The Genre Bucket

Like many people I became introduced to author Thomas Harris through the 1991 movie adaptation of his novel The Silence of the Lambs. It's a powerhouse of a movie with a brain searingly memorable and iconic performance from Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Hannibal Lecter. I loved the movie so much that I looked up the author and found out that Lambs was actually a sequel to a prior novel called Red Dragon. Not entirely convinced yet to read the books I tracked down the 2002 film adaptation (there's a 1986 adaptation called Manhunter but it's too hard to find) and sat down to watch. Red Dragon the film was fantastic. Not as amazing as Lambs but it would be hard to even try to be on that film's level. Instead it's better to view the movie as stand alone even if it involves Lecter albeit briefly. Dragon is actually a prequel and follows Will Graham who barely survived his encounter and capture of Lecter being pulled in to help on the capture of another serial killer. This book ...

America was an infant in comparison to Europe's long, dark history that gave rich background to its supernatural and gothic tales. Not to be outdone Washington Irving would become one of America's first great writers and write some of our first supernatural tales of note. Everyone knows Irving for two specific stories Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hallow (1820). Unfortunately, these stories have been anthologized to death which realizing this, Penguin's American Supernatural Tales wisely chose his The Adventure of the German Student (1824) instead. The story of a German exchange student in Paris during the height of the French Revolution who has an encounter with a beautiful woman on a dark and stormy night is a bite sized bit of spookiness. Told by a narrator who seems to know just enough about the young man to pull us into his frame of mind, this is a brief but decently effective spooky story. Any modern reader will probably pick up where the story is going...