5 items I'm reading because people said I should

Stefan: You're staring.
Elena: I'm gazing.
Stefan: It's creepy.
Elena: Its romantic.
- Stefan and Elena from Vampire Diaries (YES, I said Vampire Diaries!). Who said creepy couldn't be romantic...?

My desk is almost empty of books today, and there's a pic to prove it. Yesterday there were enough for me to indulge in a whimsical moment of spine poetry. Albeit bad poetry on my part. Today, I am down to 5 cds (most by Iron and Wine), a junior fiction book (thanks to a review by Emma of Booksellers NZ blog) and my TARDIS mug (fill it with hot water and it disappears from one side and appears on the other - almost as good as the real thing), and a nonfic title I picked up in New Orleans while visiting the Laura Plantation (which Laura wrote after reading Gone with the wind and disagreeing with Mitchell's portrayal of plantation life). This is...unusual for me. Often staff walk by and stop and browse and ooh and aah over covers and/or strange titles. I like to think they're impressed. Mostly I think they're horrified at how many odd gems we have hidden in our collections. And then I think that their next reaction is fear that I somehow manage to unearth them without even trying. It's like a blessing. And a curse. What's a girl to do when she's waiting on books to come in? Apparently, she relies on others for recommendations. And today's list is made up of 5 items I'm reading because people said I should. So there :)

5 books to help you prepare for zombiegeddon...or to help you get along with them if that's the only option left

Zombie outbreak.  Zombiegeddon.  Zombie infestation.  Possibly the thought of such a thing happening takes up more of my time than anyone would think was healthy.  But there it is.  I do think about it.  Lots and lots and lots.  I've been eyeball deep in The Walking Dead graphic novels and season one of the television series and have enjoyed every minute so far, but it makes me realise some quite strange things about myself.  (If you were to ask me which I appreciate more, the books or the series, I'd have to say neither, as I'm liking both for different reasons).  Mostly, I contemplate how I would be the stupid girl in the movie I love to yell at who you just know is going to get eaten first because either she's wearing something that doesn't allow for clambering fences and jumping hurdles (like the silly shoes I have on right now with the big flowers on them that aren't good for anything except decoration and are making me limp at the moment) OR I would be the idiot who is totally clueless about the undead in general.  And then I thought about how, in the normal run of things, I'm a pacifist - admittedly an extremely bad tempered one, but a pacifist all the same.  I'm opposed to war or violence as a solution to any problem.  I believe that anything (most things?) can be peacefully settled.  I very much believe we should love our neighbour at all times...but what if said neighbour is a zombie?  One very intent on borrowing your brain rather than a cup of sugar.  What then?  Which made me ask myself: How do I prepare for a zombie outbreak?  I think I found the answer in a couple of ways: 1) read books to prepare for a  zombie war and 2) read books to prepare to love my undead neighbour from afar.  Way afar, way way way afar.  (Not a proper sentence, I know).  Which leaves you with this!  5 books to help you prepare for zombiegeddon...or to help you get along with them if that's the only option left

Title I would love to have included somehow but the book is missing :(
Every zombie eats somebody sometime : a book of zombie love songs by Michael P. Spradlin
Another zombie title I couldn't quite fit in this post:
Zombies vs. Nazis : a lost history of the walking dead by Scott Kenemore 

Are you prepared for zombiegeddon?

My 5 favourite finds of 2011

List by Danielle

I'll take vampires over werewolves anyday...
~ From 'Vampires', by Minuit

2011 = much YA and more short stories and graphic novels than usual, in an attempt to actually finish some reading, what with the demands of work (apparently I have to work there, and not just read) and wonderful young kids. Also, 2011 brought a memorable 31 days in May listening to a new NZ cd each day, for NZ Music Month. Well, new to me. Which brings me to: Note: I'm not an early adopter. I don't so much start trends as fall over them in my near-sighted way a few years down the track, and marvel at their shininess. With that in mind, here are my favourite 'discoveries' of 2011 (oh look, the Wheel! Sliced bread! An Interweb!)...

