Category: awesome sauce

Literary Boyfriends

~ Wendy-Marie ~ 5 Comments

Valentine’s Day in Moderate Income Apartments is an amazing day let me tell you. Blacklight is curled up on Mr Couch watching Minecraft videos on YouTube and I just woke up from a nap. So why not stagger into the living room, grab Mr Laptop and write about the book guys who make me swoon. <cue Blacklight eye-roll> The only rule? I have to have read you/about you so many times even Blacklight has figured out you’re a literary rival.

-H.P. Lovecraft

Come on, this should not come as surprise. He’s not handsome, he can be difficult to read and good molly Miss Molly he was opinionated. But I can pick up a collection of his letters during his New York exile and feel like I’m right with him getting that little stove for his room or trudging around through every discount tailor shop looking for just the right suits to replace his stolen clothes. Blacklight: “Gwen…you have strange tastes in men” Me: <raises left eyebrow and stares at Blacklight> “Yeah…and???”

-Doc (Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday)

The part angel/part saint owner/operator of Western Biological who is one of the vital parts of Steinbeck’s Cannery Row. Without Doc, Cannery Row loses it’s heart. Heck, the main action of both Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday is Mack and the boys trying to do something nice for Doc. I’d slip over to Western Biological with some cold cans of beer any day no matter what Doc is collecting or get ready to send to a school.

-Charles “Pa” Ingalls (Little House series)

The Little House series has to easily be one of the most important book series in my life. It’s one of the things my parents read to me as a wee little BookGwen and I read it at least twice a year nearly forty years later. You television Little House come latelies can swoon all you want over permed hair Pa Ingalls. Actually… you can keep him and his lack of underpants. Seriously, I find Michael Landon as Pa beyond gross. The real Charles Ingalls has a kind of crazy intense look that reminds of Christian Bale going hardcore for a movie role (Blacklight: “I bet you think he’s hot” Me: <looks guilty>). The book version of Charles Ingalls isn’t a saint, and you know it could not have been an easy life being married to someone who dragged you and your children all over the damn country dodging Indians, financial ruin and the relentless weather. But those wonderful Garth Williams illustrations? Now that is one handsome man who could swing an ax as easily as he could play the fiddle. Maybe pulling up stakes…again…isn’t such a bad thing?

-Captain Brown (Cranford)

Cranford doesn’t quite know what to make of Captain Brown when he and his daughters come to live in the quiet town. For one thing, he’s a…man and well, he admits to being poor and loves The Pickwick Papers <shudders>. But he’s a good man who will do anything for his girls with his limited resources and his death? The man dies saving children from being killed by a train. Sorry Jim Carter, you did a lovely job as Captain Brown in the 2007 Cranford tv series but in my head? Captain Brown is Alan Rickman.

-Bernard Black (Black Books)

Okay so Bernard Black isn’t an author (his amazing response to a publisher’s rejection letter notwithstanding) and he’s not in a book but he’s a fictional character who runs his own book shop. He’s surly and loathes his customers and smokes and drinks. I should loathe him right back. But there is something about this cranky pants Irishman that makes me swoon and wish Black Books was a real shop to visit on my fantasy “Raid All The Used Book Shops In The UK” trip.

Now to spend the rest of Valentine’s Day with the only true rival for my books and Mr Kindle…Blacklight. 🙂

Henrietta’s War

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

You know you’ve discovered a good book when you mention said book to a coworker and the coworker’s eyes light up while they demand you send them the author’s name and titles ASAP. Another sign your book is a winner? Seeing Coworker’s shoulders slump when you explain “oh golly gee…you can get them from the X and Y libraries…once I return my inter-library loans…”. But Coworker forgives you because they’re just as big an Anglophile as you are.

Now what book had Coworker plotting just how fast I could read and return a certain book? Henrietta’s War: News from the Home Front 1939-1942 by Joyce Dennys. I’m not certain I might have stumbled across this little charmer without Amazon’s Customers Also Bought Items By while I was bemoaning  how very budget wrecking snapping up E.M. Delafield on Kindle would be to my wallet. The local library system had a few of Joyce Dennys’ books and the descriptions seemed interesting, so what did I have to lose?

