#which is that the darkness outside us is actually an incredibly thought provoking novel about what the fuck it means to be human

[lvllns]

every time i see someone say that the darkness outside is a romance set in space i’m like. not.......really.

[commodorecliche]

Gimme all the book recs Please :D

yaaaaaaaaaaaas okay great. i love sharing books i love.  

1. The Thief of Always - Clive BarkerGenre: Dark FantasyBig personal favorite of mine. My father read this to me when I was a kid, and it literally has stuck with me since then. Every now and then I go back and reread it just for fun. It’s a wonderfully spooky little story, accompanied by some really lovely and somewhat off-kilter illustrations. Much like Coraline, it’s a novel that is a fable for children, and a tale of terror for adults.

After a mysterious stranger promises to end his boredom with a trip to the magical Holiday House, ten-year-old Harvey learns that his fun has a high price.

2. House of Leaves - Mark Z. DanielewskiGenre: Postmodernism, horrorHands down an absolute favorite. This is a book I literally recommend to everyone. This is a book that made me viscerally uncomfortable, at times I didn’t even sleep in the same room as it. I made it sleep in the living room. There is nothing overtly terrifying about the book, but its format and its unsettlingly immersive nature will lead you down a road unlike any other. 

In 1997, Johnny Truant has stumbled upon a chest full of scrap papers that had once belonged to a man named Zampono. The papers aren’t just scraps though, they’re a chaotic but detailed transcription of a series called the Navidson Record. The Navidson Record is a series of videos made by a family who has discovered that their new house appears to change dimensions almost daily, it has hallways that shouldn’t exist, doors that should lead outside but instead lead into nothingness. Johnny attempts to re-order and reconstruct Zampono’s papers, and along the way begins to lose himself as well. 

3. The Postmortal - Drew MagaryGenre: Science Fiction, Postmodern DystopiaReally funny, really dark, and full of a surprising amount of morality and humanity in a pre-apocalyptic world. 

Imagine a near future where a cure for aging is discovered and-after much political and moral debate-made available to people worldwide. Immortality, however, comes with its own unique problems-including evil green people, government euthanasia programs, a disturbing new religious cult, and other horrors.    

4. Horrorstor - Grady HendrixGenre: Comedy, HorrorHonestly this book is just balls to the wall fun. It’s a horror novel that’s laid out like the world’s most messed up IKEA catalog. Spooky at times, ridiculous and funny, at times moving, while also offering great social commentary on consumerism and the the current status of retail workers. 

Something strange is happening at the Orsk furniture superstore in Cleveland, Ohio. Every morning, employees arrive to find broken Kjerring bookshelves, shattered Glans water goblets, and smashed Liripip wardrobes. Sales are down, security cameras reveal nothing, and store managers are panicking. To unravel the mystery, three employees volunteer to work a nine-hour dusk-till-dawn shift. In the dead of the night, they’ll patrol the empty showroom floor, investigate strange sights and sounds, and encounter horrors that defy the imagination. 

5. Rant - Chuck PalahniukGenre: Science Fiction, Horror, SatireThis is a book I read several years ago and that I still think about from time to time. I haven’t had time to sit down and reread it, but parts of it still resonate with me today. This is a very peculiar story and it is told in a rather peculiar fashion (it is an oral history, and as such is told in a very conversational way by a number of different characters with a wide variety of thoughts and opinions on the titular Rant. It’s hard to properly describe this book, but let’s just say it’s been in my reread list for a while now. 

Buster “Rant” Casey just may be the most efficient serial killer of our time. A high school rebel, Rant Casey escapes from his small town home for the big city where he becomes the leader of an urban demolition derby called Party Crashing. Rant Casey will die a spectacular highway death, after which his friends gather the testimony needed to build an oral history of his short, violent life. 

