Fall is in the Air

NOOOOOO!

Just kidding. I actually really like fall -- I just prefer having the heat of summer so I can run around wearing shorts and no shoes. I do not like being cold!

I was reading some other blogs where they mentioned the fact that certain seasons put them in the mood for certain kinds of reads. The most recent was a post regarding fall/halloween and the desire to read creepy stuff.

I'm always in the mood for creepy stuff! Not kidding. I love a good horror read any time of the year. But I found myself making the same fall connection yesterday when I pulled my copy of Douglas Clegg's fantabulously creepy novella Isis out of the TBR stack. I read it last evening and now all I want is more horror! Horror movies, horror books, even creepy dark music (is it just me or is Placebo like the perfect trailer music -- nope not just me, it's being used as much as the various incarnations of Clint Mansell's "Lux Aeterna" from Requiem for a Dream), and video games (I'm dying to buy Fear 2, that's how long it hasn't been in the budget!).

I've got some classics waiting for me on my reading shelf and I am seriously considering a couple of days "off" to read some James Herbert, Dan Simmons, and Peter Straub before the new Stephen King hits shelves in November.

Agh! I've got Sarah Pinborough in my TBR stack and the new Sarah Langan on the list to buy as well, and I did some online shopping this week so I've got Rhodi Hawk's debut A Twisted Ladder now, too.

The movie front is a bit drier. Jennifer's Body looks amusing (Daiblo Cody's horror movie) and I'm really hoping that Pandorum and Daybreakers live up to my expectations, (Jennifer's Body and Pandorum are both due out this month, but Daybreakers is not set for release until next year). Then there's Legion, due out in January. Hmm, fallen angels seem to be hot right now -- there must be some horror reads in this vein, anyone know of any? I'm seriously hoping none of these suck. I don't know. I'm totally leery about horror movies right now after some pretty horrific remakes and releases lately.

What can I say? Apparently I have higher expectations than the production companies expect horror fans to have. And I'm not alone. There's been a lot of talk about the state of the genre of late. There's tons coming out but not much of quality. And much of what we're seeing these days are remakes of not-so-old films to begin with.

Is it so wrong to want to be totally blown away by something new? I don't think so, but what's with this fear of making anything worthwhile and new in movies these days? I can think of some worthy remakes, but Friday the 13th is definitely not one of them. What the heck is wrong with the original anyway? Not a damn thing.

On a positive note, I've been in the mood to rewatch An American Werewolf in London after watching season one of Being Human and just learned that it's being rereleased this week on dvd and Blueray, so if it's on your list to buy, now's the perfect time.

On the negative side, just learned that they remade Stephen King's Children of the Corn and I gotta say I'm not too happy about it. I will be tuning in to Syfy on Sept 26 just so I'm not a total hypocrite. After all, if it totally sucks then I have all that much more reason to say it shouldn't have been done in the first place, right? I really like the original and the only issue I have with it are the dated effects at the very end, otherwise I think it's a great movie based on what is one of my favorite short stories.

I'm ranting. Anywho. I've been a bit neglectful of my blog lately. Think of it as a bit of a vacation.

Coming up, Doug Clegg's Isis (I'll wait just a bit because it's due out later this month), posts on Hank Phillippi Ryan's Charlotte McNally series, R.J. Ellory's A Quiet Belief in Angels, Hank Schwaeble's Damnable, and plenty of others (see, I have been reading!).

Alright, I'm going pull something great out of the stack for this gloomy afternoon. Perfect horror reading weather!

In This Case, It Really Does Glow!

Ever had a recommendation from a friend that you just put off and put off indefinitely? There's no reason for the delay, it just somehow never makes it to the top of your ever growing TBR pile. Even more embarrassing is when the friend checks on you to see if you've read it yet -- yikes! Then you feel guilty and you finally break it out only to discover that it is truly as fabulous as promised. So you kick yourself and swear it will never happen again -- only to repeat history next time around.

Yeah, some very obvious guilt on my part here.

I need about a month with absolutely nothing to do but read. No obligations, no bills (and no need for money), maybe a private chef so I don't even have to make food decisions. Ah, that would be nice. Then I could catch up and maybe feel like I've accomplished something.

Don't get me wrong. I'm getting things done and I'm getting books read, but damn if there aren't more fantastic books in the world than there are hours in the day. I want to read them all! Have you read Jasper Fforde? I want to work for Jurisfiction and hang out with the Cheshire Cat in the Great Library. Or I want to live in Carlos Ruiz Zafon's Cemetery of Forgotten Books. Either one would do fine for me.

I saw Shelfari posted pics of Neil Gaiman's own book collection recently -- one of these days I'll have shelves like this.

