QE Results for June: Backslidin'

My best selfie ever? Snapped on accident after checking a weather app

In January I wrote a blog post entitled Queer Eye, My Daughter, and I where I related some of the experience and pleasure I had binge-watching the two season of the show with my daughter over the holiday break, and in doing so basically laid out a self-improvement (or self assessment, at least) plan for the year.  The plan involves taking an honest inventory of where am in life with regards to five categories, as I see them, as exemplified by the men on the Netflix show Queer Eye.  And so, an honest assessment on my performance for May in the five QE categories:

KARAMO: "Culture, Confidence, Put yourself out there". I'm knocking myself down a whole point to a 3.5 because I've detected a certain amount of fraudulence/self deception in my game plan. I'm not going to go into it in depth here, but suffice to say I'm working hard to make some changes here in July.

Thank you, Columbia

I didn't crack the two hundred page count for the first time this year (although that is not why I'm shaving a point), finishing with 173.5 pages. Respectable. Not enough of it was fiction, though.

I Still See You, the film based on my novel Break My Heart 1,000 Times that I never shut up about, is now available on Hulu and Amazon Prime. Watch it!

I had a business trip to Chicago and extended it so that Kim could join me to explore the city and attend a wedding. We went on a ghost tour which culminated in a trip to the Congress Hotel. Spooky.

Various ghosts and Slendermen visible in windows

In June I also began to fill my mostly neglected Twitter feed with articles on the for-profit concentration camps we are running in America. Articles like This and This and This  and This. I realize the overall issue is a complex one, but one piece of it seems very simple to me: we are systemically abusing children, and we need to stop.

TAN: "Make an effort with your personal appearance". I'll stay at a three. Kim has been helping and bought me some summer clothes that actually fit.

Add caption

BOBBY: "Create and maintain a physical environment that promotes productivity, creativity and inner harmony". I'll stay at 3.5, as I kept busy doing yard work and wrestling with vast jungles of bittersweet the horrific week that Kim was away. The top photo is at the start of one such campaign.

Toddlin' Town

ANTONI: "Make nutrition healthy and enjoyable, cook for others". A half point raise to a three. I made myself some great meals when Kim was away; I didn't really have the chance to cook for anyone else which is too bad because I was on my game. Maybe because the only person who could have died eating my cooking was me, so the pressure was off?

JONATHAN: "Take care of yourself physically" Staying at a 4.  I ran 109 miles, making June my fifth consecutive +100 month. I'm about fifty miles away from my yearly Personal Best (or PB) of 800.8 miles, achieved the first year I started keeping statistics, way back in 2011. If you squint you can actually see some abdominal definition...50 likes/reposts/comments and I'll post a photo of my Herculean, hyper-jacked #DadBod (any other number, and I won't).

So June is my first month of the year where I'm downgrading my QE score.

Speaking of hyper-jacked, you can find all of my thrilling novels HERE, Check out the beautiful covers below.

What I Read: May 2019

I like books about music

A friend posted a recent photo of him attending a bookstore event where the guest was James Ellroy. I was a little jealous, as I've spent much of my reading time this year absorbing his collected works. Then again, Ellroy, by his own admission, hasn't been the nicest or most approachable guy in the world so I don't know if I'd just up at the chance to attend such an event--what the hell, I've already got three signed copies of his books!

Who am I kidding--of course I'd go. I'm a junkie for book events, and Ellroy has got some interesting things to say about writing. I don't always enjoy readings, but I'd love to hear him read from some of the later works I've just consumed

I read these in May:

1. Hollywood Nocturnes

2. American Tabloid

3. The Cold Six Thousand 

4. Crime Wave

5. My Dark Places

Yes, I'm a little out of order. Why? I read some of these on business trips, and the trades paperbacks fit better (and weight less) in my carry-on bag. 

I'll write about the fiction when I've finished all of it, but a few words on his harrowing memoir My Dark Places. Ellroy's mother was murdered when he was ten years old, and the case was never solved. Sometimes there isn't always a direct correlation between one's chosen themes, style, and genre and one's upbringing, but Ellroy's life in Los Angeles clearly informed every word. Sometimes directly--he writes about which of his books draw directly from life experience.

