u/Wandering-Dunadan

The first time I got to know about Algernon Blackwood & listened the audio version of this story was in the year 2022. I was mesmerized by how incredibly well written this whole story is. Before that I only knew about H. P. Lovecraft writing cosmic horror stories like this & this one is nothing short from that top tier of horror literature.

The story follows two friends who are doing a canoe trip in the beautiful Danube river & one afternoon they decide to camp in an empty island around which no sign of humanity can be seen. The camping was just for taking rest of course but they soon realised, especially the narrator soon realised that there is some kind of presence in that island with them which they can't comprehend properly. And that is exactly the kind of horror stories I love to read, the sense of unknown eldritch, the dread that shows up & increases as you continue reading & eventually the characters faces something unexplainable which sums up this story for a perfect one in the cosmic horror genre.

I really really loved how Algernon Blackwood wrote the whole story. I should say that it is very literary & very magnificently well written in that. The way he describes the place, the atmosphere, the sense of something around the characters, it is just something you will not forget after you read the story for one time. Even H. P. Lovecraft himself said that this story is the "finest supernatural tale in all of English literature". And even though I first listened the story in 2022 I still remembered everything about it because I loved it that much & today I read it again from the book "The Wendigo & Other Weird Tales by Algernon Blackwood" and published by Wordsworth Classics. After listening that story in 2022 & I also listened & read many other stories written by Algernon Blackwood. In Youtube you will find some of hos stories translated in Bangla in the channel Midnight Horror Station.

If you haven't read the story then I really suggest you to read or listen to it for once. If you love atmospheric horror or cosmic horror, then this one is a must.

Adding these 3 in my physical horror books collection. All of those 3 are really amazing but I particularly wanted to have "Horror Stories: Classic Tales from Hoffmann to Hodgson which is published by Oxford World's Classics" & "The Wendigo & Other WeordTales by Algernon Blackwood which is published by Wordsworth".

All 3 of these books are collection of horror stories. The first one, "Horror Stories: Classic Tales from Hoffmann to Hodgson" is a really amazing collection which includes 29 stories from different classic writers such as E. T. A. Hoffman, Edgar Allan Poe, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Dickens, Emile Zola, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, Ambrose Bierce, Bram Stoker, W. W. Jacobs, M. R. James, William Hope Hodgson & many more. All of those authors are master of their craft & many of them are very well acclaimed as classic horror writers. It also has a really good scholarly introduction & explanatory notes from Darryl Jones.

The book in the middle, "The Winter Spirits: Ghostly Tales for Frosty Nights" is a contemporary horror stories collection written by different contemporary horror writers who are well acclaimed in modern horror literate. It consists 12 horror stories, all set in the time of winter season, mainly revolving around Christmas from writers such as Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Natasha Pulley, Bridget Collins, Carriona Ward etc. I really loved the design in the cover of this book & I am going to start reading it in December when it will start getting cold in here.

The third book is from the well renowned classic horror story writer Algernon Blackwood, "The Wendigo & Other Weird Tales" is a fantastic collection of his most beautifully written & creepy horror stories and includes 25 of his most popular & scary stories such as The Wendigo, The Willows, A Haunted Island, The Insanity of Jones, A Physical Invasion, The Empty House, The Woman's Ghost Story, Secret Worship etc. This book is published by Wordsworth & I wasn't expecting it but after getting the book I saw that it also hs a really good & detailed introduction written by Stephen Carver which I really liked. They also added notes & author's bibliography too which is a really nice touch.

Started my chemotherapy (ABVD) on 3rd February this year because I had Classic Hodgkin Lymphoma in Stage 4B & my hair started falling 3 days after my second chemotherapy. So on 22nd February this year I shaved my head for the first time & since then my head have been completely hairless. The hair didn't stop growing through, it grows but in really thin patches & not uniformly all over my head. So keeping my head shaved the whole time seemed the best option.

