Look Out For… Written With My Left Hand by Nugent Barker

“Ghost stories equal to Walter de la Mare”

Perhaps best known for two much admired tales, the evocative ghost story ‘Whessoe’ and the grimly humorous horror tour de force ‘Curious Adventure of Mr Bond’, Nugent Barker (1888-1955) remains something of an enigma. Although rated highly by contemporaries little is known of his life, and these twenty one tales, first collected in 1950, are thought to represent the sum total of Barker’s literary output.

These powerfully written stories, long out of print, deserve to be much better known. They will be relished by those who appreciate the very best in classic supernatural literature.

Why we’re excited about this book: Tartarus Press make lovely books. Immaculately bound and printed limited editions, these are books that you simultaneously long to touch and want to lock in an airtight room away from your own grubby hands. Books that make you want to cast aside your Kindle and beg for repentance from the Dead Tree Gods (although Tartarus Press do a nice line in ebooks, too).

Fortunately what’s between the covers is frequently wonderful as well, often reprinting the work of lesser-known masters of the horror genre for the first time in years. Written With My Left Hand collects together all the stories by one Nugent Barker, an author so obscure all we can really find out about him is that he lived most of life in Oscar Wilde’s old house and wrote ghost stories apparently the equal to Walter de la Mare. Sounds worthy of further investigation to us.

This book will appeal to: genre fans who like to stroke their books like a Bond villain with a cat (except they’re the ones doing the purring).

Written With My Left Hand is available to pre-order from Tartarus Press.

Whilst you’re waiting, why not check out all the other lovely Tartarus Press books on Amazon?

Look Out For… Dead Water

“The PentAnth books have always been great for collecting together five excellent writers and letting them loose on an evocative theme.”

Hersham Horror Books presents five more original stories from the minds of: Simon Bestwick Alan Spencer, David Moody, Daniel S. Boucher and Maynard Sims. The fifth anthology in their PentAnth range brings you five more chilling tales of terror. We all need water to live, but what if that life giving body was not so friendly after all?

Why we’re excited about this book: So Simon Bestwick becomes the first writer with the dubious distinction of appearing in this column twice in a row, for which he wins the highly sought after all prize of naff all.

But it’s not just Bestwick’s presence that makes Dead Water one to look out for; there’s also the combined talents of Alan Spencer, This Is Horror chapbook contributor David Moody, Daniel S. Boucher and Maynard Sims. The PentAnth anthologies have always been great for collecting together five excellent writers and letting them loose on an evocative theme and Dead Water is no different. It features five collective together horror stories based on, well, water. Given how haunted lonely stretches of water can seem at the best of times, and given the talent involved, it sounds like a sure fire winner to us.

This book will appeal to: those readers traumatised by the Lonely Water public information films as a child.

Dead Water is out now from Hersham Horror Books.

JAMES EVERINGTON