My Top 10 Books of 2013

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As usual, my list is formulated as such: The books don’t have to be released in 2013, but I must have read them in 2013, and it must be the first time I have read them. I stick to fiction for these lists, usually novels but not always.

10. The Whisperer in the Darkness by H.P. Lovecraft

This is a short novella that is also available for free for your e-reader (it’s in the public domain), which is how I read it. The story concerns a New England scientist who scoffs at the claims of strange, monstrous bodies found floating down rivers after a major flood in Vermont. Soon, a man living in a remote section of Vermont reaches out to him via letters, claiming that these bodies are not old wives' tales, but are clues to a secret that has plagued humanity for centuries. The man in Vermont has witnessed the cult-like, otherworldly beings who live deep in the woods. The beings are aware they're being watched, and they're closing in. The letters escalate in intensity and strangeness as the story unfolds, and our scientist eventually makes the trek to rural Vermont himself, with horrific results. The tale is spooky, fun, and skin-crawlingly wonderful.

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A Review of 'They Don't Dance Much' by James Ross

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Jack McDonald loses his farm and everything that went with it, save for the debt, and he wanders through the evening until he comes to Smut Milligan’s roadhouse just outside of town. Smut sells him some illegal corn whiskey and offers him a job as the roadhouse cashier. With nowhere else to go, Jack joins on the expanding operation and soon bears witness to the depths of humanity's greed, corruption, and vengeance. Set deep in the south during the Great Depression with a wide cast of believable, rough-and-tumble characters, James Ross’ They Don’t Dance Much is almost Shakespearian in its exposure of the darkness of the human soul, combining the best elements of Raymond Chandler, Flannery O’Connor, James M Cain, Jim Thompson, and even hints of William Faulkner’s Southern Gothic aesthetics.

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Five Books I'm Ashamed I Couldn't Finish

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I used to think of myself as a good soldier when it came to sticking it out with a book, even if became dull in spots. I would push through, skim a bit if it got too rough, and often enough I was rewarded for my efforts with a solid ending. But the older I get, the less patience I have with a book that is lacking in captivation (or even worse, in quality storytelling or writing) and I have become comfortable with putting down a book that has lost me within the first 100 pages (my designated "do or die" line in the sand). 

And yet, I feel ashamed for quitting on some books, great pieces of literature that have been impactful and important, but sometimes I just can’t keep the ship afloat and it becomes time to scramble for an exit and a sturdy inflatable raft. Here are five classic novels that I wish I finished, that I may yet finish one day, but for now I am ashamed that I quit halfway through. 

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The Hunter by Julia Leigh: A Review

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A couple of months ago I stumbled across a gorgeous little film, The Hunter, that was in and out of the theaters faster than you can blink. I decided to go see it based on the prospect of watching Willem Dafoe, playing as the eponymous character, stalking through the Tasmanian backwoods, rifle in hand, with the stone-blue eyes of determination and patience, a deft and subtle survivalist, a thinking man’s tough guy who can gut it out in the wild for weeks on end without batting a lash. The movie was not a work of perfection—there were a few jerky moments and leaps of faulty logic that gave me pause, and I actually could have watched Dafoe silently stalk his prey out in the wild a little more than offered here, if only to get a truer sense of his isolation. But after reading the novel by Julia Leigh that inspired the film, I feel like the movie got a few more things right than the book did, which is a rarity.

I want to clarify, though, that I don't mean to say the novel wasn’t a quality read. It was, especially the internal narratives of the hunter when he is out in the wild, but the following three things stood out for me and really put the movie over the top.

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