Eli Bishop (Contributor of Flashed)

Eli Bishop rated a book it was amazing The Searching Dead by Ramsey Campbell	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I've been reading Campbell's books for nearly as long as he's been writing them, and out of the several horror traditions that he's spent the most time on, the Lovecraft-homage stuff has usually been the least interesting to me even though I get why ...more
Jun 23, 2024 12:06PM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Searching Dead by Ramsey Campbell. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Searching Dead by Ramsey Campbell
Eli Bishop rated a book it was amazing The Annotated Peter Pan (The Centennial Edition) (The Annotated Book) by J.M. Barrie	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I wanted this() originally just for the footnotes and back matter, but on looking more closely at the novel I was surprised to realize that I hadn't ever actually read Peter and Wendy* all the way through before, or at least I hadn't paid attention. ...more
Jun 23, 2024 11:42AM · like · see review
Eli Bishop rated a book really liked it Monica by Daniel Clowes	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
It's not as formally inventive as some of his other collage novels like Ice Haven, and it doesn't run on fantasy genre energy like Patience (not counting the ghost-radio bit, and a jarring swerve into horror at the very end); it feels to me more like ...more
Apr 09, 2024 02:19PM · like · see review
Eli Bishop liked Camille vogley-howes 's review of Annihilation (Southern Reach, #1): "Amazing first book. I loved the atmosphere, and I loved seeing area X through the biologist. Her relationship with nature followed me after I finished reading, on walks and hikes and car rides. I personally loved the ambiguity and lack of concrete an" Read more of this review »
Apr 09, 2024 12:38PM · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
Eli Bishop rated a book liked it House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Fantastically interesting in theory, less so in execution. The structural and typographical experimentation didn't really do a lot for me, it seemed kind of arbitrary, although of course there could be layers that went over my head. I thought the cor ...more
Apr 09, 2024 12:34PM · like · see review
Eli Bishop rated a book really liked it Impossible People: A Completely Average Recovery Story by Julia Wertz (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
To save time I'll mostly just agree with what Rob Clough wrote about this very good book, a review that gets why this approach to a recovery memoir (that's also about friendship and New York and other stuff) works so well. The main thing I disagree w ...more
Mar 15, 2024 02:55PM · 1 like · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Impossible People by Julia Wertz. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Impossible People by Julia Wertz
Eli Bishop liked Tony Ellis's review of The Lonely Lands: "I can't say I found this novel to be about grief, as other readers are saying. The characters' emotions are generally buttoned-down, British, and internalised, as you'd expect in a Ramsey Campbell tale. Rather, it's about the struggle to let go when " Read more of this review »
Feb 04, 2024 11:49AM · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Lonely Lands by Ramsey Campbell. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Lonely Lands by Ramsey Campbell
Eli Bishop rated a book it was amazing The Annotated Peter Pan (The Centennial Edition) (The Annotated Book) by J.M. Barrie	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I wanted this() originally just for the footnotes and back matter, but on looking more closely at the novel I was surprised to realize that I hadn't ever actually read Peter and Wendy* all the way through before, or at least I hadn't paid attention. ...more
Jan 29, 2024 08:02PM · like · see review
Eli Bishop rated a book really liked it The Great God Pan (Creation Classics) by Arthur Machen	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I'm not sure what I expected, but The Great God Pan is such an odd mix of things and I definitely haven't seen anything else quite like it from that period. Some of it is very Victorian in structure and attitude, in other ways it seems pretty far ahe ...more
Jan 29, 2024 07:27PM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen
Eli Bishop rated a book really liked it The World We Make (Great Cities, #2) by N.K. Jemisin (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Despite feeling truncated (Jemisin explains in the foreword that she felt unable to follow through on her original trilogy plan because of all the other recent stuff NYC had been going through), this is a pretty satisfying conclusion to the series; I ...more
Jan 29, 2024 07:23PM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The World We Make by N.K. Jemisin. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The World We Make by N.K. Jemisin

Eli Bishop rated a book it was amazing

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I've been reading Campbell's books for nearly as long as he's been writing them, and out of the several horror traditions that he's spent the most time on, the Lovecraft-homage stuff has usually been the least interesting to me even though I get why ...more

Eli Bishop rated a book it was amazing

The Annotated Peter Pan (The Centennial Edition) by J.M. Barrie

The Annotated Peter Pan (The Centennial Edition) (The Annotated Book)
by J.M. Barrie

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I wanted this(*) originally just for the footnotes and back matter, but on looking more closely at the novel I was surprised to realize that I hadn't ever actually read Peter and Wendy all the way through before, or at least I hadn't paid attention. I wanted this(*) originally just for the footnotes and back matter, but on looking more closely at the novel I was surprised to realize that I hadn't ever actually read Peter and Wendy all the way through before, or at least I hadn't paid attention. Barrie's writing is wild and strange and fun and friendly and mysterious and wicked at the same time, a perfect fit for his characterization of Peter; his influence on children's literature in general is obvious but I don't know of anyone else with quite the same slipperiness of narrative voice, where the author can be a wise avuncular presence or a whim-driven child or any combination of those. After the massive success of the play, he could've easily cranked out a more straightforward novelization that just described the same events, but this isn't that. It's the opposite of Disney, not just in terms of being darker, but in its sense that there's no single style for how things look or behave, and no guarantee that the story will be told the same way from one minute to the next, because the whole book is like Neverland itself: a kid's improvisational game, deeply felt but never quite filled in and never stable.

