John Keel, longtime investigator of the paranormal and author of The Mothman Prophecies and many other books, has died.
In his decades-spanning career, Keel chronicled much of the weirdness that didn’t make the headlines. People might know names like “Bigfoot” and “Nessie,” or look to the skies for flying saucers, but Keel searched for the unknown [...]
Entries Tagged as ‘Books’
July 6, 2009
John Keel, 1930-2009.
June 25, 2009
These Vampires Don’t Sparkle
Recently read The Strain, the new vampire novel by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan. It’s fast-paced, engaging, and has a hell of a creepy opening sequence. It’s the first horror book that’s actually caused me to feel horror in a long time.
The AV Club, however, makes a good point. These are not your sexy [...]
June 19, 2009
Oprah Loves Zombies
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies continues to conquer the world. Congratulations to Seth Grahame-Smith (not to brag, but yeah, we’re Facebook friends) on making Oprah’s summer reading list, an honor pretty much guaranteed to make other writers twist into pretzels of envy. You can check the full list here. Meanwhile, I’ll be wondering which pagan [...]
June 10, 2009
Vampirism Goes Viral
There are a few truths in this world. Nobody likes to pay taxes. Never get into a land war in Asia. And of course, vampires just will not die.
Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan have just released their entry into the genre, a novel titled The Strain. It’s about vampirism going viral, and the chaos [...]
June 4, 2009
Danke Schoen, Darling, Danke Schoen…
Just heard from my editor this morning: Putnam has sold rights to Blood Oath to Heyne, which means the book will be published in Germany as well. That’s right, Burns verkaufen der Kraftwerk, baby.
Suddenly I’m sweating the grammar of the few German phrases I worked into the book. At the time, I was pretty confident [...]
April 16, 2009
Just Add Zombies
Two takes on the literary phenom that is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which turns Jane Austen’s story of courtship and love into a zombie-slayer tale as well.
The Onion AV Club likes it:
Seth Grahame-Smith’s sly zombification of Jane Austen’s Regency-era romance, is no act of literary desecration. To the already-irresistible story of the prejudiced Elizabeth [...]
March 13, 2009
Reading List
Aside from work-related stuff — Legacy of Ashes, The Dark Side, and other lighthearted fare — I’ve been spending a lot of time at Alibris.com lately, searching out long-lost books I used to own. This was way before Amazon, when my local bookstore was the paperback section at the Payless (Kids, ask your parents). I [...]
December 29, 2007
Books of ‘07
One caveat: not all of these books came out in 2007; some were released in 2006, and I just got around to them. And this list is by no means a “best of” everything that was published this year — I haven’t read most of the critics’ picks, or even everything I’ve wanted to read [...]
December 12, 2007
Bad News In Discworld
Terry Pratchett, author of the Discworld novels that I love, reveals some bad news: he has early-onset Alzheimer’s. However, he hasn’t lost his sense of humor:
I would just like to draw attention to everyone reading the above [...]
October 4, 2007
What Are You Reading?
Crap, it’s October already. What’s on the shelf this month, and what have you just finished?
Just finished:
Making Money, another book in the excellent and hilarious Discworld series by Terry Pratchett
Not That You Asked, Steve Almond
No Dominion, Charlie Huston
Rant, Chuck Palahniuk. Although, really more abandoned than finished. Just didn’t hook me the way some of his [...]
