Reissued on its 50th anniversary, Harry Kressing’s cult classic is finally available to the masses.  A strange and creepy parable that belongs assuredly on the shelf with Shirley Jackson and Richard Matheson, The Cook is considered pantheon.  And well so.  After reading the tale of the domineering master chef, you can readily see its influence on so much modern work.

I loved the Percy Jackson series, and the follow-up Heroes of Olympus.  I loathed the Kane Chronicles, his stab at the Egyptian Gods, mostly because of the lead characters.  So I was nervous when Riordan wanted to tackle Norse mythology.  But he did a Hel of a job.  A great story, interesting and diverse support that don’t ever feel checklisted, and a nice tie to the Percy Jackson books.  I look forward to future installments.

This book could be taught in college courses, so fascinating a creation it is.  Wrap your head around this: in Fangirl  — a book I didn’t much care for — the lead character writes slash fan-fic based on a pseudo Harry Potter adventure. Rowell has decided she will write an entire novel version of this story, the final novel of the series, only it’s not the canon original version the “real author” wrote, nor is it Cath’s slash version, but somewhere in the middle and solely of […]

For lovers of Shakespeare and storytelling, I give you a work of art. The first portion of this lavish tale begins in the 1700’s and goes to the year 1900, illustrated beautifully and wordless like a silent film.  It tells the legend of the Marvels, a generation-spanning family of stage actors and artists.  The second portion of the story is in prose, set in 1985 London, and gives us a runaway finding his uncle.  It’s particularly Dickensian, and watching the two stories slowly come together […]

In any language, it’s fucking CHEEEEESE.  I continue my spiteful admiration for Stuart Woods, who writes his masturbatory fantasies every three months and makes it on to the NYT Bestseller Lists, because airports need books you can read in the time it takes to take a solid shit.  And a solid shit this is.  To explain the plot would be to jab a fork in your ear and swirl spaghetti from your brains.  Woods continues to Mary Sue and I continue to gorge on it […]

Finally a Tiffany Aching story I liked!  I shouldn’t say that. It’s not like I hate her stories, I just don’t like them as much.  And this one had a very strong plot and nice digs at what it means to be a community.  Maybe it’s hitting me harder now that I’m in the wilds of central Ohio, but family and community can have razor blades in them just as much as love.  And while this is the penultimate Aching tale, and the series ends […]