Top 5 new horror/supernatural covers I liked (plus three author recommendations you should try)

List by Tosca

"Like sex, horror is seductive - enticing the reader to accept the forbidden; allowing a fascination with the carnal, the forbidden; titillating the mind as sex does both the mind and sense. Reading horror is an act of consensual masochism: you willingly submit to the pleasures of fear - scare me! Please?"
- Paula Guran


What better time to get back into enjoying horror fiction than over the Christmas break? I'm serious. Think about it: long, hot sunny days (hopefully, even though I'm looking out the window at a miserably wild, wet afternoon) are as far removed from a dark, moody and atmospheric late night read. I get scared far too easily these days. It seems the older I get, the more my imagination can't handle the possibilities of a horror novel, no matter how unlikely the circumstances (e.g. zombies and post-apocalyptic life - or un-life). I remember a time when I used to devour scary books. (Get it? Devour? Har har har). Zombies, blood, gore, grisly deaths, supernatural elements - I enjoyed it all. Somewhere along the way I lost the anticipatory feel and let the actual fear of fear overshadow that, but a chance tweet I saw on our work tweetstream made me think that maybe it was time to reclaim what used to be fun. The tweet, by Andre Farant, asked if people had discovered horror authors Sarah Langan, Gary McMahon, and Robert Jackson Bennett. The link Andre included was to a post on his site; 'The new voices of horror,' and, in short, was what convinced me to give these books a try. Requested already, and waiting for them to come in from other branches. Merci beaucoup, Monsieur Farant :-) It then got me thinking, from our most recent batch of newly received horror/supernatural titles, where would I start? What would I request? It wasn't a huge list, but there were still too many for me to make up my mind about. In the end I decided to go with 5 of the most interesting covers which, not coincidentally, make up today's 12 posts of Christmas piece. Am I seriously encouraging you to read horror during a time when most people are celebrating the birth of baby Jesus and being with friends and family? TOTALLY.

Top 5 TV shows to watch with the lights out

List by Danielle

"You know, there's no version of this that ends well."
~ Danny, Harper's Island

Happy Halloween, everyone! I don't think we've quite got Halloween figured out in New Zealand. It feels like we're never quite sure whether we get into trick-or-treating or not, and a lot of the costumes the neighborhood kids show up in are a bit of a half-hearted and embarrassed plea for free goodies, but I wasn't the only person buying up large in the pick-and-mix choccy aisle at the supermarket yesterday. There's a 'Festival of Light' happening at a local church (to offset the celebration of darkness), but my three year old went to daycare today dressed as his favourite hero, Sonic the Hedgehog, complete with spiked and spray-painted blue hair, makeshift blue pointy ears and his fastest running shoes. There, he was celebrating the day with about a gazillion pink fairy princesses, a couple of Disney princesses and a lone Spiderman. No zombies, no vampires, and no witches (unless you count the teachers - and no, I'm not being nasty, the teachers actually dressed as witches this morning).

That said, I think there's plenty of room for celebration of all things spooky amongst consenting adults, so here are my top picks for TV shows to watch in the dark, or maybe by the gently flickering light of your pumpkin lantern...

Top 5 reasons to stay out of the snow

List by Danielle

The snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches.
~ e.e. cummings

Earlier this week, I was driving through central Auckland when it hit: call it snow, call it sleet, call it 'graupel' (as I saw it referred to in the news)... it was beautiful and strange and altogether magical, drifting in swirls through the sky and sticking to my windscreen. I've only been out while it's snowing once or twice in my life, so it was a total treat and not the nightmare I'm sure it is for farmers with lambs and calves, or people driving on icy roads, or the folk in Christchurch who really need a break from all the mayhem.

Speaking of nightmares and snow, horror books & movies know the score. Stay away from the white stuff! It hides all manner of abominations... for the love of all that's holy, COME IN FROM THE SNOW, PEOPLE!

Top 5 books for the Vampire completist

List by Danielle

Around humans? Use the Blood Bottle Cozies to disguise your beverage.
~ from 'Vampire knits' by Genevieve Miller

Maybe they're on the way out, I don't know, there seems to be a growing swell of enthusiasm for zombie this'n'that, but there is still a lot of love out there for the not-so-humble vamp. And our collection reflects this, with a dazzling array of vampire novels, anthologies, film tie-ins, soundtracks... and knitwear. YES. Knitwear.

Also, because Tosca mentions it, I can only add that I, too, haz germs, but that instead of going on and on about it, I merely pull my 'Descent into Darkness wrap' a little closer around me and reach for a pair of patented 'Paw Warmers'. True story.

Without further ado, I present some truly fantastic knitting projects (a jersey with bloody fangs! for your pre-schooler!), and three very unlikely vampire slayers.

