October Update/Wrap Up...Yes I Know It Is November

Ok folks, I know it's November, but I can't let October go without a final farewell.  This was seriously one of the best birthday months I have ever had and it was really wholly due to my amazing friends and family.  They all bent over backwards to make what was already my favorite month of the year absolutely unforgettable in such a great way.  Hubbin especially went so far above and beyond that I want to marry him all over again (see my previous posts about my trip of unreal perfection).  To end this month of awesome I got to spend Halloween at my fire station, which is my happy place so already good.  My driver and I both had the same idea and brought costume props (we can't go full on costume on calls...something about doing CPR dressed like death makes some people a little uncomfortable...) and took tons of pictures of the whole crew all dressed up.  Several scary movies and jumpy pranks later we decided to actually do some work and run some calls.  The best part however was our friend came in with presents!!! Yep not only did I get birthday presents, but I got a Halloween gift too...seriously I am so spoiled.  Anyways my girl decided to start a new tradition where we all read the same scary book each October and every year a different person picks the book.  She started it by gifting us with The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey...which besides being on my TBR list, also has a yellow cover so pretty much awesome.  I am so excited to read this book with my firehouse book club people and absolutely love the fact that going to my happy place results in new books and people to discuss them with!  I am so deliouresly happy about almost everything that happened this month (there were crappy things...cause you know real life...but I'm pretending they didn't happen in my happy retrospect lol) and cannot believe how blessed I am in my friends and family.  I love you all, and cannot wait to see what happens next...now off to go read my new book under my reading tree so I have something to ramble about.  Happy Reading Everybody!

Decor Of The Literary And Spooky

It's almost Halloween!!! Time for ghoulies and ghosties and some book themed spooky decor for your next fabulous book themed costume party of Halloween epicness!

Poe Wreath

An atmospheric and classic way to greet your guests.

Pumpkin Book

I love books, I love pumpkins...I love this idea!

Boo Banner

Printed on some ghost stories this decor also keeps your guests entertained!

Spell Book

I cast a spell on you...to leave me alone so I can keep reading!

Pretty Books

Even our books like to get up for Halloween, so let a couple put on these printable covers and join the party!

Ok, now that I have given you all some idea's I need somebody to have a party so I can come dressed as one of my many favorite book characters and have a rousing literary discussion!  Happy Reading Everybody!

Inhuman And Undead

Who is ready for one last bit of spooky yummyness?   I totally forgot that I had this short story collection on my Nook, so yay happy surprise.  The book is Strange Afterlives edited by one of my faves A. Lee Martinez.  The premise is a collection of stories about undead creatures and objects that are not human...here are my favorites as always SPOILERS AHEAD!

Mouse Trouble by A.Lee Martinez - Magic mice, mummified cats, a mystical exterminator.  This little story has all the signature humor and everyday magic that I have come to expect from this author.  This right here is why I read pretty much every book/story he has written.

The Late Mrs. Buttons by Sally Hamilton - After watching Annabelle  at the firehouse last week, I am now terrified of dolls.  This story gives us another reason to treat these spooky human facsimiles with respect and a bit of terror as well.  After reading this, you might think twice about how you dispose of old toys.

An Undercover Haunting by Kristi Hutson - Speaking of humorous, this story features a haunted afghan...yep you heard me right a blanket that speaks from beyond the grave.  The addition of it being a bunch of college boys who are being possessed makes the tone of this tale spot on.

The Runner by John Bartell - This is one of the creepiest retellings of a children's story that I have ever read.  If you thought the tale of The Gingerbread Man was already a little dark, then this version takes to a level that is pitch black.  A bit of sadness and a twisted friendship make this story pack a huge punch for its small page count.

The Scavenger Hunt by J.B. Sanders Jr. - Zombie cars...not much else to say other then what a cool concept.  The author manages to pack a whole spooky story in just a couple of pages.  The setting is chilling, the idea is terrifying and the ending is perfect.

All of the stories in this collection are very creative and different, making it a book that has something for everyone.  At just 5 to 15 pages each, all 11 stories can be read very quickly.  After reading this I am now terrified that just about everything in my house is going to come back to life and kill me.  Happy Reading Everybody!

