Grace's comments (member since Apr 11, 2009)

Grace's comments from the The Next Best Book Club group.

September:
The Birthing House-Christopher Ransom (major suck-fest)
The Resort-Bentley Little

I think if you looked at mine you would probably say: "This girl needs more bookcases!" I have books everywhere in my house. They are especially taking over my bedroom. I would say I have a pretty good mix of Classics (some I've read, some I'll get to someday!) which are more buried than the ones I read a lot, I also have maybe 3 chck-lit books but not romance-y kinds. More of the friendship kind. Looking at them I notice that I keep my horror books prominently displayed because that's my favorite genre and I read them the most.

I'm finishing up Black Cathedral and after that I think I'm going to start on House Of Blood by Bryan Smith.

Also:
The Egypt Game-Zilpha Keatley Snyder
The Poe Shadow A Novel-Matthew Pearl
The Immaculate-Mark Morris
The Taken-Sarah Pinborough
The Resort-Bentley Little
The Academy-Bentley Little
The House-Bentley Little
Creepers-David Morrell
The Devil's Footprints-Amanda Stevens
The Curse of the Blue Figurine-John Bellairs
House Of Blood-Bryan Smith
Depraved-Bryan Smith
Feeding Ground-Sarah Pinborough

From Swaptree:
Dearly Devoted Dexter-Jeff Lindsay
Strawberry Shortcake Murder-Joanne Fluke
Death Scenes A Homicide Detective's Scrapbook-Sean Tejaratchi
Shaman's Crossing-Robin Hobb
Forest Mage-Robin Hobb
Renegade's Magic-Robin Hobb
The Turn of the Screw-Henry James
Deep and Dark and Dangerous A Ghost Story-Mary Downing Hahn
Sweet Miss Honeywell's Revenge A Ghost Story-Kathryn Reiss
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell-Susanna Clarke
The Monk-Matthew Gregory Lewis
The Reckoning-Sarah Pinborough
The Thirteenth Tale-Diane Setterfield
Cemetery Dance-Douglas Preston
Heartsick-Chelsea Cain
The White Room-A. J. Matthews
The Whalestoe Letters-Mark Z. Danielewski
Strangled Prose-Joan E. Hess
Darkness, Tell Us-Richard Laymon
Usher's Passing-Robert R. McCammon
In Silent Graves-Gary A. Braunbeck

From Bookmooch:
Ghosts-Noel Hynd
If You Could See Me Now-Peter Straub
The Mantra-Dmitry Radyshevsky
Wither-J.G. Passarella
American Gothic-Robert Bloch
The Lost-Jack Ketchum
The Guardian-Jeffrey Konvitz
Breed-Owl GoingbackJulian's House-Judith Hawkes
Beneath Still Waters-Matthew J. Costello
Lost Boy Lost Girl-Peter Straub

Kate wrote: "Jeane wrote:
Kate I loved The snow flower.... I liked the way it was written, the image created and the story. But I am afraid to read another of her books because i have a feeling they are differe..."

I started Peony in Love and it was very good from the little I read.

Wow! It's been awhile since I've been here, crazy, crazy months. Anyways, I'm reading Black Cathedral and it's great. Usually from September on I go on a horror binge.

It's been a bit so I'll list a few of the newer ones that have arrived recently.

Witches' Bane-Susan Wittig Albert
Horrorween-Al Sarrantonio
Halloweenland-Al Sarrantonio
Curtains of Blood-Robert J. Randisi
The Wyrm-Stephen Laws
Darkness Demands-Simon Clark
When Shadows Fall-Brian Scott Smith

It's been a while since I've been on here. Now that Fall has come I'll be able to be around more. Well, I finished Coffin County by Gary A. Braunbeck and it was great! Now I'm reading The Birthing House by Christopher Ransom and I'm sooo disappointed in it. It sounded like such a cool idea but it's just painful to read.

August:

1. 1001 Books for Every Mood A Bibliophile's Guide to Unwinding, Misbehaving, Forgiving, Celebrating, Commiserating-Hallie Ephron
2. Something Wicked This Way Comes-Ray Bradbury
3. The Bell Jar-Sylvia Plath
4. Drowning Ruth-Christina Schwarz
5. Every Move You Make- Carla Cassidy
6. Citizen Girl- Emma McLaughlin
7. Water for Elephants- Sara Gruen
8. Beauty is Therapy: Memories of the Traverse City State Hospital- Earle E. Steele
9. The Darwin Awards II- Wendy Northcutt
10. Crimes and MisDumbMeanors- Daniel Butler
11. Shadows in the Asylum- D.A. Stern
12. Premonitions- Jude Watson
13. Disappearance- Jude Watson

Oh my God, that is so sick. I don't see how anyone could be so cruel to animals.

