A Six Pack for the New Year

If you have enjoyed and/or felt strange or strong emotions reading any of my blog posts, please consider purchasing one of my books, all of which can be found HERE!  They are available in electronic, softcover, and audio editions, except for My Best Friends Are Dead (no audio) and Aural History, which is only available in the kindle store!

Which makes it a lonelier book than the others, in need of staunch defenders and loyal friends (and reviewers!). If you enjoy music, ghosts, musical ghosts, reading, pizza, beagle puppies, sunshine, or hygge, the Danish art of coziness, then you might really enjoy Aural History, for which I have made a special "purchase me" link right HERE!*

*(Disclaimer: while there is music and ghosts in Aural History, there's no mention of most of the other things. But pretty much everyone likes them, so give the book a shot, won't you?

Too Soon?

I'm not sure why this special, one-of-a-kind Christmas edition of Generation Dead makes me so happy every year when I post it, but whatever. If you want to give the gift of zombie this holiday season to that special someone, HERE is a great place to start.

I do have a few copies of the first editions of the Generation Dead series, both paperback and hardcover, for anyone who would like to gift (or greedily keep) a signed copy. I may even have some of the Spanish editions, I'd have to check. Also some of Break My Heart 1,000 Times, I think. Cover price plus shipping but if you want a bunch I'll cut you a sweet deal. 

Break My Heart 1,000 Times

October! Pre-order whenever convenient!

Dead Kiss

I'm told this comes out next week in the U.K.:




Not a new story, but a compilation of Generation Dead and Kiss of Life. A great, low cost entry point for readers new to the series, or for those who want another flower for their bouquet.

But speaking of new story, there will be some new Generation dead material soon. Ever wonder what would happen when Tommy returns to Oakvale from his time on the road? I bet it involves Phoebe!

GenDead Around the World

And here I'll take a break from posting paperback covers from my library to posting one of my own covers. Here is the cover for the Turkish edition of Generation Dead, out this month from Artemis:

Great Paperbacks I Have Loved-- the Work of Shirley Jackson

I'm still loading up Expedit, reordering, re shelving, etc. And reading. Reading, reading, reading.

Today I'm posting images of the editions of Shirley Jackson paperbacks I love. My first introduction to Shirley Jackson was through the works of Stephen King; when I was a young reader I loved King, and I wanted to read what he read, and so his book Danse Macabre was like the Rosetta Stone of horror (and to a large extent, science fiction). He was the first author that I would hunt around for every scrap of writing, every review, and every interview, and Kind was always extremely generous in sharing his passions about what he read. The reading list from Danse Macabre was where I started, and one of the first books I read on the list was The Haunting of Hill House, which to this day remains one of my favorite novels, and created a life-long love of haunted house stories. I'll read just about any haunted house story that comes my way, but few even come close to the perfect gem that is The Haunting of Hill House (I just finished writing a haunted house novel, hopefully coming soon to a bookstore near you.

This is isn't the edition I first read, but it is my favorite of the three I own. The cover is a still from the movie The Haunting , which I thought was a pretty good adaptation of the novel. I read this edition again every couple years.



I posted the cover of We Have Always Lived in the Castle last blog, but The Sundial is a close third for me. Nothing like an end of the world dark comedy to cheer one up:



Here's the psychedelic cover of The Bird's Nest, a novel of split personalities:


I just this moment realized how much it reminds me of the cover of Ssssh by Ten Years After:



Groovy, Man.

Here's Hangsaman:



Which someone smarter than me could draw parallels with Catcher in the Rye, except in this Holden is a girl, and instead of doing madman stuff actually does insane stuff.

Hmm, I still haven't found my neat old copy of The Road through the Wall, and I can't find the cover online--I'll scan it when it turns up!

But then, there's this:



Great title, great cover. Think I'll read it again.

Unpacking My Mind

Today my son and I built Expedit from IKEA. I got the one that is four by four squares, and the squares are pretty deep, too. Perfect for my monstrous and somewhat absurd paperback collection, which has been mostly boxed up since we moved this summer. I started unpacking and shelving, as part of my mad plan to have the ultimate basement office, but I have to admit that it wasn't too long until I got, um, sidetracked by some of the great books I've collected over the years. Every book I have tells two stories, to me--the story within the pages and a piece of the story of my life when I was reading it. Books like this one:



That's the original title. I love cover art and book design, and when the story is great as this one is, well then, everyone wins.