Like her fellow Andre Deutsch Limited author Helene Hanff, Joyce Dennys was doing a spring clean one day when she came across some old writings from World War II. But instead of the relatively anonymous Helene Hanff’s letters to a London book shop, Joyce Dennys’ old writings were from her articles published in each issue of Sketch magazine, letters from an imaginary Doctor’s wife in the countryside writing about life at home to her childhood friend Robert fighting in the war. Our Doctor’s wife, Henrietta is a faithful correspondent, giving Robert all the little details about her daily life with the Doctor (Charles), her two grown children Bill and the Linnet, their dog Perry and all their friends and foes in the village.

I’m very tempted to burble on and on about the charming writing, the rough little sketches in each letter (done by Joyce Dennys herself) that even though they are just rough little sketches, you can get the warm and loving nature of Lady B in all her Helen E. Hokinson like club woman glory and the glamorous divorcee Faith who oozes a magic spell over everyone like a Peter Arno showgirl. So yes, burble I did. Henrietta’s War: News from the Home Front 1939-1942 really is truly charming. You get a look at a way of life that is vanishing and how the everyday residents of a seaside village are coping with the upheavals. Liquor is in short supply but Charles manages to scrape up some sherry to offer to Lady B and use the ends of this and that for Christmas cocktails. During Marmalade Week, the residents are wondering how they will make their usual bounty with restrictions on sugar. Village glamor girl Faith has the idea of using saccharine tablets in place of the desired sugar. Her plan is flawed but it’s a plan. But a war isn’t going to keep our villagers from their rounds of visits and parties even if face powder and stockings are soon to be in short supply.

Henrietta’s War: News from the Home Front 1939-1942 is a slim book and before you know it, you’ve devoured Henrietta’s letters to Robert and have questions plaguing you. Will Henrietta get to join in war work or is she just doomed to tend house and dig in the garden with a hot water bottle on her back until the war ends? Will Faith’s devoted suitor The Conductor ever get Faith to be all his? Will Lady B keep being the utter rock of grace and sense in wanting to defend her beloved country? But worry not, because there’s a second Henrietta book, Henrietta Sees It Through: More News from the Home Front 1942-1945.

Starting 2014 Off Right!

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Conversation with The Most Evil Brother Ever (aka Andy) on Sunday night.

Andy: “Yeah, so I went down to the Danbury Barnes & Noble this morning…”

Me: “That’s funny. I went to the one by Westfarms this afternoon. Just got a calendar for my desk.”

Andy: ” Their computer books section is so small. Think they’re on the chopping block?”

Me: “The Danbury one? I don’t know…they’re right next to Danbury Fair (a mall) and easy highway access. And they were one of the first Barnes & Noble superstores. I mean they survived the Borders threat. I totally see the Waterbury one getting closed though.”

Andy: “Yeah, you’ve got a point there. Hey, want to go to the Book Barn on New Year’s Day…”

Me: “Heck yeah! Just got to make sure I don’t slip and fall on ice in my apartment parking lot like I did this year…”

Fast forward to today (Wednesday January 1, 2014). Andy and I were the first customers at the main Book Barn. Adorable cats were cooed at (my favorite Book Barn cat, Bitey Cat aka Jake, was curled up at the cash desk and in NO MOOD FOR PETS). And a very sweet little black cat decided I should be giving all the pets vs looking at any books in the Annex. Seriously, I was looking for D.E. Stevenson on the shelves with my left hand while the little black cat was straining to get at my right hand. Andy? Just laughed and headed for the main building to check out the history section. Andy is NOT a cat person.

And yes, books were bought! Here’s what came home with me today.

