Currently reading
Near + Far
Amigurumi Knits: Patterns for 20 Cute Mini Knits
Metro 2033
Southern Gods
Masterpieces of Terror and the Supernatural
Howdunit Forensics
Garnethill
The Autopsy and Other Tales
Alice Hearts Welsh Zombies
Blood & Water
Quiet Houses
(Note to self: have the Kobo edition, not the paperback or Kindle. Need to create a new record for that at some point.)A collection of related stories about a parapsychologist collecting ghost stories and looking into various haunted houses, and I really need to write a better summary because that doesn't even begin to cover this book's quality.
In much the same way that Sarah Monette's stories of Kyle Murchison Booth makes me think of M R James, I found this collection made me think of [a:Ambrose Bierce|14403|Ambrose Bierce|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1183231430p2/14403.jpg]. There's a weariness to Nakata and a sense of a rather casually cruel world in the stories (and on top of that the Heysham Head story (which I think is my favourite) reminded me of "The Damned Thing" on what I guess is a fairly superficial level).
The protagonist seems to pretty clearly go with "The Stone Tape" theory of ghosts (and it's even referred to that way at one point), but the stories definitely aren't constrained by it; the haunts are ghosts, or art, or the monstrous, or the rather horrifying unknown.
It's not a perfect collection; the Glasshouse Estate story left me a little cold. But it's well-written, restrained, spooky, paints lovely and evocative pictures of events, and is so very much worth the time to read.