Review: Lamp "Creepy Things. Spooky Sounds. Delicious Shivers, You Know?"

Book review: The Lamp from the Warlock's Tomb

The Art of Suspense

by Nathaniel (Jan. 15, 2008)

(Originally published at MadLord Innovations)

Something About the Lewis Chessmen Stalemate

We mentioned the conflict a few weeks ago but now some comments about the push to relocate the Lewis Chessmen from their home in the British Museum to Scotland, the country they were found:

• The Closet Grandmaster
  
• Jeffrey J. Cohen
  
• Derek.Fincham

In addition, someone is using the pallid little dwarves as inspiration for a writing project.

Assembled and Collected

by Jan Halvarson (Jan. 21, 2008)
(Originally published at poppytalk.com)
Note: Halvarson interviews three people about their collections, including Roger Allen and his collection of vintage John Bellairs books.

Like a Tapir in Some Monument

Fresca shared her thoughts about Edward Gorey's guest, it of Doubtful Guest fame. Most of us are probably familiar with the 50-year-old story of the creature that showed up at this house one day and to the best of our knowledge is still lounging around the estate causing problems. Fresca believes Gorey creature’s closest relative is the tapir, the strangely snouted beast seen in Asia and elsewhere:

Time Capsule: January 16, 1968

And tomorrow I will be thirty.

On the Road to Providence

Just as those quirky Bellairsians have their Bellairs Walk in Marshall, so too do they celebrate Lovecraft’s hometown of Providence, Rhode Island.  "A hand-sketched survey of key areas that were important to both H.P. Lovecraft and his stories” was announced recently.

How Sweet A Voynich...Plant?

Centuries after surfacing, the Voynich Manuscript still has its mysteries and people are still trying to make heads or tails out of what it is, what it means, and why someone bothered to create it in the first place. 

The arcane tome has a special place for Bellairsians: Prospero and Roger Bacon must battle a curious grimoire with similar (or identical?) properties in The Face in the Frost and Johnny Dixon also has a run in with a similar manuscript in The Wrath of the Grinning Ghost.

Salisbury Cathedral prepares for 750th anniversary

One of the stories we are watching this year is the 750th anniversary of the Cathedral of Saint Mary, better known simply as Salisbury Cathedral. Longtime fans will recall Bellairs used this iconic church – with its 400-foot tall spire – as inspiration for one of the massive buildings on the Zebulon Windrow estate in New York, as seen in The Revenge of the Wizard’s Ghost. The Salisbury Journal has a story about some of the events happening this year to commemorate the event.

Happy New Year 2008

Here’s a little something we picked up today off the wire: Public Domain Day, the day when a whole year’s worth of copyrights enter the public domain. In countries using the “life plus 70 years” term, works by authors who died in 1937 enter the public domain, including another familiar face, H. P. Lovecraft. 

A few celebrations of note this year:

Review: House "Addictive...I Couldn't Put It Down"

Book review: The House with a Clock in its Walls

Overhanging Second Stories

We found this kinda-sorta review of The Face in the Frost a number of years ago. We wondered about it then and – as we clean out some of the darker corners of our email inbox – we wonder about it again now. We thought maybe you’d like to wonder about it with us. Here goes:

Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown

The Grim Blogger reported earlier this week that a clip for an upcoming H.P. Lovecraft documentary is making the rounds online.

N-QB3: Chessmen on the Move!?

There are efforts to move the famed Lewis Chessmen from their perch in the Europe AD 1000-1540 gallery at the British Museum back to their native Scotland, where they were found in the early 1800s off the Bay of Uig on the Isle of Lewis.

The fight for the pallid dwarves has been long-running but recent activities have brought the story back into the news: 

The Legend of the Poinsettia

A bit of a Christmas story written by Brad Strickland and performed by the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company, Dec. 22 and 23, 2007:

Now, it came to pass in the days when the Wise Men were journeying, yea, even unto Bethlehem, that they came bearing gifts. Balthasar bore unto the babe a gift of gold; and Caspar bore unto the babe a gift of frankincense; and Melchior bore unto the babe a gift of myrrh…and Irving bore unto the babe a gift of a poinsettia.