We have all done it. Started reading a book and before we know it 6 hours have past. Or it has gone past 3 am and you need to rise in 3 hours.
Two books have had that effect on me.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s House of the Dead.
Lyall Watson’s Gifts of Unknown Things.
House of the Dead is a semi-autobiographical account of Dostoyevsky’s time spent in a Siberian Prison. In a time when the Tsars ruled supreme. Published in the early 1860’s.
Gifts of Unknown Things is a non fiction account of time spent on an Indonesian Island. It documents Watson’s observations regarding mystical occurrences, magical feats, miraculous phenomena and psychic healing.
Dostoyesky was a Russian Journalist, Novelist, Aristocrat and Philosopher who died in 1881. Some of his writings being, Crime and Punishment, Brothers Karamozov, The Idiot and notes from the Underground.
Lyall Watson was a South African Botanist, Zoologist, Biologist, Anthropologist and Ethnologist. Author of Supernature, Lifetide, The Romeo Error, Dark Nature and many more.
Not too long ago I found a book that was impossible to leave alone.
When Rabbit Howls by Truddi Chase. It was absolutely riveting as well as disturbing.
It’s long out of print, but if you came across a copy, read it.
It was The Secret Rooms by Catherine Bailey because the Author set out to write about the farm workers of Belvoir Castle, my Inlaws were part of that work force , but what the Author found in the muniment rooms at the Castle turned out to be a big story that needed telling , Of the Duchess in the first world war doing all she could to keep her son out of the war .
At the end of the Book is a list of the 250 workers that went and died in that war , 2 of my inlaws are among that list and of 3 sons that went to war only one came back .
The Catcher in The Rye .
Many years ago I was sharing a flat with a group of students in Golders Green, somebody had a copy of the above and it got passed around. I think we all enjoyed it, maybe it’s time to read it again.
Your experience is truly remarkable both for you getting so riveted by a book and for the authors since this is what they hope for when writing a book.
It has never happened to me in my life, though, as far as I can remember. As a young boy I was fascinated by one or two books about American Indian tribes fighting against settlers similar to the Winnetou stories. (Don’t know if anyone has heard of them.) But no matter what book or magazine it was, the strain on my eyes always becomes so strong that I can’t read for a long time in the evening to this day.
I read it because it was supposed to have influenced Mark Chapman but I couldn’t see how.There’s nothing particularly shocking about it.It’s OK. I may read it again sometime.
I was unaware of the Mark Chapman link until now. As you say there’s nothing particularly shocking about the book, perhaps it’s a volume that younger people are more likely to connect with than the oldies, I think it probably is.
I might have to give it a read and see if I feel the same about it all these years later.