The good news is that on 31st August I will have my 12th & last chemotherapy & hopefully after that when I will do the full body PET Scan it will come clean enough that the doctor will rule for a full cure. The interim PET Scan I did after having 6 chemotherapy in the middle of June came with a really positive response. So have to go through the hell of being nauseated all the time for few more days from 31st August & then I think I can start growing my hair again.

I just got to know from the Headphonezone website that Sony is releasing this new IEM named Sony IER-M500 which is an entry level IEM for live musicians. Priced at Rs.10990 this IEM has a 5 mm dynamic driver in a fully sealed acoustic chamber.

When I first started investing money to buy a good quality earphone which was back in 2016, I started with Sony & since then I have used a few Sony products, both wired & Bluetooth and have to say they never disappoint me at all, both in sound quality & durability. And I think I kinda feel nostalgic after seeing this product, thinking about all those days when I used Sony MDR-EX155 AP & Sony MDR-EX255 AP, in that time those wired earphones were really phenomenal. Sadly I don't have those two anymore & now seeing this new product from Sony is really making me wanto buy it, though the price is quite high & in this age when every IEM of that price range are coming with a bigger size of dynamic drivers plus balanced armatures, I don't know how well Sony's 5 mm dynamic drivers will hold up.

What do you guys think about it?

I got diagnosed with Classic Hodgkin Lymphoma on 1st January of this year & I was in Stage 4B. Started my chemotherapy (ABVD) from 3rd February & I was getting it in the gap of every 2 weeks. And after completing 3 cycles I was prescribed to do the interim full body PET Scan which I did last Saturday & got the report this afternoon & I am really happy with how clean the image came. Comparing it with the image of my first full body PET Scan (image of slide 2) which I did in the end of last November, I am really surprised to see that all those cancer spots are completely gone just after 6 chemotherapy. I really wasn't expecting it to work this well at all. The impression of the report also said "as compared to previous PET Scan dated 28.11.25, decrease in size with complete dissappearence of metabolic activity of above mentioned lesions are noted. Complete dissappearence of all other hypermetabolic lesions are notes - complete metabolic response".

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Now I will go to the hematology doctor of the hospital on next Monday to show this full body PET Scan report & then I will get to know how many more chemotherapy I will need. As far as I am guessing that I will still get few more cycles of chemotherapy to complete my treatment & yes those will be some more agonizing months again but now I have full mental power to finish my whole treatment.

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And those of you who are going through chemotherapy or got diagnosed recently & will start treatment soon, to those of you I can say that you really can beat cancer & get your amazing life back again. Just hang on with all your power & fight against it with all your will, you will definitely see good results for sure.

Wanted to buy & read these books since I first came to know about these & finally they are with me. I am most excited to read Come With Me by Ronald Malfi & The Fisherman by John Langan. Of course the stories of all these 6 books are really good but the synopsis of especially those two really hooked me.

Wanted to buy & read these books since I first came to know about these & finally they are with me. I am most excited to read Come With Me by Ronald Malfi & The Fisherman by John Langan. Of course the stories of all these 6 books are really good but the synopsis of especially those two really hooked me.

I loved the thoughts behind it, really simple but also really thoughtful in the same time.

King Sorrow by Joe Hill is a really thick novel about 6 friends who loves participating in occult practices & by doing so they will bring a dragon shaped demon who will bind them for many decades after & will make their life a living hell.

Since it came out last year, I really wanted to read it. The book got so much love from horror fans & also good praises from critics and I think it might become the finalist or maybe even the winner of Bram Stoker award. Right now I am reading Salem's Lot by Stephen Kimg & as soon as I can finish it, I will get started with this marvel written by Stephen King's son Joe Hill.

In here I also want to say that this was the first time I bought a book from Bookswagon & this one is an imported one & non-returnable. So I was kinda worried about the condition it will arrive & if it gets damaged in transit then what will I do. But I have to say that Bookswagon & Bluedart did really well in packaging & taking care of the book properly. It came in full air bubble wrap & there is no damage to the book at all. I'm really amazed.