We don't always get this much biographical information regarding someone who writes the contemporary fiction we find entertaining, and as I moved on to the final volume in the U.S.A. Underworld Trilogy, Blood's A Rover, I was trying to determine how my newfound knowledge of Ellroy's life was altering my emotional and aesthetic reactions to his fiction. Ultimately, I believe I would recommend someone picking up Ellroy for the first time to start with My Dark Places. It is an unforgettable book, somehow managing to be both an indictment and an elegy for his parents (and for himself?) It is at times excoriating, painful, and shocking, especially in the pages where Ellroy mercilessly paints an ugly and unromantic self portrait of the person he was before he began writing seriously. 

I'd recommend you start with My Dark Places, but I would also warn you--you might not want to read any of his fiction after finishing. And that would be a shame, because he's a singular artist who, in my opinion, has contributed to and expanded the boundaries of noir fiction.

Just two comic books this month:

6. Tomb of Dracula,  vol. 1 Gaah this series was so awesome, and the trade paperback edition I have really lets the art pop. My comic obsession started in the seventies, and I somehow missed most of this brilliant run the first time around. I only had so many quarters (these were all 20 cents originally!), and back then my first choices were always the team superhero books--The Avengers, The Defenders, Fantastic Four, Justice League, Legion of Superheroes. I'm kind of glad, though, because I appreciate these more today than I would have when I was a kid. Scary and beautiful.

7. Batman: Master Race I love a great deal of Frank Miller's work, and have ever since rushing to the local pharmacy to buy the latest Daredevil off the white wire spinner rack (that's how we did it back in the days, kids. It was glorious). I still think Ronin is one of the greatest graphic novels of all-time, but I  have found his post Dark Knight work hit or miss. The art is always great, there's usually some clever social commentary and comments on the artform itself, but the stories themselves haven't always landed the right way with me. I used to love the trick of bringing in a favorite or overlooked character--especially a rebooted one-- for a cameo or for a few pages or even for an entire arc (one-armed Green Arrow in Dark Knight, for example). I think Miller may have helped invent that trope, but I see it so often now it doesn't thrill me as much. I finished this one wishing I'd liked it more than I did.

Some nonfiction:

8. Mind to Matter: The Astonishing Science of How Your Brain Creates Material Reality Dawson Church and Dr. Joe Dispenza

Mmm I'm not entirely sure this one qualifies as non-fiction, although there were a number of interesting ideas and theories in the book--but maybe that is just my brain trying to create reality, material or otherwise. Although a skeptic, I'm a sucker for books like this--anything that purports to give the reader a mental edge, a more efficient brain or body, or access to natural or supernatural powers.

9. Goodbye 20th Century: A Biography of Sonic Youth David Brown

Many years ago, part of my job duties included calling customers who had services performed at their homes or businesses by one of the businesses that I managed to make sure they received excellent customer service. One day I was making these calls and noticed the next customer was listed as "Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon".

No way, I thought, eagerly dialing the number for the first time ever while making those stupid intrusive calls.

I got an answering machine--and it wasn't even one of their voices on the recording--but it still felt a minor thrill as I'd been a gigantic Sonic Youth fan since high school--Daydream Nation still feels like an essential part of the soundtrack of my freshman year of college, and others--The Destroyed Room and The Eternal (and much of Moore's solo work) loomed large later in life.. I was a little disappointed this book was written before Moore and Gordon split (and initially I wrote "Thurston and Kim", because that's how personal they as artists and there art felt to me. I've read Gordon's book but would not mind some third-party insight as to what happened and how Sonic Youth is still able to conduct business--a "new" live album of an old concert came out this week, and there was a release of demos I think last year, so like Hendrix, Sonic Youth may be dead but they are still mad prolific.

Despite being written while the band was still very much alive (and before a couple of my favorite records of theirs) I still enjoyed the book greatly, especially as I read it while listening to some Sonic Youth related music I'd also picked up (What I Heard: May 2019 coming to DanielWaters.com soon!!!). 