This weekend I finally started reading Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series. Each new installment is a doorstopper in its own right, and book one, Outlander, weighs in at 850 pages. Readers have been recommending this series to me ever since my bookseller days. In fact, my store manager brought me a t-shirt that I've been wearing for at least 5 years now.

Again I have to come to my defense, I've owned the whole series since that time, buying each new installment as its released and adding it to my TBR pile so that I have the whole series when it's time to read them. I know that sounds terrible!

Well now it's time. Now I'm reading. I'm squeezing them in and going to read them around my other books and I am joining the ranks of rabid fans impatiently waiting for each new installment to the saga. And I plan on getting caught up in time for the newest title, An Echo in the Bone, when it hits shelves on Sept 22.

Big plans! It'll be a highlander marathon! I'm sure many of you a clucking at me and tsking my behavior right now. I know, I know. I'm terrible. I'm making my amends, though. Maybe by the time I get caught up it will be time for the new Stephen King and then I won't go into withdrawal quite so bad -- I hear that can happen from a massive reading marathon like this. Just look at all us readers who fell into Twilight last year (yep, that was another one I put off until the last book was released and then totally adored). So far Outlander is totally living up to the reviews others have given it.

So what book have you been putting off? Is Gabaldon languishing in your pile somewhere as well? If so, pull it out and read along with me!

Happy Labor Day!

Are you working or playing today?

I'm doing a bit of both. The office is closed, but if I want to get paid, I have to put in some hours. I'm also waiting for our new mattress to arrive. Yay! We've waited quite a while to buy one and it's kind of a big deal -- as any of you also sleeping on a crappy mattress would know! I'm hoping it magically fixes my sleep issues. We'll see.

I'm also starting to come up with a list of more items that have vanished in the move. Actually, probably just as yet uncovered. One of those is my massive binder that I've been collecting recipes in for the past 4 years. Yep, Hatch chiles are in season right now and though it never coincides with actual chili season, I'm not going to miss out on using them this year. I bought a big pack of roasted ones and a pork roast and I'm making pork chili verde today. I started it about an hour ago and plan on cooking it until 6 or 7 tonight. We'll see how it turns out, though, because I can't find my notes from last time I made it. Frustrating!

Ah! As I was writing this, the delivery guys showed up with my new bed! Trying to tell myself that napping is not a good idea.

Anyway, I hope some of you made it to the movies this weekend. There's a ton out that I want to see right now and of those, three opened this weekend alone. All About Steve, Gamer, and Carriers are/were all on my list. I did make it to see Carriers yesterday morning, though.

Overall, I thought it was a pretty good movie. It takes place after a virus has spread all over the country. Those not yet infected have to stay on their toes and have all come up with their own set of "rules" or practices to keep themselves from catching it. Four twenty-somethings have stolen a car and are trying to make their way to Turtle Beach where they believe they can ride out the epidemic. Rule number one on their list is to avoid the infected at all cost. Of course complications occur beginning with their meeting a father and daughter who are on their own way to a facility that claims to have a cure.

There's never any explanation about the virus itself or anything about how/when it initially hit and spread. It's more a look at what has happened in the aftermath of the outbreak, and before the end. It's the kind of movie that could have gone on much longer and I would have been thoroughly entertained! And that's not a negative comment at all. The film runs at just under 1 hr 30 min and each of the characters is faced with not only their fate in regards to the virus, but the fate of their own humanity -- and the humanity surrounding them as well. Kind of a bleak look at what humans are capable of. It is a full story, but I really like this sort of thing and so my earlier statement is a testament to how well I feel it was done.

This is one of those movies that can really let your imagination run loose. I'm not sure if that was totally intentional, but I felt that some of the scenes that I wanted more of -- some of the scenes that could have been expanded upon -- are scenes that I then roll over in my head and sort of fill in the blanks myself. Yeah, my imagination has been in total overdrive since seeing the movie and I think that's just super cool.

This is kind of a sleeper, guys. Very low-key, not much advertising (at least not in my area), and there's only one theater near me that's actually carrying it. If you're in the mood for a suspenseful horror/thriller this weekend, I recommend checking it out.

New Releases 9/8/09

Hello! Hope you're having a great holiday weekend so far. I know, it's already more than half over! I'm trying to convince myself that a nap would be a waste of my time off, but it's oh, so tempting.

So, some of the new titles hitting shelves this week include:

Dexter by Design by Jeff Lindsay -- yay!