  • A Very Private Eye: An Autobiography in Letters and Diaries by Barbara Pym
  • Lark Rise to Candleford: A Trilogy by Flora Thompson (PBS tie-in trade paperback. Would have bought the illustrated Lark Rise to Candleford hardcover but it was <shudder>…abridged…I don’t do abridged.)
  • The Mystery at Lilac Inn (#4 Nancy Drew Mystery Stories(TM) by Carolyn Keene (yellow back hardcover with the 1950s updates. No judging. This is my favorite Nancy Drew story ever.)
  • 80th Anniversary Limited Edition: The Secret of the Old Clock (Nancy Drew Mystery Stories (TM) by Carolyn Keene (how could I not buy this? It’s the source. The wellspring. The first. And only $1.o0)
  • Victorian Household Hints: Useful Hints & Tips to Keep a Well-Managed Household by Elizabeth Drury (Blacklight is laughing. Especially since I’m in a “why why why” mode about housework right now. But I do love me some vintage household hints.)
  • Hitty: Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field (one of my all time favorite books ever. Lovely hardcover. Bought a copy for my favorite baby niece a few years ago and hope she’ll love it as much as I do.)

Andy found some lovely finds too. He snapped up a massive book on cartography, a Latin grammar, Latin dictionaries, a book on early civilizations and several sci fi mass market paperbacks. And if he’s still in Connecticut on January 1, 2015? We’ll be in his car, waiting for 9 am and Book Barn to open.

 

 

 

Abominable Science!

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

Ever since I was a tiny BookGwen I have loved and been scared by the unusual. If I really probed and peeled back the layers of memory I could lay the blame for this at the feet of two things, The Dadster taking the toddler me to see JAWS (it was the 70s and he was bored at home) and Leonard Nimoy’s In Search Of… and maybe that friend of The Dadster who BELIEVED BELIEVED in all the stuff. The one who brought over books on aliens, Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. And wait…one more thing…the Time-Life book series Mysteries of the Unknown. 

So as an adult, <full disclosure with head hung in shame> yes, I watched Monster Quest, Mystery Quest, Is It Real? and read some of the books. But I never stomped around the woods or haunted the shores looking for things. First off: you don’t get this vampire pasty going outside. And second: outside is full of bugs and wind and nature… <shudders> And as I aged and learned more, I grew more skeptical.

Now when one of my top 5 favorite, I’ve listened to them so many times I can recite the episodes word for word podcasts interviews authors on their latest work, I drop everything, hop onto my local library’s online catalog and try to get that book if possible. Remember I am POOR and don’t have new book money. <end libraries are awesome plug>

Today’s book is one that Blacklight had to remove from his side of the bed this morning. I might have growled “MINE!” “GIMME!” and “NO TOUCH” as I snatched it away and stashed it on my nightstand. Books are so much better bed partners than husbands. Husbands want you to cook and clean and not leave books on their side of the bed…but back to the book. As commanded by my Monster Talk overlord Blake Smith, I mean, inspired by a recent episode of Monster Talk, I finally got my hands on a copy of  Daniel Loxton and Donald R. Prothero’s Abominable Science!: Origins of the Yeti, Nessie and Other Famous Cryptids?

(A little side story about finally getting my hands on Abominable Science! My local library is broke and is barely hanging on. But two towns over in the same general library network is the rich library who has in the past actually ordered some of the books I recommended for purchase. Their copy is on order. And yes, I have been checking my account at least twice a day so see if Abominable Science! has come in yet. No dice. But another library in our general network had it, so on my day off yesterday I trekked to the wilds (yes wilds, there is a working farm next to this library) and snatched it up two minutes after the library opened!)

First off as a graphic/layout geek (I have stopped reading certain books because the font made me want to puke), Abominable Science! is a gorgeous book. Much time and care has gone into turning out a pleasing product with an easy on the eyes layout and some truly lovely pictures, many in color. And kudos to the cover designer for their pulp magazine inspired layout which makes Abominable Science! really stand out from the sea of books at your local book store. If I had the money, I would have bought the darn thing for the cover alone (says the gal who designed her wedding invitations to look like a pulp romance comic). And it’s heavy. The book itself isn’t over-sized, it’s your standard hardcover size (IE you don’t have to turn it sideways to fit on the shelf) but the paper stock is top notch (another aside: yes, I have judged books on their paper stock-it’s a side effect of the graphic/layout geek thing and having parents who used to work in the sidelines of the printing business). Even more kudos to the folks at  Columbia University Press for putting out such a terrific product at a decent price.

