“Oh, England’s fantastic for this kind of thing,” - Alfred Hitchcock on the 10 Rillington Place murders
Reg and Ethel Christie had lived at 10 Rillington Place, London, since 1938 but strange things had happened in the winter of 1952/53. Nobody had seen Ethel since December and Reg disappeared from the flat altogether in March 1953. When their landlord instructed a workman to clean up the Christies’ kitchen, the workman found what appeared to be human remains behind an alcove. Three womens’ corpses were stuffed in there. And the mystery of Ethel’s absence was soon solved: her corpse was under the front room’s floor. As the manhunt for Reg Christie began, the police would soon unearth more horrors on the property…
It’s the summer of 1920 and Tom Birkin, fresh from the trenches of World War One and slowly acclimating back into civilian life, arrives in the English countryside town of Oxgodby on a commission to uncover/restore a medieval painting on the wall of the local church. And there’s where he meets the one that got away: Mrs Keach, the Reverend’s wife.
Back in 2007/08, I was a regular reader of Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish at The Atlantic and, when I finished his articles, as I often did (I was working a particularly dull desk job at the time that afforded me plenty of time for reading), I’d read other writers’ pieces on the site. Ta-Nehisi Coates was one of these writers and I enjoyed his work much less than I did Sullivan’s - everything was race-related to Coates and, worse, his writing and points were both forgettable and vague.
Because story, Magus - the evil manifestation of the evil-sounding but actually good Adam Warlock’s personality - is somehow free and trolling around… trolling for POWAH! And what says more powah than the Infinity Gauntlet? That’s right, it’s another Jim Starlin comic starring Thanos with Infinity in the title, involving a bad guy after the Infinity Gauntlet and Earth’s Mightiest Heroes out to stop him - it’s time for The Infinity Gauntlet 2 aka The Infinity War.
“May you live in interesting times” - apocryphal “Chinese curse”
A woman begins making rich home-made treats for her office - much to the quiet indignation of her secret co-worker boyfriend, whose culinary tastes run to the more basic side.
A male feminist pushed too far. A couple of friends hook-up, destroying one of the friend’s lives. A closeted man represses his very strange fantasies from everyone - until he doesn’t. A hyper-driven type A personality’s bizarre life goal clashes with his girlfriend’s. An identity-obsessed individual changes the internet. And presiding over all of it is Tony Tulathimutte (hereafter referred to as TT), a writer and potential character/s in the novel Rejection.
In 1949, aspiring New York playwright Helene Hanff saw an advertisement for an antiquarian bookseller in London that shipped books internationally. A fan of obscure and old books, she reached out to them with a list of books she’s looking for, thus beginning a 20 year correspondence between herself and the principal bookseller at Marks and Co, Frank Doel, based at 84 Charing Cross Road.
You know how a lot of people think Superman is a boring character because he’s overpowered - nothing really hurts him besides the green rock and he can do whatever, whenever, however, effortlessly. Because he’s Superman. But it’s too much and makes it really hard to get people invested in a character so wildly unrelatable. Now imagine the entire cast of a series were ALL Superman. That’s The Power Fantasy.
The Turtles are broken up and scattered across the world: Donnie is enslaved and forced to fight cage matches against mutant-haters; Mikey’s starring in a hit Japanese TV show about his life; Raph’s in prison; Leo’s in India, meditating with non-mutant flesh-eating turtles. Meanwhile in New York City, a brutal new mayoral candidate seeks to consolidate his populist anti-mutant platform with the help of the Foot Clan.
The Daughters of America finals boxing tournament in Reno takes place over a couple of days where female teenage fighters gather to see who’s the best boxer in their class.
Political blogger Christopher Swann attends a conservative conference, uncovers secrets and gets killed - but whodunit? The answer lies somehow in an obscure 1980s novel called My Innocence, the last book by conservative writer Peter Cockerill - or more precisely, an early proof copy of that book…
Literary widow Anna Williams-Bonner decides to write her own bestseller, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s just that easy to write an acclaimed commercial novel, even when you’ve never written a word of fiction in your life, and soon she’s as famous and wealthy as her late husband! But oh no someone knows her secret - what’s she gonna dooo…
This short story collection was originally entitled You Know You Want This but quickly got changed to Cat Person and Other Stories because Cat Person became a hit online, got optioned and then made into a movie, and is by far the best story in this collection. It’d be amazing if the other 11 stories were even half as good as Cat Person but, alas, there’s only one other good story here - Look At Your Game Girl - and a middling one - The Mirror, The Bucket, and The Old Thigh Bone. The rest is cat litter.
Back in the ‘80s, Lester’s drunken slob mother hooked up with Norse God Odin and produced Lester. Now he’s fat, ungainfully employed and in his 30s - and it’s the apocalypse for no reason. So Lester decides to prove his worthiness to his deadbeat dad. Hold onto your sides - this one’s going for big yuks!