Level 26: Dark Origins by Anthony Zuiker

In Their Blood by Sharon Potts -- debut mystery/thriller

The Gastronomy of Marriage by Michelle Maisto

Drawn in Blood by Andrea Kane -- follow-up to Twisted

A Quiet Belief in Angels by RJ Ellory

Sometimes We're Always Real Same Same by Mattox Roesch

New Reviews at Bookbitch.com:

In Their Blood

The Gastronomy of Marriage

Night Runner by Max Turner

Soulstice: The Devouring Book 2 by Simon Holt

The Promised Book Post

Ok, so sorry about the abrupt leave-off earlier. I was telling you all about my weird and stressful week. So glad the weekend has hit, by the way. Here's hoping I get to hit the gym (no excuses) and get a little r&r. Off to bed early, no more 2am bedtimes -- it's happened way too often in the past few weeks and I have no doubt that it plays a bit part in the whole headaches and stressing out over every little thing game I've been playing.

Oh, my rent check went missing. That was the other big, headache inducing, pulling my hair out occurrence this week. Thanks USPS. Here's a thought, if you want to work on your whole losing money to online bill pay and other alternatives, maybe you should work on your PR for a while. Delivering open, empty packages, losing mail, and charging me twice as much for a redirected package from up the street as it cost to ship it from NYC in the first place are not good ways to build customer relations.

I feel as though the post office is a necessary evil at this point. It's not like anyone can fight them on anything. My mom asked me why I didn't report the empty package. Um because they wouldn't give a fig. Seriously. Why would they care? They deliver mangled mail all the time and it says very clearly that they take no responsibility for it. So why would they care? They delivered the package, it's not like I could say one of their workers opened it and did it on purpose. It's idiocy at work and there's no recourse against idiocy.

It would almost be better if I could say that it was some conspiracy against me. If I could say that some one person had it out for me over there. I can't. It's simply not the case, or at least I'm pretty sure it's not the case. It's simply a random set of coincidences, but the fact that they're happening at all proves the severe inefficiency of the postal service these days. I mean, c'mon. All of these things have happened to me in less than a month. Not kidding.

Alright, done with my rant.

On to the book post because I have been so delinquent in that lately. Today's title is a must-buy for any and every urban fantasy reader out there. Why? Because it's a collection of tales that are great extras for fans already reading the various series represented and it's a great starting off point for anyone who hasn't read any or all of these authors.

Unbound is a collection of five novellas. In Kim Harrison's tale, "Ley Line Drifter," everyone's favorite pixy is hired to work a case on his own. In Jeaniene Frost's story, "Reckoning," Bones is pre-Cat and working a case in The Big Easy that has him chasing down the notorious Lalauries. Fans of Vicki Pettersson's Zodiac books will recognize the characters in "Dark Matters," a story that is touched on in book 4, City of Souls, but it works just as well as an introduction to the Zodiac troop as well since it takes place prior to The Scent of Shadows. Jocelynn Drake's "The Dead, The Damned and The Forgotten" has Mira investigating the death of a fellow nightwalker. And Melissa Marr's "Two Lines" marks her debut into the adult fiction world -- Marr is the uber-popular author of the teen Faerie series that began with Wicked Lovely. The JJs love this series, but I'm trying not to buy duplicates so I'll have to wait until I get to visit to borrow theirs (hey, I bought those copies!).

Alright. I know it was on the radar already for many of you, but if you have yet to snatch it up, now's the time! Each story can be read in one sitting and at under 100 pages each, they make some great reading for when you're short on time -- waiting rooms, lunch breaks, bedtime reading. And trust me, you'll want to know more about each series behind the tales if you don't read them already, so you'll be adding to your TBR stacks for sure when you finish. My sisters are chomping at the bit for me to send a copy of it to them so they can get a little taste while they're waiting for each author's new installments to come out.

Also, just and FYI because I've only read the first in the Sookie Stackhouse series, but if you're a fan, they're releasing a hardcover collection of Charlaine Harris's SS short stories in a volume called A Touch of Dead. Each of the stories has appeared in other publications prior to this, but now you can have them in one place! One of the JJs has zoomed through this series so it's going to be an IOU for her b-day. The book's release is set for October 6. Super cool of the folks at ACE to release this one.

Hi, All!

Ok, not sure how long this will be right now, but if I get cut off, I'll post a book post later today. I'm waiting for a phone call from work so that I can then go in to work and turn in the latest cookbook so they can send it out on Tuesday (I'll be working on Labor Day, but no one in the office will -- fun stuff).

Anywho, the migraine hit the other night around 10pm after I watched an episode of Desperate Housewives. Season five arrived this week from the rental queue and now I want to have a marathon! I was up until 4am that night, not watching DH. In fact, I ended up watching the movie Charlotte Gray, based on the Sebastian Faulks novel. It's a good movie for anyone who hasn't seen it. Cate Blanchett plays a woman who ends up being sent to France to be a spy for the allies during WWII.

Gotta go. Work calls. Talk to you laters.

Migraine Fun!

Sharing space with the gift that keeps on giving -- migraine pain!

In short, I feel like poo. I'm still trying to get some reading in, though, so once my head no longer feels like a gremlin is going to explode out of it, I'll get some schtuff posted here.

: )