Once you get past the cover, inside is a true treasure. You may want to make sure all spouses are fast asleep, your children are distracted and the pets fed because you do not wanted to get pulled out of reading. Certain people who spend way too much playing Minecraft almost got barred from coming into the bedroom while other people were reading. Sounds extreme? It’s not. A book this good deserves your full attention.

Donald R. Prothero and Daniel Loxton take turns at the helm. Now sometimes this can spell disaster for a book. Other times? Having two authors is genius. Donald is the professor with careful examinations and a drier but still completely compelling way of presenting the facts and theories. It’s like attending an amazing lecture and getting a little bummed when the lecture ends but you know there’s still more lectures coming up. Daniel’s chapters don’t have the same professor feel but are just as compelling and his experiences in the wild as a child and an adult add a certain flavor. This experiment allows both authors to use their differing experiences/educations to really probe into their subjects. To put it in Blacklight terms, it’s like have Jamie and Doofus Guy Adam from Mythbusters break down an experiment. You end a chapter feeling like you understand a subject and what factors influenced how the world at large sees the cryptid. What you don’t feel? Talked down to, pandered to, jerked around or flat out lied to. Abominable Science! is the product of careful research not cut and paste and more cut and paste of things over and over again.

If you are looking for a book that doesn’t give a long hard look at the monsters with a skeptical eye, don’t buy this book. This is not the book for you. Come with me <leads the less skeptical reader over to the woo-woo section of Barnes & Noble and plops them down in a chair with Brad Steiger’s Real Monsters, Gruesome Critters, and Beasts from the Darkside> 

However if you ARE looking for a book that carefully researches each cryptid (the notes are over 50 pages long and fascinating reading in themselves) and cryptozoology,  and will not make you feel like you’ve wasted your time, money and brain cells (coughcoughbradsteigercoughcough) then Abominable Science! is the book to buy. And if you can’t buy it (oh how I know THAT feeling) request your local library buy it. It’s that good!

Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day: Or I Don’t HATE EVERYTHING!

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

Reading over (okay EDITING for spelling and clarity) past blogs, I realize I may come across as a bit…oh…I hate EVERYTHING. Then again, when Blacklight was making us in My Little Pony form, I was Bitchie Cakes the pudgy Earth Pony librarian with glasses whose perfect library involved NO ONE visiting it and a precious locked cabinet of HP Ponycraft…

So what was my point? Ah, yes…that I don’t hate everything that isn’t HP Lovecraft or Florence King.

YES, that IS possible.

Some books I love so much that I will travel oceans of time…okay, okay, OKAY…to the Noah Webster (West Hartford) Library and endure the awesome yet painful experience of Blue Back Square to get my hands on Winifred Watson’s Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day.

When I’m not shaking my head and sighing “oh…Howard…you dumb ass” or plotting a trip to bring my idol Florence King unfiltered Chesterfield Kings and hard liquor, I like to curl up with British novels, especially if they are pre-war and/or part of the Virago Classics line. I also like to curl up on Mr Couch, drink enough Vitamin Water Zero XXX to float a battleship and watch screwball comedies with Myrna Loy and Irene Dunne.

This made the movie Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day perfect viewing. Even more perfect, the New Britain Public Library has a copy. Remember I am poor. And think LIBRARIES ARE THE MOST AWESOME THINGS!

And the movie was a based on a quirky novel? I’m in!

Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day is a Cinderella but fun novel. Miss Pettigrew, a down and out nanny of a certain age, goes to what she thinks is a interview for a nanny job. What happens is totally different. However maybe not, because even though Delysia LaFossee is a grown ass woman, she needs a nanny to tidy and straighten out her wild and exciting life.  Miss Pettigrew, a curate’s daughter, rises to the challenge and is slugging back drinks and keeping up with the night life with the best of them AND making this new world a more tidy place.

