Tenth Muse Books

The day after Labor Day…the streets have cleared, the beach is left to locals (can you hear the howl of the surfers?), many shops will remain closed today, and we will all begin holding tighter to our pennies.  Yes, the day after Labor Day and Seaside, Oregon is officially a ghost town.  So, either this is a time of celebration (time for reading, faithful blogging, house cleaning, and a bit more reading) or I can go into a state of mourning (empty pockets, no new faces, and the promise of rain…for months). Joy and sorrow.  Laughter and a tear…holy cats, I am segueing into Gihlil Gibran!! Regardless, I am going for celebration with just the right splash of darkness.  Carl over at http://www.stainlesssteeldroppings.com/ is offering the perfect advent to autumn: the R.I.P. IV Challenge…”It was a dark and stormy night….” The goal is to celebrate gothic literature: mystery, suspense, thriller, dark fantasy, gothic, horror, and supernatural. I am choosing Peril the First; I will be reading at least four books of any length, from any subgenre of scary stories that I choose.

This is my list, thus far:

Sandman Graphic Novel series from Neil Gaiman

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane

Girl with Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Dracula by Bram Stoker

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

Yes, I have five, actually a few more if I read the complete Sandman series, but I am leaving myself a bit of moving room and also being rather optimistic about how much time I will have to actually read. 

Yes, I Love  Russell Brand…

slightly dirty, blatantly androgynous; the man just oozes sex and giggles or giggles and sex.  His memoir My Booky Wook is Brand at his best…as himself.  He writes much the same way as he speaks and for that alone, I laughed.  He is well know for his brash need  to infuse humor into any situation–whether it be funny or not–and he applies this to his own life.  Funny and hot, what more could a girl want?

Funny reads with few words…

Cody, Mason and I giggled like the nasty children we are in the bookstore while perusing through this funny!

And just one more…

This is one of my favorite books!  I laughed…and yes, we all know the end…I cried.  But I laughed…the snort, can’t-catch -my-breath, might-have-peed type of laugh! Out loud.  In public. But it was okay because I passed the book along and soon I wasn’t the only one laughing.  So what’s the funniest book you’ve read recently?  What has made you laugh so  loud that you had to pass it along just to drag someone else down to your level of giggle-fits?

CONGRATULATIONS ALICE MUNRO

WINNER OF 2009 MAN BOOKER PRIZE!

If you haven’t read Munro…you should. She is hands-down brilliant. I can read her while driving.  Yes, that is how good she is; or how crazy about her I am.   Okay, don’t clear the roads yet…I don’t read her while driving through school zones or your local neighborhood. I am not a complete psychopath…rather self-destructive. Honestly, I have only read her on long stretches of straight, tedious roads created to induce spasms of mania in those in possession of ADHD.  Really.  And I can line the book up perfectly with my line of vision. Believe me…I have spotted numerous police while reading long before they have spotted me. Actually, some believe I pay more attention to the road while reading than when not.  Now that says something.  But what?  Promise, stick a thousand needles in my eye, there are very few writers that make me behave this blatantly bad; Alice Munro is one of them. She deserves this award and my fatalistic awe.  Read her…and please don’t read while driving; it is stupid!

And so many choices… 

Dance of the Happy Shades

Lives of Girls and Women

Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You

Who Do You Think You Are?

The Moons of Jupiter

The Progress of Love

Friend of My Youth

Open Secrets

Selected Stories

The Love of a Good Woman

Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage

No Love Lost

Vintage Munro

Runaway

The View from Castle Rock

Too Much Happiness

Aww…Monday, the day I somehow can’t get my shoes on the right foot or my hands to hold still; the morning my heart is clutching to lackadaisical Sunday while my head is all grab-hand  reaching for next mad capped Friday.  Monday! Blahhhh…torn between the loss of the past and the hope of the future…separated by five long days of work!

So…to avoid reality further…let’s ponder…ZOMBIES!

I finally got hold of a copy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen (of course) and Seth Grahame-Smith.  Pure joy! What could be better?  Well, how about an all out Zombie week? Yes, it just gets better and better. So, I have consulted my handy-dandy brother-man for a list of the quintessential zombie flicks and this is what we’ve got: 1. the original Night of the Living Dead 2. the remake of Dawn of the Dead 3. Dead Alive.  He has informed me that the first two are scary and the third is funny and since funny is always good, I have also picked up a copy of Shaun of the Dead.  Which I love, which is all English and witty, and really the only reason I have climbed onto the zombie band-wagon. So there.

And here’s the plan: I am going to read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies to Patrick while he makes dinner this week (I know, I am truly getting the better end of the stick here. Aww…I wonder if he’ll clean the dishes too?), then we will watch a zombie movie every night, with one night being saved for the Pride and Prejudice movie version with Colin Firth (yep, how truly hot is he as Mr. Darcy?!). Sweet, yes, Patrick has agreed to all my zombie mania!  Don’t get me wrong, am sure it is going to come back at me. Am probably going to have to learn the names of basketball teams rather than picking by color or might even have to stop calling his golf club his little stick but…whatever…he has agreed to Zombies, and Pride and Prejudice!  What more could a girl want?  

But here is my question for the day: when are zombies going to be Edwardized?  Come on, you know of what I speak…when are zombies going to become all sexy suave, go from mindless to merely emo, give freaky-yet-the-heart-does-pitter-patter glances, forsake meat and become all vegetarian? When are zombies going to get some love?  When is Stephenie Meyer or one of the other paranormal romance writers going to swoop in, turn that zombie groan into a sexy growl, and send teen girls into frenzies of decaying flesh?  Hmm….well, here is one list of some of the best zombies (http://omghorror.blogfaction.com/article/101043/feature-the-26-best-zombies-of-all-time/)…any future heart throbs or are we waiting for Robert Patterson to find a bit of free time?

J