A Healthy Dose of Horror and the Benefits of E-Books
Horror books and literature have always interested readers of all ages and sizes. No matter how scared one gets, the urge to read a little bit more always stands strong. It is a great opportunity to get the monster out in the open, grapple with it a bit and then put it back where it should stay, back in the book. Reading horror opens up a new world of exciting and terrifying possibilities but which, more importantly, we can control at the end of the day.
There have been a number of great horror books over the years which have kept readers up until late at night, shivering under their quilts and vowing never to read another horror book again.
One of the pioneers in horror literature is Bram Stoker's Dracula. It was the first book to be written on vampires, and not the shiny, effeminate ones that we see today. Stoker's Dracula was regal, with menacing eyes and actually did things that would scare the bejesus out of us if it really happened. Stoker puts much emphasis on the scenic beauty and clashed it with the sense of foreboding Jonathan Harker, the protagonist experiences, upon entering Dracula's castle. This belongs to a time when vampires were projected as they should be, deeply terrifying creatures of the night and not shiny little things that sparkle in the sun.
The second book on this list would have to €The Shining' by Stephen King. The book traces the life of Jack Torrence, an alcoholic, as he is hired by a hotel as the care-taker for six months of solitude, along with his wife and kid. The gradual descent of the man into levels of utter insanity is a treat to read and it truly becomes menacing towards the end.
Finally, one of the modern pieces of horror literature that has become a staple item on my bookshelf is John Ajvide Lindqvist's Harbour. The author uses a lot of imagery of small objects to portray a growing sense of dread in his work which works for me. A few instances like a cartoon bear, a flapping sign, Frankie t-shirts and Madonna hair bring out a sense of depraved insanity to the narration. You can check out the books at the following links.
If you are looking through the shelves of an online bookstore, and you are torn between buying an actual print copy of a book or the electronic version, commonly known as an e-book, here are some pointers which can help you make your mind up.
One of the first and primary advantages of buying an e-book is when you are travelling. For instance, if the book you are reading is weighty and large, then it becomes a hassle carrying it around on your trip. But with the help of an e-book, all of this becomes non-existent. You can carry a whole list of titles with you and it would be no extra weight in your travel plans.
Secondly, if you are one of those who completes a book in a couple of days, then storage might become a big problem, for there is only so much of space which can be devoted for keeping the books. But with e-books, you can store hundreds and hundreds of titles in the hard drive of your laptop or tablet and you can read them anytime. Now you might be inclined to ask what happens when you are travelling and you suddenly do not want to read a particular title. You might want to catch up on another book. So what do you do in this situation? There is an answer for this as well if you advocate e-books. You have the liberty of storing the e-books in your account created in Google Cloud or Microsoft's SkyDrive which enables you to access anytime, anywhere.
Apart from this, the huge and deciding factor of pricing also. Many e-books are free of cost and can be downloaded through web sites. But if you pick up a print copy of any book, it's bound to cost you something. This is because of the printing costs which are suffered by the publisher. Even if you have to shell out something for an e-book, it is going to be nominal.
Finally, there is also the problem of getting a particular title which might be obscure or out of publication. No such problems arise with e-books. You can search for an e-book on the web and voila, it will be there for your perusal.
One of the best sites which can afford you an exhaustive list of e-books is Book Chums. There are as many as 50,000 titles of the latest bestsellers as well as classics which you can lay your hands on, well, not literally! So visit the following link to initiate yourself into the world of e-books and start reading!
There have been a number of great horror books over the years which have kept readers up until late at night, shivering under their quilts and vowing never to read another horror book again.
One of the pioneers in horror literature is Bram Stoker's Dracula. It was the first book to be written on vampires, and not the shiny, effeminate ones that we see today. Stoker's Dracula was regal, with menacing eyes and actually did things that would scare the bejesus out of us if it really happened. Stoker puts much emphasis on the scenic beauty and clashed it with the sense of foreboding Jonathan Harker, the protagonist experiences, upon entering Dracula's castle. This belongs to a time when vampires were projected as they should be, deeply terrifying creatures of the night and not shiny little things that sparkle in the sun.
The second book on this list would have to €The Shining' by Stephen King. The book traces the life of Jack Torrence, an alcoholic, as he is hired by a hotel as the care-taker for six months of solitude, along with his wife and kid. The gradual descent of the man into levels of utter insanity is a treat to read and it truly becomes menacing towards the end.
Finally, one of the modern pieces of horror literature that has become a staple item on my bookshelf is John Ajvide Lindqvist's Harbour. The author uses a lot of imagery of small objects to portray a growing sense of dread in his work which works for me. A few instances like a cartoon bear, a flapping sign, Frankie t-shirts and Madonna hair bring out a sense of depraved insanity to the narration. You can check out the books at the following links.
If you are looking through the shelves of an online bookstore, and you are torn between buying an actual print copy of a book or the electronic version, commonly known as an e-book, here are some pointers which can help you make your mind up.
One of the first and primary advantages of buying an e-book is when you are travelling. For instance, if the book you are reading is weighty and large, then it becomes a hassle carrying it around on your trip. But with the help of an e-book, all of this becomes non-existent. You can carry a whole list of titles with you and it would be no extra weight in your travel plans.
Secondly, if you are one of those who completes a book in a couple of days, then storage might become a big problem, for there is only so much of space which can be devoted for keeping the books. But with e-books, you can store hundreds and hundreds of titles in the hard drive of your laptop or tablet and you can read them anytime. Now you might be inclined to ask what happens when you are travelling and you suddenly do not want to read a particular title. You might want to catch up on another book. So what do you do in this situation? There is an answer for this as well if you advocate e-books. You have the liberty of storing the e-books in your account created in Google Cloud or Microsoft's SkyDrive which enables you to access anytime, anywhere.
Apart from this, the huge and deciding factor of pricing also. Many e-books are free of cost and can be downloaded through web sites. But if you pick up a print copy of any book, it's bound to cost you something. This is because of the printing costs which are suffered by the publisher. Even if you have to shell out something for an e-book, it is going to be nominal.
Finally, there is also the problem of getting a particular title which might be obscure or out of publication. No such problems arise with e-books. You can search for an e-book on the web and voila, it will be there for your perusal.
One of the best sites which can afford you an exhaustive list of e-books is Book Chums. There are as many as 50,000 titles of the latest bestsellers as well as classics which you can lay your hands on, well, not literally! So visit the following link to initiate yourself into the world of e-books and start reading!
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