A Ghostly Challenge and R.I.P. III Challenge Completed

I know I’m a little late with this wrap-up post – I’ve spent much of October on the road, and haven’t been able to do much blogging or reading on a regular basis. And I still have to write up my reviews of two of the books, but at least I’ve done the reading. So I feel like I’ve completed the challenges, even if only technically.

Both challenges ended with the month of October, and were similar in make-up – and at first I thought I’d probably read the same books for both of them. As it turned out, one of the books I read for the Ghostly Challenge (Eva Moves the Furniture), while it involved ghosts, wasn’t terribly spooky. So I ended up with slightly different results.

For the R.I.P. III Challenge, I read The House With a Clock in Its Walls, by John Bellairs [see review], and The Penguin Complete Ghost Stories of M.R. James [review to come]. And for the Ghostly Challenge, my books were Eva Moves the Furniture [review to come], and (again) the Penguin M.R. James collection.

I want to say thanks to Carl V. at Stainless Steel Droppings for hosting the R.I.P. III Challenge (and I’m already looking forward to number IV), and to Callista at SMS Book Reviews for hosting A Ghostly Challenge (can we hope for another edition next year?). I really wish I’d had more time to devote to both challenges, because I love reading scary stories. I’ve certainly enjoyed looking at all the reviews by other challenge participants. And I’ve gotten some great ideas about other books I want to investigate. Not that I really need to be adding titles to that already overwhelming TBR pile!