I bought the book at one of my favorite records stores, which happens to be in the very town I called many years ago, the one where M--ah heck with it--Thurston and Kim lived. I'm sorry I never got to speak to them, but really, what would I have done if either had answered, "You know, I really did not receive excellent customer service, so I'm really glad you called."

After I bought the book and a few CDs we went out to dinner and I snapped this photo of a giant strawberry with crows' wings:

I should not exist

Daydream Nation has a song inspired by the works of William Gibson, the lucky guy. I don't think any of the books below have directly inspired any music--although there were like three or four songs released after Generation Dead with that same title--and there's a brilliant Bear McCreary soundtrack to the film I Still See You which is based on Break My Heart 1,000 Times but for the record to any musicians out there feel free to peruse anything below for song material.   HERE

"For the record"--see what I did there?

QE Results for April 2019

In January I wrote a blog post entitled Queer Eye, My Daughter, and I where I related some of the experience and pleasure I had binge-watching the two season of the show with my daughter over the holiday break, and in doing so basically laid out a self-improvement (or self assessment, at least) plan for the year.  The plan involves taking an honest inventory of where am in life with regards to five categories, as I see them, as exemplified by the men on the Netflix show Queer Eye.  And so, an honest assessment on my performance for April in the five QE categories:

KARAMO: "Culture, Confidence, Put yourself out there". 4.5 stars. I wrote 202 pages, and once again I had to grind it out in the stretch, managing to write 56 pages the last three days of the month--a Pyrrhic victory, really, because those pages are largely crap and few of them are usable fiction. But three cheers for determination.

I made considerable progress on one of the three projects I mentioned last month.

Kim and I had a short vacation in Florida, where I snapped the photo above. We went to the Florida Aquarium in Tampa, and dumb luck would have us there on the only day it poured. We met some old friends for dinner and generally had a nice time.

Also, Hachette sent me some copies of the French edition of Brak My Heart 1,000 Times aka I Still See You

Merci Beaucoup!

TAN: "Make an effort with your personal appearance". A raise to 2.5. I bought more clothes on vacation and am generally making an effort more to look presentable when Kim and I go out. I kind of have to though, because I have lost so much weight most of my normal clothes make me look like I am caught in the deflating shreds of a popped hot air balloon. My very sizable love handles have been reduced to love pull tabs, making most of my pants, even beloved blue jeans, into clown pants.

BOBBY: "Create and maintain a physical environment that promotes productivity, creativity and inner harmony". I'm giving myself a raise to 3.5  I did a fair amount of yard work in April--I have a fairly sizable yard. My grandfather Zepherin, and his family before him, was a farmer in the town I know live in--a few years ago I went with my uncle, father, brother and son to see the land where his farm once stood but no longer does. It's less than two miles from my house. In later life he went as far metaphorically from farming as he could by becoming a manager at the plastics plant (which also is no more). He was the most gentle, kind man I ever knew, and I think of him every time I "work the soil"--trimming, clearing, seeding, raking, planting, fertilizing, watering. Watching the birds.

I love yardwork. I phrase I'd never thought I would write or say. When I was a young homeowner I absolutely hated it because I foolishly thought that every minute I spent in the yard was a moment away from writing. Years of experience have taught me that every moment spent in the yard helps encourage growth in the mind as well as in the environment.

We revere corn here. My favorite headline ever...feel the horror!

ANTONI: "Make nutrition healthy and enjoyable, cook for others". I'll take back the half point I lost last month for a 2.5. I'll keep it here. Did a lot of the meal prep but the meals I prepped were fairly pedestrian. Also, I had considerably more adult beverages than in the first three months of the year, most of them on vacation. I started keeping track of how much I drank this year, and in keeping track, it has made me turn the corner from drinking "just because" totruly enjoying adult beverages--I didn't really realize it, but I was drinking quite a bit last year, and probably the couple years before that. Counting the drinks has been instrumental in keeping indulgence under control, and no doubt has facilitated the incredible boost in exercise ability and weight loss. I've never felt better, and now consciously check myself to ask if having a drink or a bag of chips or whatever will add or subtract to that general feeling.

