Discussion 23: The Beggar and the Diamond / Brooklyn August / Thoughts on N&D

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fljoe0

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Tonight, we finish up with Nightmares and Dreamscapes. Tell us what you think of The Beggar and the Diamond and Brooklyn August. Also what did you think of Nightmares and Dreamscapes compared to SKs other anthologies. Have a favorite story?

I love the parable The Beggar and the Diamond. My take on this parable is that we all have our roles to play and nothing can change that.

I think all of Steve's short story collections are excellent. As far as this book goes, I would probably rank it in the middle of the pack with the other collections. There's lots of great stuff in this book but it also has a clunker or two more than the others. It's kind of weird that Steve said he was struggling with the short story around when this book was published but it's his biggest collection. I think I only counted two stories from the 90s (it was published in 92) so he must have been talking about the early 90s. I think Home Delivery might be my favorite.


I think going forward, we will go with random stories from the collections. I figured we could take turns picking the story. One idea that I have is to add a couple of authors to the mix. It would have to be authors that we all have the books of. So I was thinking along with picking random stories from Steve, we could occasionally throw in Poe (I think we all have access to those stories) and Joe Hill's 20th Century Ghosts and maybe Bradbury. The tricky part with Bradbury is that he has so many collections, finding one we all have might be challenging. (The October Country is pretty common). Let me know what you think.
 

Spideyman

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Agree about loving the parable. I think the ending question asked by God is a challenge to us all to find the lesson. To find our own meaning within.

The collection of stories was good. Some better than others. I have enjoyed other collections to a greater degree. The Doctor's Case was my fav. I do enjoy Holmes like stories.

Random picks from other collections or different authors, all sound good.
 

Tery

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A parable is always nice. This one is up there on the list.

I enjoyed this collection. It contains my favorite "non-horror" short story, My Pretty Pony. With every passing year I grok that story more.

I'm good with straying from the SK collection. I'd note that many older authors' collections show up as ebooks under $3 quite often. For example, I have the complete Poe and Lovecraft. We might also try to find stories that Uncle Stevie has recommended. I recently read The Great God Pan; a book he recommended in Dance Macabre, which is more of a short story than a novella. It's free on amazon as an ebook.
 

GNTLGNT

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....I got.....nothin'.....sooooo:

giphy1.gif
 

fljoe0

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OK, I'll pick first for next week. Next week, we will read The Monkey from Skeleton Crew. I'll hand the reins to Spidey the week after that and she can pick the next story and the next person to select the story the week after than and so on.

Just for future reference, what Ray Bradbury collections do we have? There's one called 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales that's good (the title says it all). The October Country is a popular one (with some good carnival themed stories). He's got a bunch of them and some are out of print so I'd like to see if there's one we all have. I have both of the ones I mentioned plus a few more.
 

Spideyman

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OK, I'll pick first for next week. Next week, we will read The Monkey from Skeleton Crew. I'll hand the reins to Spidey the week after that and she can pick the next story and the next person to select the story the week after than and so on.

Just for future reference, what Ray Bradbury collections do we have? There's one called 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales that's good (the title says it all). The October Country is a popular one (with some good carnival themed stories). He's got a bunch of them and some are out of print so I'd like to see if there's one we all have. I have both of the ones I mentioned plus a few more.
:thumbs_up::thumbs_up:
 

Moderator

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I'll download The October Country too,

How does that sound as the book for next Wednesday (27th) ?

Note: the following Wednesday will be July 4th and MB closed-- possibly a long weekend for MsMod??

Should be skip that week? And if cat in a bag is available, I'll name her to chose the next one.

That would be wishful thinking on my part. I only have the 4th off but will be on vacation the following week so the Board will be closed then.
 

cat in a bag

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Re thinking my post above The October Country seems the ebook price has risen to $10.99 from the $2.99 Might be out of budget?

We can move the July 4th discussion to July5Th??? Skip the following week due to Ms Mod vacation returning to July 13th with Cat????
There should be another version that is still 2.99. The 10.99 one showed up for me first on a search, but there is a button to click that says "other versions" and that one is 2.99

I'm available whenever!
 

fljoe0

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I fell behind in reading N&D, was busy making bookmarks for the Kon but I have them done so I'm going to jump back in.

As far as Bradbury, I have that 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales one as well. I will get The October Country downloaded.


You've already had to stand in the corner once for being late with your assignment. What am I going to do with you?
 

fljoe0

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Now that we have finished with Nightmares & Dreamscapes, we will be picking random short stories to discuss. I have selected first and tonight's discussion will be The Monkey from Skeleton Crew. It starts at 9pm Miami time, 1pm Fiji time.

We are off next week because of Independence Day
The following week the selection will be from Spidey
then Cat will select and she will pick the next person
and so on

We have added 20th Century Ghosts (Joe Hill), The October Country (Ray Bradbury) and Poe to the short stories of Stephen King to make our random selections from.
 

Spideyman

Uber Member
Jul 10, 2006
46,336
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Just north of Duma Key
Now that we have finished with Nightmares & Dreamscapes, we will be picking random short stories to discuss. I have selected first and tonight's discussion will be The Monkey from Skeleton Crew. It starts at 9pm Miami time, 1pm Fiji time.

We are off next week because of Independence Day
The following week the selection will be from Spidey
then Cat will select and she will pick the next person
and so on

We have added 20th Century Ghosts (Joe Hill), The October Country (Ray Bradbury) and Poe to the short stories of Stephen King to make our random selections from.

fljoe0

Would you like to have the group discussion on Thursday July 5 ? Or skip that week due to holday?

Please note- the week of July 9- 13 Marsha will have vacation,( board usually closes during her vacation) thus the next discussion would be July 18th
 

Neesy

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May 24, 2012
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Now that we have finished with Nightmares & Dreamscapes, we will be picking random short stories to discuss. I have selected first and tonight's discussion will be The Monkey from Skeleton Crew. It starts at 9pm Miami time, 1pm Fiji time.

We are off next week because of Independence Day
The following week the selection will be from Spidey
then Cat will select and she will pick the next person
and so on

We have added 20th Century Ghosts (Joe Hill), The October Country (Ray Bradbury) and Poe to the short stories of Stephen King to make our random selections from.
I don't have that book (Skeleton Crew) so unless I can find it online and read it very quickly, I cannot participate tonight. I did read The Monkey in the past, from a library book, but it was quite a while ago.

Hmmm - maybe I will go check my iPad and see if there is some way I can download it - will be back later!
 

Marty Coslaw

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Agree about loving the parable. I think the ending question asked by God is a challenge to us all to find the lesson. To find our own meaning within.

The collection of stories was good. Some better than others. I have enjoyed other collections to a greater degree. The Doctor's Case was my fav. I do enjoy Holmes like stories.

Random picks from other collections or different authors, all sound good.
I think you're right about the "I don't know, did I?" question. What I was most puzzled about, though, was the part right before that, where God says something like "the difference is he'll find the branch and it will be useful for the rest of his days." Clearly, he's talking about the difference between the diamond and the stick, but what is the implication about finding the diamond? Never would have? Leads to evil? Throws off the balance?