The Family That Dresses Up Together

Dressing up is fun...dressing up as a group is awesome.  Here are some literary idea's to inflict on your friends and family.

Harry Potter Group Dress Up

There are so many ways to go with a group Harry Potter effort.  You can go with as few or as many people as you want, very versatile

Jane Austen Dress Up

With seven books to choose from I'm sure you can all find a classy costume

Narnia Family Costume

My siblings probably still have nightmares of me doing this to them :-)

Lord of the Rings Dress Up

Epic and creative and classic...win, win, win!

Game of Thrones Group Cosplay

If you can't find somebody to dress up as in this series, then you just are not trying hard enough.

Go grab a group of your literary minded friends, or blackmail you spouse, or pull your parental power with the kiddos and send me picks of your group of literary dress up.  Happy Reading Everybody!

Reading Day Off

Enjoying a rare day off finishing my Halloween Reading.  It was glorious.

Happy Reading Everybody!

When The World Went Cold

Hello all, how was your weekend?  Mine was exhaustingly busy and awesome and crazy...so about the norm.  I promised you all some Halloween style ramblings this week, so let us start of with The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black.  I got this book on a total whim one day.  I was just sitting on my couch and out of the blue I decided that this was a book I need to get and read for the October season (I love ebooks sometimes, really feeds into my impulse buying/reading habit) and so I did.  Was my impulse decision good or bad?  Lets find out, as always SPOILERS AHEAD!

Tana wakes up in the bathroom after a wild highschool party completely alone and having a hard time remembering what happened.  As she makes her way through the house she realizes that every person at the party is dead, killed in a horrific manner, with all the requisite blood and gore.  The only survivor other then herself is her ex-boyfriend Aidan and a crazy (seriously deranged) vampire that goes by Gavriel.  Yep this is a vampire book...but it's ok...it's a good vampire book.  In flashbacks through out the book we learn that vampires have been around forever, but one by the name of Casper Morales bought into the whole human romanticizing of the undead (see what happens when you make your vampires glitter) and decided to go on a turning rampage.  In this world when you get bitten by a vampire you go Cold, which means you are infected, but not turned.  To turn you need to drink human blood, then you die and come back immortal, pointy toothed and thirsty.  If you don't drink human blood within about 88 days then the infection goes away and you remain human.  Cool beans, you think, if I want to stay human I'll just refrain from drinking blood.  Unfortunately it is not so easy, when you go Cold, you get progressively thirstier and thirstier until you turn into a super strong lunatic who would do anything to get blood.  So the vampire Casper goes around infecting as many people as he can sink his teeth into (previously the old vampires would carefully regulate the turning of new vampires to keep their existence a secret and also to keep the food supply plentiful) and all these new crazy insatiable vampires go around infecting more people...lather, rinse, repeat.  The governments doing what governments do, eventually get a bit of a handle on the situation and quarantine off a bunch of the cities, sending any vampires and infected to them. Back to Tana.  Hmmm if I write this all out the post is going to be 100 pages long...I'll do my best.  Tana takes both boys on a freaky road trip where they meet up with Midnight and Winter, a brother and sister duo with a death wish.  They make it to Coldtown where the infected Aiden and the mad Gavriel must live out the rest of their lives and Tana gets a marker to get out later as long as she remains human.  The twins also head in, hoping to convince on of their coveted undead to bite them...without killing them.  Gavriel leaves the group after a parting gift from Tana and the rest of the group head to a house of Midnights friends.  All kinds of absolute horrific, yet entertaining insaneness ensue with truly tragic results.  Tana gets caught up in an ancient feud between Gavriel and Lucien, the vampire who reigns over Coldtown as it's beautiful, untouchable star.  More madness and mayhem, more death and Tana gets bitten for real.  Tana's little sister Pearl comes looking for her adding even more chaos to the mess.  After approximately 2/3 of the characters die we finally end with Tana determined to defeat the infection and remain human.  Gavriel offers to stay with her, as he can easily over power her even in her infected state and in his madness her pleas mean nothing.  Tana asks why he would do this and he tells her she is the only person to ever try and save him.  We end with the two of them holed up for the fight of Tana's life.

