News For 2010-09-09

If you couldn't already tell, this is gonna be a weird issue.

It occurs to me that I haven't ranted about what I'm reading lately. After I reread all the Baum Oz books, I read the first two Thompson Oz books for the first time (good, but not great), as well as the fantastic "Oz and Beyond" (which reads almost like a commentary track for Baum's fictional canon).

Clearly this would leave anyone a little burnt out on Oz, so I started reading something that was pretty much the exact OPPOSITE of Oz: a shiny new Barnes & Noble collection dubbed "The Call of Cthulhu and Other Dark Tales" by H.P. Lovecraft. Yep, I'm digging into Lovecraft for the first time.

Ignoring the content for the time being, I'll first note the format: this book is in the "Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading" series, which are very slick paperbacks (good ones, not the little guys) with some scholarly commentary at the beginning of each story. This series is NOT as good as the "Barnes & Noble Classics" collection, however, which features annotations and footnotes as well. This is my first "Library" paperback, though I've already been collecting the "Classics" paperbacks for quite some time. I think I'll continue to stick with the Classics collection for now, as they offer a much greater value - more content at a lower price point with the same print quality.

Anyway, ramblings about Barnes & Noble collections aside, this is the first time I've ever read Lovecraft. Mind you, I'm not ignorant of him. If nothing else, one of me and my friends' favorite board games is "Arkham Horror" (Joe Diamond FTW!). But this is the first time I've ever sat down and read his work. I'm only halfway through the collection (I've only been reading lately in fits and spurts), but I like what I see. Some of it is a bit too dry for my tastes, but when the right atmosphere kicks in, Lovecraft's work is aces. He's certainly not my favorite author ever, but I'm glad to have finally taken a whirlwind tour of his work.

That said, am I the only one that finds the image of a guy plowing his boat into Cthulhu's head absolutely hilarious?