You are in Maine. You have always been in Maine. No matter what happens to you, you will never be anywhere but Maine. Do you have a flight scheduled to Los Angeles? Too bad; the pilot’s just going to circle around the sky for a few hours before dropping you back in Bangor. Are you taking a cross-country road trip? Not likely, since you’re just driving from one side of Maine to the other, no…
“A lot of people have directed Stephen King novels and stories, and I finally decided if you want something done right, you oughtta do it yourself.” (Stephen King in the trailer for Maximum Overdrive, 1986) The cultural cachet of The Shining (1980) is familiar to everyone who has had fleeting exposure to American television, books or movies in the past century. The Simpsons referenced it, your mom loves it, and it’s the movie you put…
Previous installments of This Week in Reading can be found here. Most recently: Books That Should Be Banned. I read two terrifying books this week, gang. One was about Vladimir Putin, and the other was about a traveling posse of polyester-wearing ex-humans who feed off the steam released by torturing psychic children. I'm not even done the latter yet, but why let that stop me from talking about it? Let's start with Masha…