Argh!  I hate trying to summarize books like this because it is so chock full of awesomeness and things and stuff that directly pertain to all my myriads of feelings on this book, but if I try and get it all in I'll just rewrite the book. I guess you'll just have to trust me on the stuff I didn't get in.  So I started reading this not knowing what to expect and I think that greatly added to my enjoyment of the book.  Like I said before it was a completely out of the blue, random buy and read.  Ok let's start with the good, and I will try and be coherent.  First of all, I love vampires.  They may be my favorite type of monster 'cause they are usually intelligent and can make choices.  I like the idea of immortality playing a role in their decisions and their weird mix of inclusion and aloofness in the human race. The vampires in this book made me happy because of the variety and realisticness of their attitudes.  You have your ancient and elite guys who have remained hidden for thousands of years, keeping tight control.  You have your young guns who want a change, you have your pathetic, your haughty, and your bat sh*t crazy, all with their own unique perspective.  I liked how the author had a fairly well thought out society and progression of history when it came to her vampires and their history with the rest of the world.  Next on the list surprised me.  I loved all the teenagers.  Yep, I usually am not a fan of modern YA books 'cause teenage angst drives me bananas, but in this book you could tell the author remembered what being a teen felt like without the over the topness you get in a lot of books.  The heroine Tana was tough, but not necessary kick-ass.  She had a history that would justify major drama, but she kept it to a mix of pragmaticness and an impulse control issue.  Tana was scared, confused, angry, tired, and a little bit in love...just like any human would be in her situation.  Aidan was a great character because he started out a bit twisted and messed up and getting infected and the way he acted after all seemed in-line with the character.  He is a character that a lot of writers try to include to show how "progressive" and "modern" they are, but it usually feels like a token piece.  Ms. Black however managed to make Aidan a real person, somebody who I swear I've met before, really well written.  Midnight, Winter and Pearl all show a fascination with the "stars" of Coldtown that mirrors our own societies obsession with a lifestyle they can't have, and they show us all facets of it.  A lot of bad stuff happens in this book, I mean a lot, like Game of Thrones style bad, but all of it is necessary and not only furthers the story, but adds consequences to decisions and actions. I love this because while there are some good outcomes in the book, not everything ended happily and wonderfully.  Choices were made, and sometimes it was the wrong choice and people suffered greatly for it.  There is romance in the book, and the main one is between the heroine and the vampire, but it is actually a decent romance.  Tana realizes that her attraction to Gavriel is in part an instinctive reaction to his looks and she tries to temper it.  The author also lets Gavriel be truly crazy, mad as a hatter and that adds an awesome dimension to a YA romance plot.  Really the only things that got to me were sometimes it felt like the vampires, especially Lucien and his cohorts were directly lifted from an Anne Rice novel.  I sometimes would automatically substitute the name Lestat for the various vampires. The author stated that this book was in part a tribute to the various vampire writers...but it felt a tad bit derivative at times (yay I got to use one of my big girl words).  I could probably go on for pages about the subtleties and nuances and social commentary, but I will let you go read it so you can come back here and discuss it with me. I recommend it to all my reading buddies (you know who you are), anybody who wanted Twilight to be better, or just wants a really nuanced YA book with action and awesome.  I give this book 8 out of 10 garnet necklaces and I hope they never try and turn it into a movie 'cause they will just ruin it.   Happy Reading Everybody!

Lost In Literature

Tis the season for corn mazes and what better way to wander then through a literary inspired labyrinth.

Alice in Wonderland

Down the rabbit hole and into the maze

The Maze Runner

A little bit meta, but still pretty cool

Twilight

I guess it's better then a Kardashian maze...

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

A classic scare, perfect for Halloween

Wicked

Just cool...really really cool

Make sure you bring a couple of books, just in case you get lost.  Happy Reading Everybody!

