I’m not a huge fan of these sort of “justify my literature degree” goofy lists, but I dig this one from the Telegraph. The list hits some atypical choices for the literary set including Raymond Chandler, David Lindsay and Bob Kane (bonus points for crediting Bill Finger). And then there’s this masterful entry:
26 Cthulhu from The Call of Cthulhu, by HP Lovecraft
Gigantic tentacular star-spawned Presence in Lovecraft’s baroque cosmogony, sleeping in a sunken, “non-Euclidean” city until the time comes for it to swallow the world’s soul. Frequently evoked in barbaric, indecipherable language, although some people quite like Lovecraft’s prose. Gloriously, you can now buy a T-shirt reading: “What part of ‘ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn’ don’t you understand?”
The italics there are mine. I have a soft spot for pulp fiction and Lovecraft in particular, but good burn!
Fall is when I re-read Lovecraft. Puts me in the mood, as it were.