Tuesday, October 23, 2007

13 Nights of Horror

Babbo's Books proprietress Leonora is reading ghost stories at her bookstore every night for thirteen nights. Tonight's reading features the "Tell-Tale Heart" and other tales by Poe.

I stumbled on the place by accident on Sunday night, when she was reading "Oh, Whistle and I'll come to you. My Lad" by M.R. James. I'm definitely going to try to make it to the reading of Daphne DuMaurier's "Don't Look Now" on Thursday, and hopefully "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" on the 28th. I adore that story, and I always get a little thrill when I pass by it on the MetroNorth; I must make time to explore the village one day -- I mean, look at it:


I also bought this swell book at Babbo's, and shared my love for Alfred Hitchcock anthologies; I had them as a child and was recently overjoyed when I found two of them in my basement. The editions I had were published by Random House and aimed at young adult readers, and had names like "Witches Brew" and "Ghostly Gallery." I guess you can still find them around, and I want them all!

Anyway, readings are every night at 8 p.m., now through Halloween.

Babbo's Books is located at 242 Prospect Park West between Prospect Ave. and Windsor Place, in a very pretty part of Brooklyn that looks like a small town, with brick sidewalks and gas lamps, and which is lovely to meander in after dark.

2 comments:

Levi Stahl said...

I've been thinking about the Hitchcock anthologies recently, too, because, whenlistening to an old radio adaptation of "The Birds" I realized that I knew the story almost word for word because I read it and re-read it in Spellbinders in Suspense when I was a kid. (I also had Ghostly Gallery, Witches' Brew, Haunted Houseful, and Sinister Spies.)

They were such well-chosen anthologies. I learned from the Wikipedia the other day that they were edited by Robert Arthur (creator of the Three Investigators), whose ghost stories I also loved at the same age.

Andrea Janes said...

I know that word-for-word feeling because I got it when I re-read "Witches' Brew" and "Ghostly Gallery" recently ... it seemed like I'd put down the books, entered a brief twenty-year period in which nothing much happened, then picked up the books again.

Now I really have to get "Spellbinders in Suspense" ...