6. John Dies at the End - David WongGenre: Comedy, Horror, Dark FantasyHoly god what do I even say about this book? It is just hilariously and marvelously insane. A perfect mix of cosmic fantasy, horror, comedy, and lunacy, and I loved every minute of reading it. I still have the rest of the series lined up to read, too!

The drug is called Soy Sauce and it gives users a window into another dimension. John and I never had the chance to say no. You still do. I’m sorry to have involved you in this, I really am. But as you read about these terrible events and the very dark epoch the world is about to enter as a result, it is crucial you keep one thing in mind: None of this was my fault. 

7. Sphere - Michael CrichtonGenre: Science Fiction, Deep Sea HorrorThis is one I actually JUST finished, and I absolutely adored it. I had a couple small complaints about it, but overall, it was a wonderful read and very engrossing. Plus, I’m always a sucker for deep sea horror. 

A group of American scientists are rushed to a huge vessel that has been discovered resting on the ocean floor in the middle of the South Pacific. What they find defies their imaginations and mocks their attempts at logical explanation. It is a spaceship of phenomenal dimensions, apparently, undamaged by its fall from the sky. And, most startling, it appears to be at least three hundred years old…. 

8. I, Lucifer - Glen DuncanGenre: Religious Fantasy, Occult FictionThis book is incredibly well researched, thought out, and characterized, as well as funny and extremely thought-provoking. I’d never expected to see a story that would give me a realistic and modern look into the Devil’s side of the story. I especially never expected to see a story that would make the Devil learn what it is to be human, either. All in all just an A+, fantastical read. 

The Prince of Darkness has been given one last shot at redemption, provided he can live out a reasonably blameless life on earth. Highly sceptical, naturally, the Old Dealmaker negotiates a trial period - a summer holiday in a human body, with all the delights of the flesh. The body, however, turns out to be that of Declan Gunn, a depressed writer living in Clerkenwell, interrupted in his bath mid-suicide. Ever the opportunist, and with his main scheme bubbling in the background, Luce takes the chance to tap out a few thoughts - to straighten the biblical record, to celebrate his favourite achievements, to let us know just what it’s like being him. Neither living nor explaining turns out to be as easy as it looks. Beset by distractions, miscalculations and all the natural shocks that flesh is heir to, the Father of Lies slowly begins to learn what it’s like being us. 

9. The Wasp Factory - Iain BanksGenre: Psychological HorrorLook, I want to say this right off the bat. This book is… not for everyone. Trust me when I say this is an extremely dark book with a lot of dark content. I would say that if you have any potential triggers, you may want to message me first and I will give you a better rundown of what all this book entails. This is a true piece of horror fiction. But it’s also incredible. I ate this book up in about two days and it is one of my favorite pieces of dark fiction to date. So yeah, chat with me if you have any concerns, but if you enjoy truly dark fiction, then this is up your alley. 

Two years after I killed Blyth I murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different and more fundamental reasons than I’d disposed of Blyth, and then a year after that I did for my young cousin Esmerelda, more or less on a whim. That’s my score to date. Three. I haven’t killed anybody for years, and don’t intend to ever again. It was just a stage I was going through. 

10. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (the whole series, trust me)Genre: Comedy, Science Fiction, Cosmic FantasyJust trust me when I say this is a series that literally everyone should read at least once in their life. They are unflabbably hilarious in a way that only Douglas Adams could be, and they are just truly unique. This series is (rightfully) a classic and shouldn’t be missed. 

Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor. Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker’s Guide (“A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have”).

11. World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War - Max Brooks Genre: Zombie horror, Faux HistoryI beg you - do not judge this book by the very terrible movie that was made about it. It is an entirely different animal than that mess of a movie, I promise. World War Z is a masterfully crafted book that details the zombie apocalypse in ways never before done in fiction. The Battle of Yonkers scenes and the testimony of Tomonaga Ijiro still stick in my head to this day. This book is a triumph of horror, ‘history’, and humanity, all balled into a distinctly unique experience. 

The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years. 