Track this one down. Heck, if you have the right sensibilities and the cash…order it from Amazon. It’s totally worth it!

If You Were Here

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***May 2011 backlog post…I know, I know…another one! 🙂 ***

Can a writer go from a string of best selling memoirs to a novel? Jen (My Fair Lazy, Bitter is the New Black) Lancaster is the latest author to try. Like Laurie Notaro’s There’s a (Slight) Chance I Might Be Going to Hell, Jen Lancaster’s If You Were Here, has our plucky heroine Jen Mia moving from her cute house in a bad city neighborhood to suburban bliss.

Only instead of selling her house for a packet when her husband gets a job, our plucky Mia is fed up with the local gangster wannabes and her party girl landlord Vienna. So why not move to the town that John Hughes immortalized as Shermer, IL in his classic 1980s teen films. And oh, not just any house but Uber Hot Guy Jake Ryan’s house!

Cue Blacklight standing in living room with a hot Dunkee Cup (it’s been raining for a week!) with a blank look on his face. Then watch Blacklight run away screaming the second you pop Sixteen Candles in Mr DVD Player.

But given Jen’s Mia’s wacky life, do you think the move goes smoothly? Oh hells bells nah! The house or as I’ve dubbed it Mia’s Money Pit (remember that movie? Tom Hanks? Shelley Long? Hot blond ballet dancer Alexander HisPantsArentTightEnough? Cue Blacklight canceling my Netflix subscription), is a crumbling disaster! Just like Mia’s relationship with her new neighbors, Posh Asshole, Yummy Mummy and Old Asshole.

Toilets crash through ceilings, walls cave in. Microwave hot dogs are eaten <shudder>. Things are just horrible! How is a gal suppose to write her blog best selling Amish zombie teen series and keep up her Stephenie Meyer hate under these conditions?!?!?! Actually, now really wish Mia’s Amish zombie teen series existed because that sounds AWESOME SAUCE and would totally put it on my library hold list!

Will things work out for Mia? Can you say duh? Does Blacklight mainline Dunkee Cup? Do I think movie Thor is hawt?

Now you don’t have to be part of the Jen Lancaster fandom to read If You Were Here. Anyone who likes quirky girl books will be charmed. And any girl who watched Sixteen Candles  ohhhhfivebazillontimesuntilherfatherthreatenedtochopupthevcrwithhischainsawloveyoudadster! will have a certain Thompson Twins song in her head on endless loop as she walks to the bookstore register with If Your Were Here in hand, visions of hot guys and pink dresses in their heads.

The only thing that sucks, besides the vampires in Twilight, okay alllll of the Twilight series? Dearest Jen really likes Stephenie Meyer…sighhhh….

Miss Pym Disposes

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***May 2011 backlog post***

In an earlier post, I mentioned I’m really not a mystery reader. Now this could just be one of those psychosomatic things like a violent reaction to years of living in S-bury, Land of the Retirement Housing Developments For Rich People and every time you walked by the Mystery section of the library your eyes watered from the smell of old lady and cigarettes because this was the 1980s and all the old ladies in Fancy Retirement Housing Development had been smoking since a certain former First Lady was their classmate as Posh Girls School/Posh Girls College.  True story that!

So you can understand why the only reason I know about most mystery writers is from refilling the mystery section or working the cashwrap at Barnes & Noble or Borders. as a younger Gwen. Sorry all you Patricia Cornwall and James Patterson and Janet Evanovich and Sue Grafton and INSERT MYSTERY AUTHOR NAME HERE fans!

But I’m not a total savage. Remember, I really like Ruth Rendell writing as Barbara Vine and Kate Atkinson! And now I can add Josephine Tey to the list of Mystery Authors I Like. See, I had heard of Josephine Tey but feared she might rather Agatha Christie or too twee for words. Yes, I ACTUALLY USE WORDS LIKE TWEE ON A REGULAR BASIS!

So I approached Miss Pym Disposes warily. Pluses: English writer, boarding school, hazy 1930s/1940s time frame. Minuses: could be twee as all frosted pop tart, could be all Preachy, might not be able to wrap head around hazy 1930s/1940s time frame.