As of today I think they would be these:

1. House of Leaves-Mark Z. Danielewski
2. Shadows in the Asylum The Case Files of Dr. Charles Marsh-D.A. Stern
3. Water for Elephants-Sara Gruen
4. Pride and Prejudice-Jane Austen
5. Wuthering Heights-Emily Brontë

I really think that's all at the moment.

I've heard of Dracula and Frankenstein being taught (read, whatever) but I'm talking about more modern horror. Some of them are very well written and they get looked over quite a bit because of the fact that they're horror. Before anyone says that horror is not actual literature and doesn't teach anything you can look at horror through the centuries and you can see that they usually reflect society's gneral fears and phobias. Fr instance, the killers that make the news everyday. If you look at a lot of horror movies and novels of this era there are a lot of ones about psycho killers.

Amy wrote: "I got burned last time I bought books online. Discovered after my troubles started other people dislike Alibris.

I'm really fond of IndieBound, and I miss being able to hop in the car and zip dow..."

Abebooks is a pretty good website for books. I've also found that when I compare them with Amazon the abebooks order usually comes out cheaper.

I found another annoyance but this has more to do with bookstores than books in particular. When I went in to Borders the other day I was looking for a few good horror books. I even had a list of ones I wanted that I had culled from Goodreads and Amazon lists. What did I find when I got there? The very first three authors in the horror section were V.C. Andrews, Charlaine Harris, Laurell K. Hamilton and the chick who rips off Clint Eastwood movie titles for the titles of her books. The rest of the selection was chock-full of Stephen King, Dean Koontz and John Saul. Nothing wrong with them. I happen to love Stephen KIng and quite a few of Dean Koontz (John Saul is another matter but it's not about that right now). I did manage to find some authors that I was looking for but not too many there, either. The horror section is three times smaller than all the other categories. It seems like if I want a specific horror novel then I have to go online to get it.

I just got a book in the mail that was one of my favorite books when I was younger. It's from a short lived series called MOstly Ghosts. After rereading it I still can't figure out why it was so short-lived. These books are great! The book was called The Three Spirits of Vandermeer Manor by Mary Anderson.

Linda wrote: "Just beginning Water for Elephants and love the writing style of this author. I recently finished The Thirteenth Tale and thought it was EXCELLENT! What an original and gripping plot with unforget..."

I just gave Five stars to Water for Elephants. It was great! I also just gave 5 stars to Shadows in the Asylum The Case Files of Dr. Charles Marsh by D.A. Stern. It was so creepy and I loved the unusual way it was set up. It's set up like a doctor's case files with journal excerpts, clippings and such. It makes it seem very real.

These are the ones I belong to, along with their pros and cons:

Swaptree:
Pro
Can swap movies, books and games
Postage is pretty cheap
I've done over a hundred swaps and only gotten burned once. But if I had been more careful and checked the other users feedback I wouldn't have.

Cons
Book or whatever has to be sent out within a few days


Bookmooch
Pro
Not so picky about mailing times.
Because it's not a straight up swap you can use your points for anything
You get a tenth of a point just for listing books whether or not they get mooched from you
You also get a tenth of a point for marking books you've mooched as received. Those tenths really add up!
Wishlist is first come first served so you've got to be quick on your toes but there may be a better chance to nab a book you really want

Cons
Sometimes it's hard to get books such as heavily requested ones or little known ones.
When you've requested a book you may have to wait a while before it is sent out.


Paperbackswap
pro
I've gotten books on there that I couldn't find available on swaptree or bookmooch
If you haven't sent out eough books to get credits you can buy credits for pretty reasonable prices.

Con
I don't know about anyone else but I've had very little activity on my account.
Many reminder e-mails on when to send your book and asking if you've received it.
It doesn't tell you if the book you are posting is on someone's wishlist or not (unless it does and I just don't know how to find out) or how many copies of your book are posted already.

I started Twenty Questions A Novel last night and put it down after twenty pages. Could not get into it. Then I started Premonitions by Jude Watson. Despite wanting to slap the main character a time or two in the beginning I stuck with it and it got very interesting. Didn't realize when I started it that it was a YA novel.

August:

1. 1001 Books for Every Mood A Bibliophile's Guide to Unwinding, Misbehaving, Forgiving, Celebrating, Commiserating-Hallie Ephron
2. Something Wicked This Way Comes-Ray Bradbury
3. The Bell Jar-Sylvia Plath
4. Drowning Ruth-Christina Schwarz
5. Every Move You Make- Carla Cassidy
6. Citizen Girl- Emma McLaughlin
7. Water for Elephants- Sara Gruen
8. Beauty is Therapy: Memories of the Traverse City State Hospital- Earle E. Steele
9. The Darwin Awards II- Wendy Northcutt
10. Crimes and MisDumbMeanors- Daniel Butler
11. Shadows in the Asylum- D.A. Stern

Got Dearly Devoted Dexter today. Yay! Also got Shaman's Crossing by Robin Hobb and Forest Mage as well. I'm eagerly awaiting a few that I hope will come very soon.