The annotations are solid. Everyone who likes annotated books will have their own favorite type of footnote; personally I'm always more interested in the kind that provides historical/literary context or defines unfamiliar terms (the definitions were a lot more helpful to me than I had expected—I always think I understand Edwardian idioms better than I do, and there are some very funny jokes I wouldn't have gotten on my own), and less interested in the kind that just points out what a passage is getting at thematically, but the latter has its place too and Tatar's read on the book's themes and imagery makes sense to me. The historical/biographical essays before the novel are basically summarizing stuff you could find out elsewhere, but I like the writing and they belong here, and I think Tatar gives exactly the right amount of attention to the uncomfortable aspects of the work and of Barrie's life. The back matter is massive and well chosen; I was surprised at first that it doesn't include The Little White Bird or Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (which it does talk about about a lot), but since those are pretty easily available online, it makes sense to use that space for other rarer things.

(* I wanted it, but I can't take credit for finding out about it in the first place and finally acquiring it; my wife did that, because she's wise and I'm lucky.) ...more

Eli Bishop rated a book really liked it

Monica
by Daniel Clowes

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It's not as formally inventive as some of his other collage novels like Ice Haven, and it doesn't run on fantasy genre energy like Patience (not counting the ghost-radio bit, and a jarring swerve into horror at the very end); it feels to me more like ...more

Eli Bishop liked Camille vogley-howes 's review of Annihilation (Southern Reach, #1):

"Amazing first book. I loved the atmosphere, and I loved seeing area X through the biologist. Her relationship with nature followed me after I finished reading, on walks and hikes and car rides. I personally loved the ambiguity and lack of concrete an" Read more of this review »

Eli Bishop rated a book liked it

House of Leaves
by Mark Z. Danielewski (Goodreads Author)

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1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Fantastically interesting in theory, less so in execution. The structural and typographical experimentation didn't really do a lot for me, it seemed kind of arbitrary, although of course there could be layers that went over my head. I thought the cor ...more

Eli Bishop rated a book really liked it

Impossible People: A Completely Average Recovery Story
by Julia Wertz (Goodreads Author)

Rate this book

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1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

To save time I'll mostly just agree with what Rob Clough wrote about this very good book, a review that gets why this approach to a recovery memoir (that's also about friendship and New York and other stuff) works so well. The main thing I disagree w ...more

Eli Bishop liked Tony Ellis's review of The Lonely Lands:

"I can't say I found this novel to be about grief, as other readers are saying. The characters' emotions are generally buttoned-down, British, and internalised, as you'd expect in a Ramsey Campbell tale. Rather, it's about the struggle to let go when " Read more of this review »

Eli Bishop rated a book it was amazing

The Annotated Peter Pan (The Centennial Edition) (The Annotated Book)
by J.M. Barrie

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

I wanted this(*) originally just for the footnotes and back matter, but on looking more closely at the novel I was surprised to realize that I hadn't ever actually read Peter and Wendy all the way through before, or at least I hadn't paid attention. I wanted this(*) originally just for the footnotes and back matter, but on looking more closely at the novel I was surprised to realize that I hadn't ever actually read Peter and Wendy all the way through before, or at least I hadn't paid attention. Barrie's writing is wild and strange and fun and friendly and mysterious and wicked at the same time, a perfect fit for his characterization of Peter; his influence on children's literature in general is obvious but I don't know of anyone else with quite the same slipperiness of narrative voice, where the author can be a wise avuncular presence or a whim-driven child or any combination of those. After the massive success of the play, he could've easily cranked out a more straightforward novelization that just described the same events, but this isn't that. It's the opposite of Disney, not just in terms of being darker, but in its sense that there's no single style for how things look or behave, and no guarantee that the story will be told the same way from one minute to the next, because the whole book is like Neverland itself: a kid's improvisational game, deeply felt but never quite filled in and never stable.

The annotations are solid. Everyone who likes annotated books will have their own favorite type of footnote; personally I'm always more interested in the kind that provides historical/literary context or defines unfamiliar terms (the definitions were a lot more helpful to me than I had expected—I always think I understand Edwardian idioms better than I do, and there are some very funny jokes I wouldn't have gotten on my own), and less interested in the kind that just points out what a passage is getting at thematically, but the latter has its place too and Tatar's read on the book's themes and imagery makes sense to me. The historical/biographical essays before the novel are basically summarizing stuff you could find out elsewhere, but I like the writing and they belong here, and I think Tatar gives exactly the right amount of attention to the uncomfortable aspects of the work and of Barrie's life. The back matter is massive and well chosen; I was surprised at first that it doesn't include The Little White Bird or Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (which it does talk about about a lot), but since those are pretty easily available online, it makes sense to use that space for other rarer things.

(* I wanted it, but I can't take credit for finding out about it in the first place and finally acquiring it; my wife did that, because she's wise and I'm lucky.) ...more

Eli Bishop rated a book really liked it

The Great God Pan (Creation Classics)
by Arthur Machen

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1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

I'm not sure what I expected, but The Great God Pan is such an odd mix of things and I definitely haven't seen anything else quite like it from that period. Some of it is very Victorian in structure and attitude, in other ways it seems pretty far ahe ...more

Eli Bishop rated a book really liked it

The World We Make (Great Cities, #2)
by N.K. Jemisin (Goodreads Author)

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Despite feeling truncated (Jemisin explains in the foreword that she felt unable to follow through on her original trilogy plan because of all the other recent stuff NYC had been going through), this is a pretty satisfying conclusion to the series; I ...more

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	Flashed: Sudden Stories in Comics and Prose by Josh Neufeld (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Sari Wilson (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Gina Frangello (Goodreads Author) (Contributor) 3.67 avg rating — 45 ratings — published 2016 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Bogus Dead by Jerome Gaynor (Editor), John Connolly (Goodreads Author) (Writer), Leela Corman (Writer) 3.17 avg rating — 29 ratings — published 2002	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Day of the Devourer it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 2017	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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