Top 5 riffs on the zombie myth

List by Danielle

'From the viewpoint of the fan (the ‘zombie lover’ as some phrase it) zombies are stand-ins for anything that we fear and want to see quantified. They ‘embody’ things like the fear of death, fear of disease, fear of our individual and cultural loss of identity. They’re wonderfully elastic in that regard.'
~ Jonathan Maberry, from an interview on the Mad Hatter's Bookshelf and Book Review

Zombies are so big right now. I mean, scary-huge. I was trying to compile the library's June Horror eNewsletter last week without flooding it with new zombiefic, and... yeah. Not much luck there. At the moment, I'm guessing zombies are to horror as vampires are romance, or the Seelie Court to teen paranormal.

BUT. That doesn't mean there aren't a bagful of new tunes you can play on this rotting guitar! Following some great zombie reads I've had lately, here are some of the authors' different takes on the zombie myth. I should also add, there are many recent zombie classics that I haven't read yet, so recommendations are welcome!

Top 5 vamp books that aren't Twilight

List by Annie

"The vampires have always been metaphors for me. They've always been vehicles through which I can express things I have felt very, very deeply."
- Anne Rice

Oh yes, Twilight et al have brought the vamp into the reading sphere. Honestly, there are other books out there. Here are some of my favs… not a paranormal romance in there, either – tho’ I love those, too.

Honourable mention: (i.e. not real vampires, or are there...?)

Sweetblood by Pete Hautman - Teen fiction. Vampire or diabetic? Intriguing, original, with a great narrator.

Top 5 fantasy forests to avoid

List by Danielle and Kylie (and Mark and Jero)

"Soon the light at the gate was like a little bright hole far behind, and the quiet was so deep that their feet seemed to thump along while all the trees leaned over them and listened."
Mirkwood, from 'The hobbit: or there and back again', by J.R.R. Tolkien

I love trees. Everytime I come back from holiday, there are at least a dozen frustrated and inadequate photos of trees - usually taken from a moving car - as I try one more time to record how much I love them.
Myths and legends, folktales and fairytales, they love their forests too. And for every tale about a forest of surpassing beauty where fair elves and noble unicorns dwell in golden glades, at one with nature, there is a story that burrows deep into the freaky flipside of forests - the cool, impenetrable darkness, the creatures that hide behind leaves and buried beneath the undergrowth, the endless cycle of rebirth - and decay. Giant spiders. Demons and the undead. Eyes, in the night. Fairytale and fantasy forests are resistant to maps, with shifting boundaries that remake themselves at will. All sorts of things make their homes there, and some of the denizens of the forests below would snack on the Big Bad Wolf for breakfast and pick their teeth on the Woodsman. NOM NOM NOM.

Top 5 horror movie endings

List by Danielle

I think in the case of horror, it's a chance to confront a lot of your worse fears and those fears usually have to do, ironically, with powerlessness and isolation.
~ Adam Arkin

Horror endings can be occasions for great cheesiness. I've just finished a debut horror novel that I enjoyed - right up to the ending, which made me roll my eyes, as the seemingly-defeated Big Bad came back for one last "Boo!" in an all-too-predictable epilogue.
Think you've killed the ghost, Mr Hero? Oh no, look at the glowing eyes and sinister smirk, it has possessed the neighbour's bunny at the last moment... just in time for the sequel!

Top 5 graphic novels for horror readers

List by Danielle

'I love fantasy. I love horror. I love musicals. Whatever doesn't really happen in life is what I'm interested in. As a way of commenting on everything that does happen in life, because ultimately the only thing I'm really interested in is people.'
~ Joss Whedon

Sitting in that perfect (crawl)space between good horror fiction and a good horror movie; graphic novels (comics, manga, call them what you will), when done well, can give you an almost cinematic sense of movement and sound, as well as all the pleasures of the deftly-chosen written word. Or, y'know... a double-paged spread of exploding bugs and some new fodder for your next nightmare.

Top 5 lingering horrors

List by Danielle

"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone."
- The haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson

Ever since I was a kid, I've loved reading horror. Earliest creepy memories? 'Bears in the night', the scariest and most nearly wordless of the Berenstain Bears' adventures, and 'The strange disappearance of Arthur Cluck', which had a (then) terrifying night-fight in a barn with an unknown assailant (rat vs owl, in case you were wondering). Then on through night-terrors about General Woundwort (Richard Adams' 'Watership Down'), well-worn Alfred Hitchcock short story paperpacks from the school library, and one memorable night when I had to put 'The Shining' in the laundry because I couldn't sleep with it in my room. Ah, those were the days. Now, I have to convince my three year old that there is, in fact, no monster under the bed, despite not being able to reach down and pick up anything that falls into that dubious area late at night...