But Miss Pym Disposes didn’t disappoint. Miss Pym, French teacher turned best selling psychology author does a favor for one of her old school mates. Said old school mate saved the young Miss Pym from teasing over her government first name. Grownup Miss Pym is still grateful to old school chum years later. Said friend asks Miss Pym to give a guest lecture at the college old schoolmate runs.

The lecture goes well but Miss Pym doesn’t have the most pleasant first impression of the college. Old School Chum’s college trains physical therapists, masseuses, dance teachers and the like. Not the place if you like a cozy reading in bed and cups of tea. The students are lean mean physical culture machines. <shudders>

But the students adore Miss Pym and against her better judgment,  Miss Pym decides to stay for a visit and help one of the teachers with a schedule conflict. And thus seals someone’s doom. Because let’s face it, you can’t have a rip-roaring good mystery without something shocking, something sneaky AND high teas with clotted cream. Okay okay okay, you can all you American mystery fans but remember, I haven’t drank the grape Flavor Aid of the Cornwall/Patterson/Evanovich/Grafton school and I ain’t gonna anytime soon.

Things happen. There are twists and turns. Total awesome sauce. Will hunt down more Josephine Tey in a heartbeat and would even <cue pearl clutching> BUY THEM FROM AMAZON!(I know…my cheap rump roast PAYING retail for books!) And like any good English mystery, my tiny brain follows along, makes guesses and wishes Josephine Tey was around to ask questions. Because I am totally convinced Edward Adrian is Catherine Lux’s baby daddy. Little sister born when Catherine Lux was a teenager my foot!

Blacklight: “You watch WAY TOO MUCH MAURY POVICH!”.

Whatever, Blacklight, whatever. Shouldn’t you be reading Stephen R. Donaldson or watching some awful movie from the 1960s or reading Dungeons & Dragons game guides versus reading my blog?

Minding Frankie

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***Yet another May 2011 backlog post. Dang…I was a productive little monkey a year ago <pops another Gummi Bear in mouth>***

There are some books just perfect for curling up on Mr Couch with Mr Blanky and Mr Cup of Hot Tea on a rainy afternoon. Heck, just about any of Maeve Binchy’s books does the trick. But this particular rainy afternoon in question was a) a longed for vacation day and b) the latest Maeve Binchy book Minding Frankie. Just a note. If you are married and thirty something the following could happen to you.

Me: (curled up on Mr Couch reading the first fifty pages of Minding Frankie with tears streaming down my face) “Oh my god…”

Blacklight: (fresh from Dunkee Cup): “What is it? Girl time or something? Geezzzz” (stomps off to his lair to watch some anime thing on Netflix)

Minding Frankie takes place in post economic collapse Dublin in the working class neighborhood where everyone seems to be from in any novel from Scarlet Feather onward. Cousin Emily Lynch is coming from America for an extended visit. Of course being a brisk and sensible Irish woman, things are going to change when Emily steps foot in St. Jarlath’s Crescent. For example, her younger cousin Noel whose just found out he’s fathered a baby with a fling whose is just weeks from dying. Can you say Noel’s gonna turn his life around. He has to, otherwise Baby Girl Frankie (yes, the Frankie of the title) is going into care (foster care that is).

So with a bit of money and magic and help from Emily, new dad Noel does begin to turn his life around and that changes impacts everyone he encounters. It’s like Baby Girl Frankie is a magic charm or cure for what ails you. Broke classmate with majorly messed up family needs a place to stay? Sure move in Lisa and do you know how to change a diaper? (Oh she learns!)

So Noel’s got his life in a better direction, cousin Emily is spreading magic and cheer. Our favorite young redheaded doctor is going from strength to strength at the heart clinic at St Brigid’s. The Lynch family is doing good for themselves. Noel’s news and Mr Lynch’s being laid off from his doorman job at a posh Dublin hotel didn’t crush them so way no how. But a dark specter is lurking in St Jarlath’s Crescent and it isn’t just the spots on Muttie Scarlet (father of Cathy from Scarlet Feather) X-rays. Like a bad fairy or those damn Downy commercials every three seconds when I was watching the finale of RuPaul’s Drag Race, social worker Moira wants to rip Baby Girl Frankie from her father’s loving arms and into a proper family without a recovering alcoholic single father. Moira comes off as rather damaged and a bit autistic. Everyone but her brother has the pitchforks and torches when they see her coming.