Scarey Ghosts

Who's ready for a quick rambling?  Cool, I'm a bit exhuasted after a 48 hour shift, but I think I can manage a quicky on our next October book of scares.  The book is Thirteen Chairs by Dave Shelton and is a collection of short stories threaded together with an underlying thread.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

The book starts with a boy Jack going into a spooky old house and opening a door.  What he finds is 13 chairs, on unoccupied and an invitation to sit down.  Jack sits and the stories begin.  Each person around the room tells a scary story, blowing out their candle when finished.  This is normally where I would list my favorite stories, but they are all only between 5 and 10 pages long, so not really worth summarizing.  Each story is prefaced with conversation and a bit of back ground by each person telling the story, and each story is different and scary.  The second to last story is told by Mr. Osterley who tells his own story.  Turns out he was a mortician in life and when he died continued to help the dead.  Jack is then invited to tell a story and he decides to tell his own as well.  He tells the other story tellers that he knows that they are dead, and that they tell each other scary stories to feel that thrill of fear they felt when they were alive.  He then goes on to describe to them from a living boy's perspective how scared he felt with each story, giving the ghosts a taste of life.  The book ends with a girl headed towards the house after hearing about it from a boy named Jack.

I told you this would be quick teeheehee.  The book was pretty good, the stories were varied enough to keep my interest and the illustrations that went with each one were pretty cool.  I guessed pretty quickly that the story tellers were dead, but I wasn't sure about Jack until about half way through.  The only real issue I had was that I wanted the thread linking them all together to be different...more of a story instead of just a bunch of ghosts trying to scare each other.  The book itself looks spookier then it is (it was a complete impulse buy because of it's awesomely all black cover), but does its job as a ghost story book.  Overall not much to say about it, it is what it is, and it works just fine.  I give it 7 out 10 chairs and recommend it to anybody who wants a quick read, some good ghost stories or a really cool looking book to display around Halloween.  Happy Reading Everybody!

Bats, Spiders And Skulls Oh My!

Time to decorate for Halloween!  Here are some literary critters to spooky up the place.

Bat Book

Looks like this little guy is ready to fly right at your face!

Spider Book Jar

I know a couple of people who would never put their hands in this jar no matter how badly they want the books...not me though, I'll stick my hand in anything to get a book.

Victorian Skull Print

Top O' the Halloween to you, Cheerio, Tut tut and all that.

Ghost Pop-Up 

Super cute, super easy, super ghosty

Witches Spell Book

Leaving this lying around might keep the kiddo's in line...especially if you cackle evilly every time you pass it!

Alrighty folks, I've supplied some starting ideas, now go forth and decorate to your spookiest most literary utmost.  Happy Reading Everybody!

Anthropodermic Bibliopegy

October, the month for spooky and spine tingly and all other kinds of awesome creepy goodness.  It is also a time for learning...so here is a new term for most of you - Anthropodermic bibliopegy which is essentially the practice of binding books in human skin...ew.  Yep apparently not only are there actually books bound in the epidermis of homo sapiens, but there is an official term for it.

Arsène Houssaye’s Des destinées de l’ame 

This is a book that is actually bound in human skin.  How do we know this isn't just some sick Halloween prank?  Well science has confirmed it.  Don't believe me, read this article all about it.  There are other instances of human skin bound books, but I think I have done my duty.  Happy Reading Everybody!

A Book Experience

Sometimes I get to have what I call a book experience.  This is what I call an experience that feels like it came out of one of my books.  Sometimes it is from a specific book, or a genre, or author, or just a feeling that I have "read" this experience before...does that make sense?  For example, this weekend my amazing Hubbin and bestie L took me out to one of the most interactive dinners I have ever had.  We started with custom drinks, and then we were taken to our table where we were attended by a score of well dressed men taking care of our every need.  We had a multi course dinner that was ordered all at once, accompanied by a paired wine.  Where the "book experience" comes in

 is that I have been reading a lot of books set in the early 1900's America and one of the hallmarks of this era and setting is how the rich would go to the high end hotels and have these lavish meals where they were served and pampered by the hospitality elite.  Our dining experience felt very similar to the ones I had read about, right down to the lack of female presence in anything other then the diners (because God forbid back in the day a mere female sully atmosphere).  Another experience I've had is last October when we went to a Halloween festival that included a haunted forest, bonfires, demons, the seven deadly sins and a late night atmosphere one usually only feels while reading a really great horror novel.  The whole night I kept feeling like we were turning the pages of our very own story, it was awesome.  I love going to botanical gardens because I feel like I am wandering around an English novel, and I love going hiking because depending on the weather and the hike, I feel like I am in any number of fantastic stories.  All of this to say, as much as I adore, love, am obsessed with reading, it is going out and having these experiences that I can then relate back to the books, or remember them when reading new ones that really makes life and reading the awesome thing that it is.  Lucky for me I am surrounded by people who are willing to indulge my real life book experiences and continue to help me find new ones.  Happy Reading Everybody!