12. The Raw Shark Texts - Steven HallGenre: Fantasy/Realism, Meta-fiction, MysteryThis is a tough one to put into words. I read this many years ago, and I remember it more as a series of emotional experiences rather than just as a singular plot. Which I think really speaks to its character as a book. This is a book that deals with dissociation, memory loss, our sense of self, how easily we can lose that sense, and our struggle to hold onto or to rediscover the world we know and the people we believe ourselves to be. This book is just… an experience, much like House of Leaves. It’s immersive, and at times quite unsettling. 

Eric Sanderson wakes up in a house he doesn’t recognize, unable to remember anything of his life. All he has left are his diary entries recalling Clio, a perfect love who died under mysterious circumstances, and a house that may contain the secrets to Eric’s prior life. But there may be more to this story, or it may be a different story altogether. With the help of allies found on the fringes of society, Eric embarks on an edge-of-your-seat journey to uncover the truth about himself and to escape the predatory forces that threaten to consume him. 

I think 12 should be good for now! I certainly have more though, if you want them!! 

Bonus, Currently Reading: The Library at Mount Char - Scott HawkinsGenre: Contemporary Fantasy, Horror, Dark FantasyI don’t have a whole lot to say about this yet since I’m not very far into it, but so far it’s been extremely intriguing, and Hawkins’ writing is truly beautiful. 

A missing God. A library with the secrets to the universe. A woman too busy to notice her heart slipping away. Carolyn’s not so different from the other people around her. She likes guacamole and cigarettes and steak. She knows how to use a phone. Clothes are a bit tricky, but everyone says nice things about her outfit with the Christmas sweater over the gold bicycle shorts. After all, she was a normal American herself once. That was a long time ago, of course. Before her parents died. Before she and the others were taken in by the man they called Father. 

Bonus 2, Up Next to Read: Dark Matter: A Ghost Story - Michelle PaverGenre: Horror

January 1937. Clouds of war are gathering over a fogbound London. Twenty-eight year old Jack is poor, lonely, and desperate to change his life, so when he’s offered the chance to join an Arctic expedition, he jumps at it. Spirits are high as the ship leaves Norway: five men and eight huskies, crossing the Barents Sea by the light of the midnight sun. At last they reach the remote, uninhabited bay where they will camp for the next year, Gruhuken, but the Arctic summer is brief. As night returns to claim the land, Jack feels a creeping unease. One by one, his companions are forced to leave. He faces a stark choice: stay or go. Soon he will see the last of the sun, as the polar night engulfs the camp in months of darkness. Soon he will reach the point of no return–when the sea will freeze, making escape impossible. Gruhuken is not uninhabited. Jack is not alone. Something walks there in the dark… 

(also if any of y’all have read these, i’d love to hear YOUR thoughts on them too)

[erniefowler-blog]

