Category: The Big NOOOO!!!

My Fair Lady

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

Blacklight: <looking at the library books piled higgledy-piggledy on the dining room table> “Dickens? I thought you hated Charles…”

Me: <shrieking>: “Monica Dickens! M-O-N-I-C-A! Never say that other name. EVER!”

Blacklight: “How can you hate Char….”

Me: <head explodes>

A few months ago I discovered the author Monica Dickens. And have been requesting every Monica Dickens title available through the inter-library loan system. I may or may not have the Follyfoot series requested (I totally do!). But there comes a point where even a completest such as myself (Blacklight: “Don’t you mean crazy pants OCD?”) breaks. Now I have slogged through the Slough of Despond, I have gone through the Valley of the Shadow of Death (and read Rae Lawrence’s Jacqueline Susann’s Shadow of the Dolls). I have read Tooner Schooner and the first two Meg novels. I have read every single Beany Malone novel my library system has. I have read Eloise Takes a Bawth. But there is nothing and I mean NOTHING (not even the 1918 HP Lovecraft knocking on my door wanting to go for a brisk 16 mile hike holding a crate of Magnum Double Caramel ice creams) that can make me read the abomination I found waiting for me at the library yesterday. You would think I might have gotten a clue from the title but lots of books can have the same title right? And if Ray Garton thinks writing In a Dark Place: The Story of a True Haunting was a career low…oh honey…I think I might have found something even lower….

MONICA. DICKENS. NOVELIZATION. OF. <choke> My Fair Lady…

I can’t even. No, you can’t make me. Even if you paid off all my bills. The cover alone (a washed out watercolor of Eliza in a pink dress getting gawked at by men folks) is awful enough. The artist was trying to pain Audrey Hepburn but ended up with a zombie Winona Ryder a few years before Winona Ryder was even born. Zombie Winona Doolittle wants to eat my brains and soul. Also isn’t that stupid dress suppose to be white? Have never seen the movie My Fair Lady and have no intention of doing any Google image search to get a definitive answer. Also why in the name of Great Tulu do you NEED a novelization of My Fair Lady says the person who bought The Abyss and Iron Man novelizations. And why drag Monica Dickens into writing it. Did she need crack money? School fees for her daughters? Did the price of hay for her beloved horses go up?

This…horror…this thing that should not be is going right back to the library this afternoon.

Real Monsters, Gruesome Critters And Beasts From The Darkside

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

Yes I’m the person who has Monster Quest on her Netflix Watch Instantly queue (every single bloody episode) and is getting Mystery Quest parceled out DVD by DVD. And I’ m the person who has intra-library-loaned every single book by Joe Nickell and James Randi that her library network has. And has every episode of Monster Talk on her iPod.

But Brad Steiger’s Real Monsters, Gruesome Critters, and Beasts from the Darkside? Bigfoot, aliens, chupies, Loch Monster monster oh my. No, no, no, a thousands times no.

Chad Fifer and Chris Lackey (gods of the HP Lovecraft Literary Podcast) say in Episode 13 (Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family) a) why was it written? and b) there is finite time in all of our lives and there are better things you can be reading.  In regards to Real Monsters, Gruesome Critters, and Beasts from the Darkside I concurr fully with second statement. The first? I dunno know? Money? Preaching to the choir? Trying to convert evil skeptics like me? Who knows? What I do know? Back to the library with you Mister Book, back to where you came…

I Heart My Kindle (Sometimes)

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

Just because a person gets a “your inter-library loan has arrived” email at least once a week doesn’t mean they can’t love themselves an e-reader. Ever fallen asleep reading a library book and had the damnable thing crushing your face (Under The Dome, The Historian) or ended up with the edge of the book imprinted on your cheek (The Cooper Beech,  Wasp Where Is Thy Sting?)? Or knocked over a glass of water on your nightstand putting a book away before night-night time? Or dropped an entire shopping bag of Tom Frosted Pop Tart Clancy hardcovers on your freaking foot?

So you can see how an e-read can appeal to me. Shiny things are awesome. Especially shiny things you get after your brother upgrades to the Extra Shiny Thing. However there is a cloud in Shiny Thing land (besides the fact dearest sibling hasn’t upgraded his iPod lately…because a video iPod would be AWESOME! I could watch ALL the cool video podcasts while working versus waiting until I get home to Mr Laptop), my beloved Kindle can’t be used to check out library books! Cue Big No screaming scene with me in the parking lot of the public library.

But I’ll live. Thanks to the March 11, 2011 issue of Entertainment Weekly’s The Save section I now know  even though Mr Kindle isn’t library book friendly it’s still the best e-reader for me. First, it was FREE. Second, most of the books I get from the library aren’t even available as an e-book. Three,  lifting a bag full of library books is exercise right? And four, tablet tablet tablet tablet tablet tablet tablet…