Allan Poe is widely considered to be a literary genius and his works are still read today, the details of his life are shrouded in mystery. “The line between fact and fiction, dreams and reality, life and death has always been blurry in the work of Poe. This was also the case in […] Read More

• The Haunting, Gothic Concept Art of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

  Sun, 02 Mar 2014 04:54:06 Permalink
  Can’t wait for Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2? Here’s some exclusive Castlevania concept art to tide you over. This comes from The Art of Castlevania – Lords of Shadow, published by Titan Books, which is chock full of artwork from the first game and the upcoming second game. via The Haunting, Gothic Concept Art of […] Read More

• Cash's second novel doesn't compare to his Southern gothic debut – San Antonio Express-News

  Sun, 02 Mar 2014 04:52:45 Permalink
  How long does it take to write a novel? “A hack writer can tell,” William Faulkner once said. “’As I Lay Dying’ took six weeks. ‘The Sound and The Fury’ took three years.” via Cash’s second novel doesn’t compare to his Southern gothic debut – San Antonio Express-News. Read More

• New Kate Mosse novel for September | The Bookseller

  Thu, 27 Feb 2014 12:28:30 Permalink
  Orion will publish a new novel from Kate Mosse on 11th September. The Taxidermist’s Daughter is described as “a Gothic psychological thriller” which deals with a series of grisly murders which rock a flood-beset village in West Sussex in 1912. via New Kate Mosse novel for September | The Bookseller. Read More

• Off the Map competition returns for a second year – Gaming News – Digital Spy

  Wed, 26 Feb 2014 12:41:41 Permalink
  The ‘Off the Map’ student competition has returned for a second year. Inspired by vampires, graveyards and Gothic horror, the new competition is a collaboration between Crytek, the British Library and Nottingham Trent University’s annual GameCity festival. via Off the Map competition returns for a second year – Gaming News – Digital Spy. Read More

• The 2013 Bram Stoker Awards Final Ballot | My Bookish Ways

  Tue, 25 Feb 2014 06:22:33 Permalink
  The final ballot for the 2013 Bram Stoker Awards is out! Congrats to all of the nominees! Winners will be announced on May 10th at the World Horror Convention. via The 2013 Bram Stoker Awards Final Ballot | My Bookish Ways. Read More

• Only Lovers Left Alive, film review: Jarmusch's creatures of the night have real bite – Reviews – Films – The Independent

  Sun, 23 Feb 2014 06:29:42 Permalink
  Jim Jarmusch’s wonderfully arch and stylish 21st-century vampire movie owes as much to 1980s indie music and film culture as it does to Bram Stoker. via Only Lovers Left Alive, film review: Jarmusch’s creatures of the night have real bite – Reviews – Films – The Independent. Read More

• Featured Artists: Heimrad Backer, Houston Fine Art Fair, Edgar Allan Poe and Jessica Fellowes | ArtWorks | WHYY

  Sun, 23 Feb 2014 01:26:24 Permalink
  The works of Edgar Allan Poe have frightened and thrilled readers for more than one hundred-fifty years. Terror of the Soul—inspired by the preface to Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque—explores Poe’s poetry, fiction, and literary criticism, with a key thematic emphasis examining his profound influence on later writers. The exhibition will feature nearly one […] Read More

• New clue to Voynich manuscript mystery | Books | theguardian.com

  Thu, 20 Feb 2014 02:47:45 Permalink
  Hoax, gibberish or perhaps even the work of aliens, the Voynich manuscript has been baffling scholars for years. But now a botanist says he has unravelled the mystery of the untranslatable document, claiming that the medieval text is written in a language from central Mexico. via New clue to Voynich manuscript mystery | Books | […] Read More

• Book-It's 'Frankenstein' emphasizes gothic – Queen Anne & Magnolia News – Seattle, WA

  Wed, 19 Feb 2014 09:49:01 Permalink
  Oft portrayed on stage and screen (including multiple stage adaptations during the author’s own lifetime), Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s “Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus” continues to capture audience imagination in its myriad mutations. In spite of its gothic and melodramatic trappings, Shelley’s cautionary tale of the obsessed, young scientist Victor Frankenstein and his monstrous creation poses […] Read More

• Influential Science Fiction Writers Voice Distain For Female Authors on Public Forum

  Wed, 19 Feb 2014 04:44:42 Permalink
  A conversation that has appeared on a SF forum has revealed that prejudice against women writers within the genre’s community is still rife. via Influential Science Fiction Writers Voice Distain For Female Authors on Public Forum. Read More

• Oh Heathcliff! Bronte a finalist for best erotic audiobook : Entertainment

  Wed, 19 Feb 2014 01:31:56 Permalink
  Emily Bronte never came across an audiobook on the windswept Yorkshire moors, but her name is now attached to a nominee in this year’s Audie awards. via Oh Heathcliff! Bronte a finalist for best erotic audiobook : Entertainment. Read More

• The New Gothic anthology ditches romance for fear and gloom

  Tue, 18 Feb 2014 02:53:58 Permalink
  The New Gothic is a collection of unsettling tales, including a story by horror grandmaster Ramsey Campbell, that seeks to regain gothic territory ceded to defanged vampires and bantering demon hunters. via The New Gothic anthology ditches romance for fear and gloom. Read More