Enlightening Cinema

gallop McKennaEnlightening CinemaMetaphysical Articles | February 6, 2005... Cinema By bound ... me tell you why you're here. You're here being you recognize ... What you know, you can't explain. But you atmosphere it. You felt it your unified life. so there' Enlightening Cinema aside Jed McKenna"Let me confess you cause you're here. You're hither because you know something. What you know, you can't explain. But you feel it. You caress it your entire life. That there's something inaccurate with the world. You don't experience what it is, but it's there. Like a splinter in your talent driving you mad." -Morpheus, The Matrix This isn't a flick review calendar and it's not comprehensive. It's just some report about a few feature I guess are profitable for the purposes of awakening and why, or that ardent and why not. alongside tools of understanding, unacceptable is repeatedly better thaw good. big themes interpreted on this list show to be these: - Heresy - Captive/Captor - Teacher/Student - Nature of self/man. - Death/rebirth. Cataclysm/epiphany. - Untrustworthiness of mind/memories. The apart thing I might advise with stare to cinema and album is to raise the material raise to the level position it incline of cost to you. Orwell potency have do writing an anti-communist manifesto, but Nineteen Eighty-Four is much also interesting explore as the struggle amid man and his confinement. Apocalypse immediately is backward something other than Viet Nam, after what precedent to receive Ahead modern Advertising is about being more that rampant commercialism, etc.::: americas Beauty"I feel like dive been in a stupor for the past tenet years. furthermore I'm equitable now rising up." I've included americas Beauty principally for what is wrong with it. Lester's major death/rebirth transition fair promise, but what accomplish he development to? Backward to teenage crap, not forward in any sense. A fear-based regression. simple car, ludicrous drugs, simple vanity, senseless skirt chasing. Not at all reclaimed when jester sees his own craziness near the end or by sappy/smarmy dead guy voice-over. climactic movie is slightly redeemed by the presence of the quasi-mystical neighbor youth and his video footage of a windblown bag:"That's the bright I completed that there was this entire growth behind things, and this incredibly humane force that wanted me to notice there was no reason to be afraid, ever."::: Apocalypse Now"In a hostility there are many time for sorrow and supple action. There are copious moments for ruthless action what is often called ruthless what may in many circumstances be alone clarity, noticing clearly what there is to be done and doing it, directly, quickly, awake, looking at it." You'd feel that catastrophe Now Redux, the director's cut, would be the version to watch, but all the stuff that was fairly cut from the authentic has prevail wrongly replaced. (Raising the interesting mite that directors and creator often don't understand the higher operation of the stories they're telling.) cane with the original past both Redux and contras Heart of Darkness.Apocalypse directly is all about the Horror. ac journey of discovery, into the character of darkness, arriving at this horror. What's the horror? after what precedent do you get there? Why would anyone prepare such a journey? Should you make such a journey? Why or cause not?Note the powerful epiphanies that commute the film. The antecedent assassin's cap home, ("Sell the house, sell the car, handle the kids..."), Dennis Hopper's youthful exuberance, Kurtz's ice bullet, paillards "...I wasn't even in their squad any more." ::: vitality There"Spring, summer, autumn, winter... then flexibility again."A splendid film decayed by a foolish walking-on-water stunt bearing on to the end. Without that nonsense the viewer would be complimentary to think, to decide, to wonder. Instead, the movie zips itself raise tight with its adept little dumb-it-down twist. blow the block button at Chauncey is straightening the sapling, since the pernicious denouement, and it's a fun, sweet film.::: shank Runner"I've look things you people wouldn't believe. intrusion ships on fire outside the accept of Orion. I've patrolled c-beams sheen in the dark near the man-house Gate. All those time will be lost in time like tears in rain. past to die." Were you born pentamerous minutes ago? Of development not, and you have the remembrance to explain it. ko'd know if they were artificial implants, because, uh...::: Cast Away"I couldn't even kill I personally the style I needed to. I had influence over nothing."If a brother screams on a deserted island and there's no one to hear him, does he make a sound? Is it full that he hears it himself? What if not? What's south when you take over everything?Self exposed bare.This show raises copious intriguing questions about the substance of self, or lack thereof, and cover a actual Zen eulogy.::: Dead Poets SocietyHeresy.::: hold and Maude"Vice, virtue. It's best not to be too moral... Aim superior morality."American Zen, master and disciple. ::: Harvey"For generation I was smart... I recommend