All Booked Up

As Halloween approaches I thought it might fun to put out some costume idea's for those of us that wait until the last minute.  And what better costume then a book?!?  Here are some of my favorite book costume idea's for this year.

Book Fairy

Book wings, tutu, and wand, it doesn't get much better.

Kid Book

Cute, quick, and awesome!

Bookworm

This has got to be one of the coolest bookworm costumes I have ever seen

Book Cover

You could get a group of friends together and go as a series

Book Shirt

This is perfect for somebody who does not want a full blown costume.

I would love to see pictures of all of your book inspired costumes, so send them on over!  Happy Reading Everybody!  (Also can somebody make me a book shirt and a sparkly book fairy costume).

Schizophrenic Writing Of The Dead

In case you all haven't noticed, I love atmosphere.  I love to read just the right book, at the right time, in the right place, for the right mood and no month is more atmospheric then October.  To this end I picked up the book Death Watch by Ari Berk because both the cover and the description sounded perfect for a dreary October afternoon.  Unfortunately a lack of focus made this book less then it should have been, but first as always SPOILERS AHEAD!

I will do my best with this synopsis, but I have to warn you that this book was all over the place.  As best as I can tell there is a town called Lichport that has some sort of deal where the dead wander all over the place in various forms.  We get zombie like creatures, ghosts, ghouls and people who just refuse to be dead.  Enter the Umbers, an old family from Lichport who take on the role of Undertaker, who's job it is...well...I'm still not 100% sure what their job is.  I think an Undertaker is their mostly to help the dead along, fix troublesome dead people, and chit chat with the dead who hang around and are helpful.  The story part comes in when we meet Sila Umber, a teenage boy who just recently graduated from high school.  Silas is an odd duck, there is no real reason given, other
then he is weird.  Silas's mother has done her best to force his father to appear to lead a normal life.  The family lives in Saltbridge, a town close to Lichport.  Silas's mother insists that no word about his fathers real work be told to him, and Lichport is rarely mentioned in their home.  One day Silas's father does not come home.  Silas's mother does her best to keep things normal, but her excessive drinking and inability to understand her son makes her mean.  They move back to Lichport to live with Silas's rich Uncle (who is brother to his father) and right away he senses something is wrong.  He eventually discovers the house that his father worked out of while he was in Lichport and is given the keys and free reign to it by Mrs. Bowe a woman who helps the Undertaker with his ambiguous work. Silas finds a watch in his father's belongings that when stopped allows him to see the dead in their spirit forms.  The watch is called a Death Watch and is one of a zillion partially explained artifact that an Undertaker can use in his work.  About 37 different storylines appear and disappear through out the book.  In the end I guess part of what happened was that Silas's Uncle had a son who died and he has spent the last couple of years killing people to try and appease his ghost, including his wife, and Silas's dad.  He wanted to figure out a way to keep Silas with him, thinking that giving his ghost kid a "brother" would some how make him happy.  Uncle is chased out by assorted ghosts, ghouls, living, dead, zombies and birds that had something to do with the story and he eventually was trapped aboard a ghost ship of evil people...which also had its own partial storyline.  Silas takes up his dad's work and there are two more books to confuse us with.

This book took me forever to get through. It was long, meandering, and never really went anywhere. The overwhelming feel of the book was that the author had all of these ideas and stories and really wanted to get every single one of them into the book.  He also seemed to want to get every type of death ritual ever performed in the whole entire world a bit of spotlight.  All of this combined with the feel that the author was trying to keep us in suspense through out the whole book made it fell very muddy and boggy.  All of this could have actually worked if his editors had made him flow the story a little more.  I think the main story needed fleshing out and to flow beginning to end, with the rites and stories put in as vignettes or prefaces to the different chapters.  Instead it was all mixed together until you could not tell if what you were reading was part of the story, or a separate story, or if they had anything to do with each other at all.  These little mini-stories were not even kept together, even these were broken into pieces and scattered through out the other stories, so I spent a lot of time trying to piece everything together, with no real pay-off.  The town of Lichport itself caused me a lot of problems.  I think the author was trying to make the town its own character, which I have seen