 I'm still adhering to a slightly relaxed form of Austerity (see Secrets of Weight Loss, Revealed), which at this point might mean it is now a lifestyle habit as opposed to a time-bound change.

JONATHAN: "Take care of yourself physically" I'm going to 4.  I ran 143 miles, making April my fourth consecutive +100 month, a feat I'm certain I've never done before in my life. In four months, I've eclipsed my totals for the entire years 2018, 2012, and 2013. I started keeping track of such things in 2011, the year I set my personal best, and I'm on pace to decimate that. I'd say fifty is the new thirty, but I was a fat oaf at 30. 

I've been lifting more, too. I won't make the cut for anyone's powerlifting club, but I'm trying to be consistent and conscious of what I'm doing and I think the upper body stuff is contributing greatly to the overall.

Wow! 17, with gains in three categories in the shortened month. Can self-actualization be very far away???.

Reading/watching/listening posts will soon follow--crazily, especially as April contains Record Store Day, I had far more watching than listening for the month. Factors I'll mention later make me think this will be a continuing trend.

I combine reading and listening, and writing, in my novel Aural History, which you can find HERE, along with my other ghost/zombie/human/punk/metal/sporto novels below...

Thanks fer yer bizness!

What I Watched: March 2019

I didn't watch this movie or read this book (now available in French!!) !in March. But I sure look great and sound brilliant in the bonus feature interview.

 Not a gigantic list, but nearly as much viewing as January and February combined.

1. Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat
Kim is an avid listener to NPR. She listens on her commutes, while cooking, while working out--if Kim was as obsessive as I was about listing and categorizing all of the media she consumes, it would likely be an extensive list of NPR podcasts and programming. And I'm very thankful for this, because she has clued me in to a number of life-enhancing books, programs, and recordings. She became interested in this Netflix show after hearing an interview with Samin Nosrat, the host and author of a book of the same name. Ms. Nosrat's enthusiasm for food and cooking, and her delight in the people that share similar passions, is certainly infectious, and we watched the first three shows on successive Sunday mornings with coffee and crepes. The crepe pan is one of the best gifts I ever bought me I mean Kim.  Maybe we will watch Heat  in April.

2.The VVitch--Director's commentary.
I loved The VVitch when I first saw it and like to watch the director commentaries of movies I love (and sometimes movies I hate), usually finding the experience enlightening and inspiring, especially if the director goes into the particulars of creative choices they made.

3. Won't You Be My Neighbor?
Like many Xers I grew up watching Mr. Rogers and a great deal of Public Television. The Electric Company, Zoom, Sesame Street, New Zoo Review--and my somewhat obscure favorite, Thinkabout. I was fortunate as a fourth or fifth grader to have been selected to participate in the Montville School District's Enrichment program, and once a week would pile on a bus with the other so-called "gifted and talented" kids to go to another school crosstown (the one where all the tough kids went). Those sessions ran until around dinnertime, and despite (ok, because of) the extra schooling, those classes were some of the happiest moments of my grade 4-8 years. I recall in the first year of the program we would gather around a television to watch Thinkabout and then discuss the moral and educational implications of the topics presented. I didn't remember much of Thinkabout's content when I got older (not even after buying some bootleg copies of the show off eBay--I am really, really weird), but I could remember every pixel and note of the show's opening, which I would visualize and hum during the many stressful moments of the rest of my schooling:

Looking back, it is clear Thinkabout's Liquid Len-ish opening spurred my pervasive and enduring love of Hawkwind.

I watched Won't You Be My Neighbor with Kim and learned a few things--I had no idea Fred tried to do a show aimed at adults, for example. Spoiler: this isn't an exposé, so those hoping Mr. Rogers turns out to be a child-hating fiend will be sorely disappointed. And the clip of him appearing before the Senate Subcommittee on Communications should be watched by anyone who...well, anyone who communicates, really. If only political/economic/ point of view disagreements today could be solved with such grace and aplomb. I think the clip in the movie is truncated; you can watch the whole testimony here:

4. Colette
I watched this on the plane to Seattle and really enjoyed it; I love Paris and the Paris period scenes (I am writing this now to distract myself from the heartbreaking news coverage of Notre Dame in flames) as well as those set in the French countryside. I also like Keira Knightly and Dominic West, and found many things interesting about the film, most especially the idea that Colette was writing for Willy's syndicate under his name when she started her professional career. I wasn't aware of the history prior to starting the film (woefully ignorant on French literature, sadly), but it seemed as though some synchronicity was involved, as I started the film to take a break from reading Girl Sleuth, Nancy Drew and the Women that Created Her. 


