Two of my favorite short story collections would have to be Clive Barkers Book of Blood Volume One and Shirley Jackson’s Lottery and other stories.
Let me first explain Book of Blood Volume One. The list of the titles of each short story is Book of Blood, Midnight Meat Train, The Yattering and Jack, Pig Blood Blues, Sex, Death and Starshine, and In the Hills, the Cities. This is a horror collection, to clarify anyone who doesn’t know the author Clive Barker. The Yattering and Jack can be seen on Tales from the Darkside, Midnight Meat Train is a movie with Bradley Cooper and Brooke Shields, and Book of Blood is a movie with Jonas Armstrong. The story I want to explain is the first one Book of Blood because this story is what starts the whole series. It’s about a psychic researcher who employs a fake medium named Simon Mcneal to investigate at haunted house. Alone upstairs, Simon fakes a vision, but to his dismay, ghosts actually come and attack him. They write their stories in his flesh hence the starting of the book of blood. Now the reason why I love this collection of stories is because it’s probably the craziest horror stories I’ve ever read. I’m a huge fan of Clive Barker’s movies and then decided to read his books. So after going to a thrift shop I stumbled across this book, so I bought it. I also bought the movie to Book of Blood and watched the Yattering and Jack like a millions times. So if you loved Hellraiser and Nightbreed and you never read a Clive Barker book start with his collections of shorts and you would love it.
The next collection I want to talk about is Lottery and other stories. If you loved Shirley Jackson this is a must have for any fan. The titles are Intoxicated, The Daemon Lover, Like Mother Used to Make, Trail by Combat, The Villager, My Life with R.H. Macy, The Witch, The Renegade, After You, My Dear Alphonse, Charles, Afternoon in Linen, Flower Garden, Dorothy and My Grandfather and the Sailors, Colloquy, Elizabeth, A Fine Old Firm, The Dummy, Seven Types of Ambiguity, Come Dance with Me in Ireland, Of Course, Pillar of Salt, Men with Their Big Shoes, The Tooth, Got a Letter from Jimmy and last but not least the terrifying Lottery. With all these I have to explain at least two of them which are my favorite, The Lottery and Charles. The Lottery is a pretty famous story, and pretty freaky. Starting with a town where they do an annul ritual known as “the lottery” it’s around June 27th when this happens. Adults in the town have to pick and who ever draws a slip with a black spot then that means that their family is chosen. Well Bill Hutchinson is picked, so that means that each family member has to pick to see who gets stoned to death. Tessie, Bills wife gets chosen. So while being stoned to death she protests about the lottery and how it wasn’t fair. The townspeople do this because it’s a local tradition to ensure a good harvest. I actually felt sick to my stomach when I read it but enjoyed it. All the stories in here each have something to look forward to. Next with Charles, it’s a simple story about child named Laurie who tells his parents about this naughty boy named Charles and they are mortified. Well the mother goes to PTA meeting and wants to meet Charles mother, she never sees her. Then she talks to the teacher, who thus implies that Laurie was the naughty child. When I first read it, I laughed it was quite a funny story. It has some truth to little kids can be entertaining with wild stories. I really did enjoy this book, and most of the stories. A little personal story is I picked it up at a library sale. I only read The Haunting of Hill House, so it was a new experience. I noticed that each story is remotely different and interesting especially Daemon Lover, which is my third favorite.
So these are my two favorite collections of short stories that I enjoy reading over and over again. I would like to thank both books for helping me remember what each name of the stories was and what they were about. But to tell the truth I could never forget The Lottery. Happy reading and hope this helps for the short story lover.