done very well before so it is possible.  Unfortunately the town did not make a whole lot of sense.  It also suffered from way too much going on.  In some places old houses were inhabited by zombies that were not zombies, other places had crumbled into ghoulish unsafe place, there are random ghosts, some friendly some not, there are marshes that are haunted by mother/bird combo's, a pond that has a very frisky ghost that may or may not have anything to do with the story, there are random undefined beings that are helpful sometimes...or not.  There are also a very few living people who all except Uncle are keen to help Silas in his undefined work.  There are no rules at all for this town, there is random tidbits of history, but nothing to actually tell us what the heck is going on.  You also get the feeling that the undead WAY outnumber the living, and that the living are all leaving at some point anyways...which makes me ask what you need an Undertaker for if you are all on your way out?    The most frustrating thing about this book is that it could have been really cool and perfect for Halloween/Fall.   If the author had done better organizing the various stories, maybe added an appendixes for the parts that were not easily explainable in prose, and limited his stories to a few well told ones, instead of a zillion fragments I think it could have been a great book.  Alas as it stands this book is a great idea, but way to scattered and nebulous to be read with any real enjoyment.  I will have to give this book 5 out of 10 honey preserved bodies.  I do however seem to be in the minority as I know there have been several glowing reviews, which is awesome.  This is the best thing about books, I can think one thing, you can think another and we all get to decide for ourselves, YAY BOOKS!
What makes or breaks a book for you?  Is there such thing as too many stories?  Am I just not smart enough for this book?

Literary Allusions In A Haunted Forest

My birthday weekend rocked.  I have to say I have the best friends and family on planet earth and having a birthday in the middle of fall/near Halloween is just icing on the really yummy molten lava cake they bought me for my birthday.  The weekend started with a two hour Skype with the Mamma, followed by phone calls, video's and cards from all of my nephews.  A quick check in with Daddy and the siblings and I was ready to party.  Baby Sis and her husband came down from PA to party with me, the Hubbin and some very close friends in my favorite Irish pub.  I love the feel of this pub, it is an old in with all these little tables tucked away and you can just imagine your favorite author jotting down his/her story with a glass of Irish whisky in hand.
Saturday started out at my favorite used book store 2nd & Charles and between me and Baby Sis we may have filled up the trunk of the car with books...we may never be allowed to go back.  Dinner with friends and then on to Markoff's Haunted Forest.  The whole event was based on Dante's Inferno with the attractions being named and themed after the seven circles of Hell.  I do not scare easily, but the people I was with do, so I was thoroughly entertained the whole time (all right I admit it, I did my fair share of screaming too!).  We rode the zip-line, which in the middle of the night is the best feeling in the world.  There were bon fires, food, music, and a ton of demons to keep us on our toes.  The best part of the night was the actual trail itself.  You get to wander through the woods, through various vignette's all while clinging tightly to your group.  Six of us ended up going through together and you could tell we were all book geeks by our numerous references to books through out.  One girl got "volunteered" to be tribute (as in Katniss volunteering in The Hunger Games).  There was a swamp that instead of scaring us, led to a five minute discussion on how it reminded us of the Dread Marshes from the Two Towers...until the scary monsters asked us to kindly move along.  One of the sections contained a combination of human and dragon bones that looked like it could have come straight out of Game of Thrones, complete with a GIANT dragon skull that nearly knocked one of our own into the swamp.  Overall the scares were great, the night was perfect and I could not have asked for better people to spend my birthday weekend with.  I hope you all had a great weekend too and can't wait to get some of my ramblings up this week.  Happy Reading Everybody!

And Everybody Dies

I love a good scary story.  I love the chill that goes up your spine, the jumpiness when a door creaks, the urge to turn on a light after you have read a particularly spooky story.  This year I have been searching for a good collection of scary stories and one of the books I read in the never ending quest for a good scary story was Uncle Montegue's Tales of Terror by Chris Priestley.  It is a book of short stories, tied together by the over all story of Uncle Montegue and the stories he tells his nephew.  Here are some of my favorites in the collection.

Climb Not - A boy finds a strange tree on his new estate, and against all warning climbs it.  He is chased by an unknown presence and is ultimately killed.  This is the kind of story that I find scary, one where force is never seen, leaving me to imagine the worst.