The universe has spoken; I now shall create a writing syndicate. Applications welcome, no prior experience necessary.

5. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season Two: Episodes 1-8 
I looooove this show. We didn't watch the final two episodes until April, so I will reserve my comments attempting to articulate why I love this show and this season until next month.

And as always, I will encourage you to buy one or several of my books, you can find them HERE

Only one of these is a movie. So far.

QE Results for March

No more hallucinogens 4 me

In January I wrote a blog post entitled Queer Eye, My Daughter, and I where I related some of the experience and pleasure I had binge-watching the two season of the show with my daughter over the holiday break, and in doing so basically laid out a self-improvement (or self assessment, at least) plan for the year.  The plan involves taking an honest inventory of where am in life with regards to five categories, as I see them, as exemplified by the men on the Netflix show Queer Eye.  And so, an honest assessment on my performance for March in the five QE categories:

KARAMO: "Culture, Confidence, Put yourself out there". I remain at 4.5 stars. I wrote 200 pages, displaying a little obsessive-compulsive grit by nailing the last eight of that number on March 31st late at night. For whatever reason, I've decided 200 page writing and a hundred miles running a month are the goals. As far as fiction goes, I worked on a new project, an old project, and a Generation Dead novella.

Business took me to Seattle for a week, and long hours and long travel made the attainment of those goals a challenge March is also a month filled with the birthdays of people I love, including myself (I turned a half century) and both of my children. Sadly, the bucket list concert I mentioned last month was postponed due to a band illness, but Kim and I still went to Boston for a day to celebrate our daughter's birthday with her, and we did an overnight in  Vermont to celebrate our son's birthday with him. It was Mardi Gras in Burlington, and so I took the photo above of a very entertaining joint performance of a band called Brass Balagan (who I swear played a Sun Ra song) and puppet theater group Big Nazo. I loved how interactive the performers with the audience, especially very small (and very fearless) children who wanted to dance with them 

Also, Break My Heart 1,000 Times/I Still See You came out in France:

Mémère and Pépère would have been proud

TAN: "Make an effort with your personal appearance". I remain a two. Wearing my new clothes outside the house and getting out more, generally, but as I write this I realize I'm wearing a t-shirt that is--no joke--twenty-seven years old, and was purchased to a fit me that was forty-five pounds heavier than the me of today.

It is really, really comfortable, though.

BOBBY: "Create and maintain a physical environment that promotes productivity, creativity and inner harmony". A 3, although we finally replaced the leaky shower head in the main bathroom and I somehow managed to repair a Bose speaker that had gone mysteriously silent. But March took me out of my home base physical environment a great deal, so it was hard to realize any actual improvements

ANTONI: "Make nutrition healthy and enjoyable, cook for others". I'll take back the half point I lost last month for a 2.5 as I did most of the meal prep this month, at least when I was home. I ate out a great deal this month--business trips and lots of birthday dinners--but still kept it pretty healthy. I'm still adhering to a slightly relaxed form of Austerity (see Secrets of Weight Loss, Revealed), which at this point might mean it is now a lifestyle habit as opposed to a time-bound change.

I also finally was able to have one of these, which has long been lauded to me by people who would known as one of the premier craft beers 

It hit me the same way as the hirsute guy on the can

After my battle with Oumuamua (detailed in this True Tale of Terror) I have cut back my drinking of alcohol to next to nothing, and so this beverage really did take the top of my head off as pictured on the can (and moments later I was watching the alien/robot invasion pictured above).