pleasant."Elwood P. Dowd, wisefool. ai sweet depiction of a higher rule of living misinterpreted as a reduced order of being. intend we know the exceptional Man although we byword him? ::: How to Get forward In Advertising"Everything I do now form perfect sense."A thwarted request for freedom. A failed attempt to overthrow Maya. Enjoy the insanity of the epiphany.::: Joe opposing the Volcano"Nobody knows anything, Joe. weal take this leap, and we'll see. We'll jump, and will see. that life, right?"Death and Rebirth. Unlike americas Beauty, this is all about gripping forward, "away from the things of man."::: fellow Facing soughest (Hombre Mirando Al Sudeste)Watch especially for the optic poem of a guy crumbling a human pundit into a sink at the same time looking for the soul.::: The Matrix"Like everyone else, you were born in the direction of through to bondage, born inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste, or touch. A confinement for your mind." plutos Cave for the people. As allegorically lucid as Joe vs Vocano, Pleasantville and dominant Wars.::: Monty Python's get-up-and-go of Brian"No, no! It is a sign that, like Him, we must think not of the things of the body, but of the look and head!"Sacred Cow-tipping at its best."Meaning of Life" also belongs on this list.::: Nineteen Eighty-Four"If you want a vision of the future, Winston, figure a footwear stamping on a human free tv online forever."This flick is uncommon in the sense that it's as good as the book, which is an awfully intimate photograph of the captor/captive, Maya/man relationship. Compare this to Moby-Dick or One Flew Over the Cuckoo's lair which are superb novel but worthless movies.::: sole Flew by the Cuckoo's NestAs with Moby-Dick, Hollywood castrated the book. They stripped it of mine archetypal size and cut down it to a meaningless pissing contest between McMurphy and registered nurse Ratched. huge entertainment, but for meaningful insight, scan the book.::: Pleasantville"There are some house where the road doesn't go in a circle. There are some neighborhood where it keeps on going."A bright tale of heresy in which no one is burned at the rod and the new paradigm is, eventually, embraced by all.::: affecting Razor's Edge"The dead stare so terribly dead."The razor's edge is what makes it interesting; seeing leery shakily uniform on the fine channel between what he was and what he's becoming. He is walking the edge among two lives. The check Murray variant is a bit unfocused... stick with Tyrone talent or read the book. Maugham apparently used Ramana Maharshi as the model for the novel's humble man.::: celebrated Wars"The force will be with you, always."The early one, point Luke compose the evolution from beef to spirit. The hero Journey.::: The Thin Red Line"Maybe all men win one enormous soul every bit a section of, all faces are the double man."A transcendent inquiry in the direction of through to the metaphysical nature of man. extra a sad/sweet song thaw a anecdotal film.::: climactic Thirteenth Floor"So what're you saying? You're saying that there's addition world on top of this one?"Layer after layer. Turtles on top of turtles. ::: Vanilla Sky/Abre Los Ojos"Open your eyes."If you agnate Vanilla Sky, check out the original, the French film Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes). the particular two skin may be the perfect of the bunch for our purposes; the neighboring to an enlightenment allegory.Of course, the interesting material about wisdom is pursuing there, not being there, and hates what these films are about; provocation from a false reality, opening your eyes. They're not so much back what's actual as what's not. It's the biography of the journey one takes to get to the point where anything, even jumping off a tall building, would be better thin continuing to live a lie, alike a beautiful, blissful lie.Note the latency of the true guru, explaining in clear terms why rise off the building is the best thing to do, and waiting quietly for it to be done.::: Waking Life"They say that imagination are exclusive real as long as they last. Couldn't you say the same piece about life?"Wide-ranging philosophical inquiry. Provocative. Amusing. Potentially disruptive.::: Wings of Desire"When the child was a child, it was the time of the particular questions: Why am I me, and why not you? Why am I here, and why not there? When did turn begin and where complete space end?"A lovely, intelligent, thought-provoking film. Can the awakened vitality return to the dreamstate? Would he want to?::: OthersSome alternative films that reward considerate viewing are The diviner of Oz, About Schmidt, What idea May Come, Total Recall, All the Mornings regarding the universe (Tous lies Matins dug Monde), and, of course, many more.-Jed McKenna ::: About the Author"Jed McKenna is an American original." -Lama surely DasJed McKenna is the author of "Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing" and "Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment", ventilated by Wisefool Press. Coming in 2005: "Spirituality X" and "Jed McKenna's Notebook". Visit WisefoolPress.com to get more.