Ah, Raymond Chandler. As much as I love this edition, which I found at a used bookstore for a dollar this year, I actually like these better:



Mainly because those were the editions I read when I was a kid; I love the Deco-ish lettering and cover art. I picked one up because I was watching the Philip Marlowe shows on HBO starring Powers Boothe and I instantly was hooked, for life, on the stories.

Then there's these, which I have a couple hundred of:



I've often said that Stephen King, Gary Gygax, and Bill Gaines were the three most influential men that I wasn't related to in my life when I was a kid.

I've got over a hundred of these, too:



Still not a complete set, though. I guess I could get the few I'm missing off ebay, but where's the fun in that? Used bookstores and yard sales for me.

Although I did get this one off Amazon or abebooks or one of them:



Jack Yeovil is actually Kim Newman, who is one of my favorite writers working today. I think this is his first novel.

And then there's this:



What a cover! Unlike my Mad and Doc Savage collections, I do have a complete set of old Shirley Jackson paperbacks. I'll buy any of the old ones that I see because I give them away often (and read them to death, it turns out). Her ouerve, although not huge, had a huge influence on me.

Every book I unpack is like a brick, or cornerstone, of the city of my mind. I first read Czar of Fear, above, when I was about ten, and read it again in my twenties when I got it in my head that it would be a good idea to read them all again, in order. I read The Bedside Mad at least a hundred times between the ages of eight and fifteen, and probably a dozen since in various formats. The one I read the most though wasn't this one but the one with the Norman Mingo cover. I read the Yeovil/Newman book late 2009, after I went on a quest to read everything that he's written (still working on it, but The Original Dr. Shade (and other tales) is supposedly in the mail. Jackson and Chandler I read very young and re-read every few years.

I'm about a third of the way unpacked...

Ali Smith Interview

Ali Smith shot the photos for all of my books, including the ones for Passing Strange,above(did I mention I received a couple copies of the actual book from my brilliant editor? It is even prettier in person!)--so naturally I love her and think she is awesome. I thought it would be fun to do a mini-interview with her, so here it is!

And before I forget, make sure you check out her work at her fabulous website, alismith.com. And while you are there, check out the "Making of a Bookcover" video, which features some of the beautiful GenDead cover models!


1. Why are you a photographer?

it suits the way i live and helps me make sense of the world. i've always been a visual learner and visually expressive. Plus I have strong beliefs and curiosities and care about sharing them. it's the way i have found to express myself best and tell stories. my mind sees stories in chunks rather than fluid narrative. I might as well embrace that.



2. Who/what/where inspires you?

i come from a music background- punk and all that goes along with that. I played in bands most of my teen and adult life and traveled the world with it. Punk artists- like siouxsie sioux and exene cervenka- were visually genius. the whole punk aesthetic was creative and painterly. those things still inform me. my punk and goth days definitely informed all the gen dead covers! before music, i was a ballerina. that brings an appreciation for another aesthetic. if i were a lot younger and didn't sound like a fool saying it, i'd call my aesthetic a " mash up" of a few different lifestyles I've had.

my political beliefs inspire me as do my feminist beliefs and my search for meaning.



3. What is the best thing about your what you do?

F-R-E-E-D-O-M! and the blurring of the line between work and life. i mean i work damn hard, but i love what i do. I get to make art for a living and it melts fantastically into my off hours so that it all just becomes about being creative!



4. Any advice for aspiring photographers?

If you love it, you should be doing it. If not, why bother. making a living at anything is a challenge, but nothing beats loving what you do every day.



5. Tell us about your new book

It's a photo based look at the realities of how woman live their lives as mothers.

My first book, Laws of the Bandit Queens, was released by Random House and was a celebration of women who'd influenced my career and personal goals throughout my twenties and on into my thirties. It included portraits of and "life laws" from 35 extraordinary women such as Alice Walker, Sandra Bernhard, Geraldine Ferraro, Janeane Garofalo, Pat Schroeder and Sheryl Swoopes. The idea was the construction, through these life laws, of an alternate life philosophy that made more sense to me and to the women around me, who sometimes felt out of step with or unsupported by accepted social norms.

Momma Love picks up where Bandit Queens left off. It still reveres an enthusiastic, vibrant, longing spirit in women, but it shows the ways in which that spirit is inevitably altered—sometimes frustratingly diminished, sometimes gloriously enhanced—by motherhood. Also addressed is the transformation that’s occurred between the way our own mothers experienced motherhood and what it’s like to be a mother today, illuminating the differences and some of the startling similarities as well.

Thanks, Ali!