JONATHAN: "Take care of yourself physically" I'll remain at 3.5.  I ran 102 miles, which includes the three mile run I took to push myself over the top, a run taken while still under the effects of the beverage pictured above, which probably wasn't the smartest thing in the world. 

I'm fortunate to have been able to reach that mark, though, because I lost a whole week with some sort of chest/head cold (my massive head was fully clogged the day we were supposed to go to the bucket list show, so perhaps it was a blessing it was moved to September). I didn't run all week, and writing was a chore, but it could have been worse--last year around the same time, Oumuamua was making its way through my personal galaxy and I was wracked with such pain I could barely move. I did "take care of myself physically", though, because A. I did something I almost never do, which is take an actual sick day from work to rest and recover and B. I didn't try and run again until my cold symptoms moved out of my chest and became "neck-up", which according to Dr. Google (that quack) might actually be a very beneficial time to run because of antihistamines, etc. 

This puts me at a 15.5 overall for March, an odd month with a great deal of disruption, both positive and negative. A quick side note, Karamo was speaking at a theater near the restaurant where my daughter worked; she'd been hopeful that he'd dine there but no such luck. We have yet to watch season three.

I'm going to split my reading/watching/listening post for March into three posts as I somehow managed to do an impressive amount of each activity--probably because of the sicky week where I wasn't running or writing much and all the travel.

Speaking of reading, please consider purchasing one or several of my books at the link below. The fools at OMZ Press continue to offer the kindle edition of Generation Dead for $2.99, as though I didn't pour my very soul into that book.

Spend way too little for Generation Dead HERE

Thanks fer yer bizness!

What I Watched, Heard, and Read in February

Nothing to do with today's post, but I love this portrait. It hangs in a restaurant in Boston.

A short but productive month writing, running, and reading. February has never been my favorite month and once again there was a family health scare (these tend to happen most often when I am away) but am thankful to report the scare is now in the rearview.

Flying High Again

WHAT I WATCHED:

1. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season 1--This was something Kim heard about and suggested we watch; I was maybe fifteen minutes into the first episode before I fell completely in love with the show and nearly everything about it. I never realized how weak my film literacy was until I was able to visit the set of I Still See You, how much I just never noticed before when it came to the actual mechanics and construction of film and since that wonderful experience have found myself noticing all sorts of things I wouldn't have noticed prior--fabrics and textures of the wardrobe jump out at me watching Maisel as much as the wonderful soundtrack.

One of the things I appreciate the most about this show is that it manages to be dramatic and socially conscious while at the same time being very positive and winsome--it somehow combines the plucky/can-do/let's-put-on-a-show spirit of fifties sit-coms with adult humor, themes, and insight. Most of my favorite television is very, very dark and/or laden with death--The Wire, The Sopranos, Black Sails--even Mad Men contains a great deal of darkness, so to fall so utterly in love with the world of Maisel was a wonderful surprise, especially in February, the darkest month of all.

2. Straight-Jacket--Another nice February surprise was being able to catch this nutty old Joan Crawford movie--hosted by Svengoolie!--when I was on the road. I grew up on Channel 56's Creature Double Features and have written extensively of my MST3K love and have often been curious to see other movies "curated" by horror hosts, and eating a large pile of Chinese food while watching Svengoolie's goofy skits and trivia lessons was a delight I should treat myself to more often. Sadly, MeTV is not available in my neck of the woods.

With the exception of a few quarters of basketball watched with my son, that is the sum total of my television watching for the month...no wonder my film literacy is so weak!

WHAT I HEARD:
1. Encore--The Specials. Spectacular. Their first album with Terry Hall in something like twenty years; don't wait so long for the next!

Special Indeed

2. Feral Roots--Rival Sons
3. Good Old Broadway--Coleman Hawkins. My first Coleman Hawkins record. Love at first listen.
4. Complete Performances with the Lighthouse All-stars--Chet Baker & Miles Davis
5. SYR 8--Sonic Youth
6. Goodbye 20th Century SYR 4--Sonic Youth
7. Olive's Horn SYR 7--Kim Gordon
8. The Evening Redness in the West--Nim Vind. Great horrorpunk-ish artist
Items 3-8 were through eMusic and now I have all of the SYR releases because I'm a completist.
9-14. 6 Elvis Presley double discs from the Time-Life series. These are great, but the collection I acquired was missing the volume I really wanted, which was the Gospel one. Oh well.

