Something Wicked This Way Comes - A Readalong

Carl's RIP Challenges are always so fun and gets me right in the spirit for the fall season and spooky Halloween tales, and this year is no different. While I'm not strongly participating in it this year as much as I'd like to, I'm definitely joining this readalong.

I've joined Ti and Sandy for their readalong of Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. I'ts a story I've always wanted to read, but pushed off one for one reason or another. And as the weather gets cooler here in North Florida (it's been 55 degrees in the morning this week!), this story is settling in just right.

First impressions?

I'm pretty sure Ray Bradbury was high when he wrote this. It was a bumpy road getting used to the rhythm, but I'm into it now. Here's a sampling:

There's nothing in the living world like books on water, cures, deaths-of-a-thousand-slices, or pouring white-hot lava off castle walls on drolls and mountebanks. (Chapter 2)

Out in the world, not much happened. But here in the special night, a land bricked with paper and leather, anything might happen, always did. Listen! and you heard ten thousand people screaming so high only dogs feathered their ears. A million folk ran toting cannons, sharpening guillotines; Chinese, four abreast, marched on forever. Invisible, silent, yes, but Jim and Will had the gift of ears and noses as well as the gift of tongues. This was a factory of spices from far countries. Here alien deserts slumbered. Up front was the desk where the nice old lady, Miss Watriss, purple-stamped your books, but down off away were Tibet and Antarctica, the Congo. There went Miss Wills, the other librarian, through Outer Magnolia, calmly toting fragments of Peiping and Yokohama and the Celebes. Way down the third book corridor, an oldish man whispered his broom along in the drak, mounding the fallen spices... (Chapter 2 - this passage is describing the many books and adventures available in a library.)

Trippy.

Readalong Details

• The read along begins on October 1, 2014 and ends on October 31, 2014.
• This read along will take place mostly on Twitter using the hashtag #EnterTheRingmaster. Use the hashtag to share your thoughts while reading. You can click the link here or search that hashtag on Twitter to see what readers are saying.

The book is short and broken down into three sections. Here is the schedule:

• Finish Section 1 (Chapters 1-24) by Friday, October 10th
• Finish Section 2 (Chapters 25-44) by Friday, October 24th
• Finish Section 3 (Chapters 45-54) by Friday, October 31st

On the dates above, Ti will post a quick update. Join in!