Will Noel go back on the sauce? Is Muttie Scarlet doomed? Will Lisa realize that hunky chef/restauranteur Anton is a user, loser and abuser? Will Moira break her robot programming? Can I lure Emily to my apartment to make sure I have a decent packed lunch and don’t  just eat candy and bacon at work (not at the same time….ewwwww)? If you have the cash, race to the bookstore and snap it up or download it on your e-reader. If you’re poor like me, put yourself with haste on the library’s hold list because Minding Frankie is heartwarming, cozy and twee Maeve Binchy.

Just try not to cry in front of doofy meanies who don’t understand sometimes you need a cozy, twee cry session like Blacklight okay?

The Zombie Autopsies

~ Wendy-Marie ~ 1 Comment

If you’re on the third floor of Company X’s F-ton location and wandering down the aisles, the dark haired chick with the scuffed rectangular glasses in the white oxford with a certain stuffed green monster at her desk and glaring at her dual monitors with a hot pink iPhone 3GS jammed into ears is me. Okay, maybe I’m not exactly glaring at the dual monitors (see scuffed glasses reference, Blacklight is an expensive spouse) but there are iPhone headphones jammed in my ears from the second the clock hits 7am until snack time. And what am I listening to so intently as I process away? HPPodcraft, Stuff You Should Know, Pop Culture Happy Hour, Skeptoid and Monster Talk. And thanks to my podcast habit, I have a huge list of Stuff I Want If I Ever Had Money. Hey…that iPhone? It’s a refurbished/reconditioned 3GS with the cheapest plan known to man, ATT and Company X. And remember those scuffed glasses?

So thank heavens for the Connecticut Public Library system. Because this afternoon while taking some Me Time at the Noah Webster/West Hartford Public Library, I saw IT, the book that had been calling my name, nay, screaming my name at the Blue Back Square Barnes & Noble. Curse Barnes & Noble and curse the good people at Monster Talk and curse Steven C. Schlozman because there was The Zombie Autopsies just sitting there on the shelf in Science Fiction, all “you know you want me. Who needs to pick up boring old lactose free milk and get quarters for laundry?”. Let me tell you it took all my strength to walk away from the book shelf and march out the door and over to the library. Because come on! George Romero wants to do The Zombie Autopsies. GEORGE FREAKING ROMERO!

So I was in the new fiction section of the library. And what did my tiny little hazel eyes see? And what did my little undead paws snatch off the shelf like there were slavering hordes right behind trying to reach the same book? The Zombie Autopsies of course! (You know…the book I’m writing the blog post about?)

Do I even need to say the second the milk was shoved into the fridge and comfy clothes were on, The Zombie Autopsies joined me on Mr Couch for a hot date? And the second I put the finished book down I was reaching for Mr iPhone to tweet how awesome sauce The Zombie Autopsies was?

Here’s the basic plot, it’s 2013, a zombie virus known as Ataxic Neurodegenerative Satiety Deficiency Syndrome (ANSD) has unleashed havoc on the world. Billions are dead, non-infected humanity lives in underground bunkers and an island laboratory might be the one thing that can possibly unlock the secrets of ANSD.

Sounds awesome right? Then again in the wrong hands the above plot could go horribly disaster zone coughcoughdeankoontzcoughcough wrong. Right now Dean Koontz is tearing out his hair plugs and stomping his feet. Calm the bleep down Dean! I read and actually thought Funhouse was a hoot. And your literary biography is great. I just don’t think your take on the basic The Zombie Autopsies plot would be very good. And don’t go strutting around too cocky Mr King, Cell wasn’t very good either. Many an eyeroll betwixt the first and final pages.

