Credited with inventing the modern horror tradition, H.P. Lovecraft remade the genre in the early twentieth century, discarding ghosts and witches and instead envisaging menkind at the mercy of a chaotic and malevolent universe.

"the twentie cetury horror story's dark and baroque prince"
sthephen King

the book will be traveling on a ring

ring order:

Escalla (pt)
Kapalika (pt)
chibia (pt)
arturogrande (UK)
deadenmind (greece)
SqueakyChu (US)
DreamSE22 (Us)
S3rendipity(greece)
Elhurricane (pt)
Xeyra (portugal)

And this book has reached my hands! I will try not to take too long to read this book but I'm not sure how soon I can get to it. I will warn you if by any chance I have to take a bit longer than a month to read it. Thank you for organizing this bookring, butterfly-noir. I had never read anything by this author so I am very curious.

Í was unable to finish all the short stories in this book; after a while, no matter how interesting, my reading was going very slowly and I had too many books on my TBR mountain to keep on trying to read this one and keep it for longer than necessary. I did like the stories read very much. I'd never read anything by this author so it was very interesting to be witness to his vivid -- if weird -- imagination. A true master of the horror.

I will probably ask to borrow this book again when it returns home to read what I didn't the first time but right now, so as not to delay the bookring any longer, I'll move it on. I've PMed the next person on the list. Hopefully this will be traveling some time around next week.

Edit: This book should be on its way to ElHurricane tomorrow, September 20.

Here it is...
I'll try not to take too much time.
Thanks buterfly-noir and xeyra

I just sent it to escalla, without reading it, as talked with butterfly-noir.
I'm waiting for him again.
Thanks

Just got it! Personal delivery by the mailman, incredibly rare event, i see a hand of the Great Old Ones in this :)
My first incursion in Lovecraft i will begin to read today, lest they take vengeance on me.

I've really been looking forward to this one - I'm going to get started straight away.

Thanks very much.

I first came across Lovecraft some years ago and until now, all of his stuff I've read has been in horror anthologies.
Sandwiched next to more 'orthodox' horror stories, I always thought his work really stood out, but as I started to read this, with story after story treading the same path, I went off his style a little bit.
Almost every story had references to'Cyclopean cities' - so much so that I was starting to count the pages to see how far he could get into his stories before he used the phrase!
That said, some of the stories were very imaginative and very scary. My particular favourites were 'The Picture in the House' 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth' and 'The Haunter of the Dark'.
The explanatory notes at the end were very useful and helped to set the story in context.

Thanks very much, butterfly-noir, for starting this ring. It's now on its way to deadenmind in Greece.

I received it today, will get to it soon. Thanks!

I'm very sorry for keeping the book for so long. I did not manage to finish it, but I'm sending it on since it has been with me long enough and other people are waiting for it.
I enjoyed the stories I read and I definitely want to read more of Lovecraft's work.
Thank you for the bookring butterfly-noir! I have SqueakyChu's address and will send the book to her today.

I got the book today. Thank you, deadendmind, for sending the book to me all the way from Greece. I really appreciate it.

I've often heard about the stories of H.P. Lovecraft but have never read any. I'm into short stories these days so the book's arrival at this time is perfect. It looks like a pretty dense book so I'm not sure how long it'll take me to finish it, but I'll try to move it along as best I can.

Edit 07/14/06: DreamSE22 asked to be skipped.

Edit 08/02/06: There is no member of BookCrossing called serendipity-sg, so I am skipping that person. I have Elhurricane's address and will send the book along as soon as I'm finished.

Edit 8/10/06: Requesting permission from butterfly-noir to send this book to Elhurricane for whom I've already made a special bookmark/packing slip. I was not aware of S3rendipity's name change earlier.

Edit 8/11/06: Permission granted by butterfly-noir to ship to Elhurricane before S3rendipity. Now, back to the book... :-)

This is a book which cannot be read easily or quickly. Each story is very detailed and often needs to be cross-referenced by looking up footnotes (which I started to do, then stopped because it interfered with the flow of the stories for me).

I really enjoyed the opportunity I had to read this book. It's probably not one I would have tried had it not been for Bookcrossing. I also appreciate the extra time allotted to me so that I could read all of the stories while I still had possession of this volume. It was well worthwhile.

Some of the stories were a bit hard to get into as they began, but soon they began to flow, becoming more captivating and terribly frightening as the tales progressed. I can now see how Lovecraft's writings provided the spark for contemporary writers to find horror an acceptable genre to explore.

My suggestion for others who read this book is to take time to really digest each story and not so much worry about moving it along in "30 days". I'm sorry for the previous readers who have missed some excellent stories toward the end of this volume. I look forward to reading other writing by this author.

My favorite stories were "The Picture in the House", "Herbert West: Reanimator", "The Whisperer in Darkness", and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth".

Both the excellent writing and engaging, creepy stories made reading this book great fun. Thanks so much, butterfly-noir, for sharing this wonderful book with me.

The book is now in the mail to ElHurricane in Portugal. Enjoy!

P.S. I am sending a PM to Elhurricane for the book to be sent next to S3rendipity.

Here it is again.
This time I will read it even if I take a little long.
Thanks SqueakyChu and butterfly.

Finally did it. Altough at the beginning it seemed hard to read it I did it and liked it.
My favourites were "The Whisperer in darkness" and "Hernest West: Reanimator".
Thanks butterfly-noir for charing.
Going on its way.

Sent today back to butterfly-noir.
Have a nice trip!

and it arrived safely back at home

it's been on a loan to a non-bc friend who curiosly ended up returning it by mail!

passed it to huntegodess today. I hope Howrad wont disapoint you

Butterfly lend it to me today.
I will read it slowly, short story by short story.
I wanted it because I have been playing Munchkin Cthulhu, so I want to know what the hell is a Cthulhu.