WHAT I READ:
1. The End of the End of the Earth--Jonathan Franzen. Essays, many about birds. Includes his very short and very controversial "Rules for Writing" essay.
2. Once Upon a Time--Larkin, ed. Essentially a fantasy art book, not much reading involved.
3. Time & Overdrive--Vol 3 of Cadillacs and Dinosaurs by Mark Schultz. You'll notice a lot of art and comics in my Feb. reading. I read things like this all year, but just this very moment I might amp it up in February as a primitive form of self-care to endure that hated month.
4. The Authority--Warren Ellis. I'm a fan of Mr. Ellis's, and have bought many a book based on his newsletter recommendations. One will show up in March. I couldn't help but notice that The Authority's spaceship looks quite like my very own Oumuamua.
5. Amberstar--Bruce Jones. What a weird and fun book featuring mostly purple-palette-ed photos altered by arcane pre-Photoshop techniques to tell a science fictional story. Mr. Jones wrote many of my favorite comics, including the Twisted Tales and Alien Worlds series' from Pacific Comics and then Eclipse Comics. Those titles definitely put a few warps in my record.
6. The Braindead Megaphone--Charles Saunders
7. The Song is You--Megan Abbott A great noir, I didn't realize it until after I finished the book that she is set to be a Guest of Honor at NECon this year.

I judge books by covers. Both cover and content are great.

8. Doo Wop--"Cousin Brucie" Morrow
9. Futuropolis-- Robert Sheckley
10. I Am Providence--Nick Mamatas
11.Safe in Place--Brendan Halpin. A YA, one of the best novels I've read this year, full of heart, humor, and insight. I've enjoyed everything I've read of Mr. Halpin's work but this is one of my favorites. Brendan also offer services as a writing coach; check him and his bibliography out HERE
12. Brown's Requiem--James Ellroy. My Ellroy odyssey begins! I may save commentary until I'm complete with his oeuvre, at which point I'll write a separate post. Probably.
13. Clandestine--James Ellroy
14. World's End--Neil Gaiman and a host of brilliant artists. I'd read this one before--and owned it-- before buying this second copy at the Book Barn. Despite my vast library of books, comics, and music, I never accidently bought stuff I already owned until a few years ago. I am nearly half a century though, and should probably be kind to myself. And this one had a different cover! Anyway, I'm glad I reread it because it is great and beautiful and has one of my favorite ever panels from a lifetime of reading comics. And now I'm inspired to go back and reread the whole run of Sandman.
15. Hotels of North America--Rick Moody. I liked Moody and I liked this book a great deal, reading it as I did poolside at a Hampton Inn. A nice companion book to the Cheap Hotels book from LAST MONTH
16.Mister Miracle--Tom King and Mitch Gerads. Loved it. It inspired me to go read all of the Kirby Fourth World stuff, which shockingly I have only read a few random pieces of, and I'll probably revisit that run of Justice League where Scott Free was part of the roster.

17. Demons By Daylight--Ramsey Campbell. I've met Mr. Campbell a couple times although I doubt he would remember me (although he was in the audience during a panel I was on at Stokercon last year; somewhat intimidating to have one of the greats of horror literature present when I'm running my mouth!). He's written some of my favorite horror novels, among them The Grin of the Dark, The Hungry Moon, and Ancient Images. Many of the covers of his books were painted by my friend Jill Bauman, who I look forward to playing cards with every year. I find it fascinating that creators I admired when I was younger and before I began writing professionally have ended up friends and acquaintances. When they prove to be as wonderful in person as they do in print or on the canvas, as Jill certainly does, it is nothing short of remarkable. As is her work, which you can see HERE

And finally, if my content moves you in any way and you wish to support the creation of more of it (or if you just admire my exquisite taste), please check out my books HERE. The pretty covers of most are below:

One of these is not like the others