Part of what makes The Zombie Autopsies so good is that Steven C. Schlozman is a doctor. A doctor that has the rare of gift of making the tricky science bits seem so basic and easy that even my stuffed dragon baby Bob could understand them. (Bob: “I smart! I not dumb! I real!”) And like Michael Crichton, Schlozman has the knack of making you believe as you sit on your couch “yeah I can totally see this being true and going down”.

If I had to break down The Zombie Autopsies for a Hollywood pitch it would be “okay imagine Max Brooks’ Zombie Survival Guide had a baby with Michael Crichton and Margaret Atwood’s Haidmaid’s Tale now where’s my $30 million?”

So if Shaun of the Dead and The Zombie Survival Guide are in your favorites, scamper down to the library or Barnes & Noble and splash out the $20 for The Zombie Autopsies. Me? I’m off to fill my weekly intralibrary loan request with all zombie things starting with World War Z!

Lovers And Gamblers

~ Wendy-Marie ~ 2 Comments

It’s Jackie Collins book time! And today’s offering is a thick 1970s tome filled with more sex, drugs, rock and roll and SCANDAL SCANDAL SCANDAL than you can shake a (heeheehee guess what I ALMOST TYPED) stick at. Now in my epic review of The World is Full of Divorced Women, I might have mentioned Tom Jones Al King, English singer stud extraordinaire. Fling those panties at the stage because Lovers and Gamblers is SUPERSIZE AL KING. AL IS KING! LONG LIVE AL!

Okay, so there might be a few other characters than Al King. There’s his hottie younger brother/manager Paul, the brothers Kings wives Edna (dumpy) and Melanie (brittle bitch), Paul’s piece on the side Linda, Al’s dopey, pimply, horny (aren’t those some of the seven dwarves?)  teenage son Evan, lots of groupies, up and coming agent Cody and yeah this chick called Dallas because it ain’t a Jackie Collins novel without a sleek feline beauty with wild hair and cat eyes and a body that makes empires crumble and bikinis say ‘Thank God!”.  Since her name isn’t Lucky Santangelo, Dallas has blonde hair and green eyes but to be honest, nobody is looking at her eyes.

Here’s the basic plot: Al, sales beginning to slip, is gearing up to tour for his AL IS KING album. Al is a giant walking hardon. He sees Dallas in a tv beauty contest and BOING! Dallas got issues. Dallas and Al meet and don’t do it do it for various plot reasons. Then they do hook up, the stars are right, they are IN WUB and then EVERYTHING GOES TITS UP!

True confession. Even with all the sex (remember rock star=groupies), Dallas’ past (runaway turned ho turned lesbian ho turned blackmailing beauty queen), the return of Karmen (Queen of the Freaks) Rush and the utter hotness of brother Paul, my favorite part of Lovers and Gamblers  is EVERYTHING GOES TITS UP!

****SPOILERS AHEAD***** SERIOUSLY****SPOILERS AHEAD***If you read on, it’s on you**********

It’s a Jackie Collins novel and you’re thinking okay where are the gangsters? But then Al’s plane is hijacked by a sexy rebel who wants to ransom the capitalist pig Al to help the shirtless ones and then the plane goes off course and CRASHES IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FREAKING AMAZON! And one person gets eaten by alligators. Another character gets eaten by a jaguar. And another character’s fate makes me not want to go outside without being covered head to toe because EMOTIONAL SCAR is still stuck in my head over 20 years after I read Lovers and Gamblers  the first time.

And the final pages. Oh, those final pages. Those slightly chilling last words that make you want Jackie to sit down at her leopard skin covered laptop and type the sequel until her crimson talons are little stubs. Okay I’m pretty sure that’s not how Jackie really writes her books but a person can dream (the leopard skin covered laptop with bright red keys). Because seriously, I don’t really care any more about the current adventures of Clan Santangelo. But I still want to know what ended up happening with Al and Dallas 30 years down the road. Was AL IS KING Al’s last stand? Did Dallas become a total monster of fame? And most of all! Is Paul still the mega hotttie mchottie King brother? If only, if only…