H.P. Lovecraft was always on the periphery of my literary to-do list, but I only got around to reading some his works last year. I do quite enjoy his weird horror, the unsettling creativity of the Cthulu Mythos is fantastic, and his influence is clear throughout horror and sci-fi today, particlualry in the Hellboy comics which I also started reading and absolutely adore. But questions of the man's pronounced racism are hard to ignore...

Recently was put onto Thomas Ligotti, whose works follow the same vein of eldritch horror, but apparently far more "thoughtful and compelling" and without the bigotry of HPL (according to Kris Straub, at least). Looking forward to giving him a read.