The Un-Door - This story features the classic twist of the con-woman becoming the victim when a face seance team discovers that ghosts are real.  Our fake assistant/thief becomes trapped in a doll-house when a supposed fake seance becomes very real.

Offerings - Every parents worst nightmare comes true in this story of a sweet little boy who befriends a deamon.  When a preacher and his family move to a new town, their little boy turns from an innocent lad into a demon influenced killer.

The Gilt Frame- A story about a girl who finds her wishes are coming true in the most horrible of fashions.  This realization becomes even more horrific when she realizes that it is she, and not the girl in the mirror who is bringing this awful events about.

The Path - A boy who is becoming a man decides to leave his small village.  As he is walking up the hidden path, he realizes he is being followed.  He tries to out run this apparition, only to realize it is a bloody, injured, ruin of himself...which turns out to be a terrible foreshadowing of his own fate.

I read a couple of these stories to my Hubbin as we drove through the back roads in the middle of the night and the atmosphere was fantastic.  I found these tales to be moderately spooky, but at the same time a bit predictable.  I found it a bit crazy that in every story somebody died a horrible death...or became a monstrous killer...or both.  Over all the atmosphere, illustrations, and the writers tendency to kill people made this a decent Halloween read.  I give it 7 out of 10 demon bench ends.

What makes a story scary for you?  How do you feel about everybody always dying?  How dangerous is it to scare the person driving you around?

Fairytale Horror

I have heard a couple people talk about how a lot of the new re-tellings of the classic fairy tales are so much darker then the originals.  I guess they must think that the Disney versions, or the little pretty picture books are the originals, because seriously, the original tales could almost all be part of a Halloween Horror Fest.  For example

Cinderella - A tale of a girl who works hard and finally gets the prince and palace she deserves...or is it a tale of how even after getting her prince and crown, a flock of birds comes and pecks the step-sisters and step-mothers eyes out.  This of course after the step-mother aids her girls in mutilating their own feet for a chance at the prince.  That's happily ever after for you.

Sleeping Beauty - A lovely story of a princess woken up by true loves kiss...awwww.  Wait, there is more.  Yep the rest of the story is about how the princess Ogress of a mother attempts to eat Sleeping Beauty's children, and not being happy with that, tries to eat her too!  Yay cannabalism.

Hansel and Gretel - Speaking of cannabalism, what is with fairy tales and child eating witches hmmm?  Here we have two sweet innocent kids, who not only get abandonded, but then live through the terror of the witch's house, where one child has to sit by helplessly as her brother is fattened up to be eaten,  Talks about your dread and horror.

Rapunzel - Rapunzel, Repunzel let down your golden hair...ooops another evil witch, and depending on the story several princes died, or in a "happier" version the poor princes gouges his eyes out on thorns.  Of course we then have the requisite wandering in the desert wilds until they find each other, and hopefully a good phsyciatrist.

The Red Shoes - If  you want a good old fashioned horror story, look no further then this moralistic beauty.  The poor girl in this story is punished for her vanity by being forced to dance with no rest, and then to try and get some relief she chops her own feet off.  She then in pennance allows her self to be viewed and humiliated as a lesson to the other until she dies.  Happy Times.

These are just a few examples of stories that have every element of horror in them.  Death, ghosts, witches, warlocks, evil parents, torture, pain, loss.  Seriously I don't know why we don't get out the old Grimm's Fairy Tales as our traditional book of horror every Halloween. Happy Reading Everybody!

Ghostly Reading

October is the best month of the year and anybody who does not agree is wrong :-)  One of the best things about October is that it is the month of spooky reading.  This year is the year of the scary story, you know the ones you used to read when you were little and even though you won't admitt it to anybody they still scare you a bit.  There are a couple full length books tossed in for good measure, just to round things out.  Here is a list of books I'm gonna try and get through in the next month.

Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror

Horror Stories to Tell in the Dark

Stories from the Twilight Zone

The Ghost Writer

Blackout

Death Watch

The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two

I realize that this is quit an ambitious list...and I will probably add more to it as I discover new stories...but what is life without a little challange.  Now I am going to go pack my books, find a tree with changing leaves and read my little brains out.  Happy Reading Everybody!