Two Envelopes And A Phone > Recent Status Updates

For GarbAugust prompt: Book with Stepback Cover.. This is the only book I have specifically purchased for GarbAugust, besides Killed By Cannibals. Extra bonus for GarbAugust: the cover is damaged…see on it where it says the last name Krist? Now, don’t see it, imagine it ripped off and missing, this making this book even better for trashy reading. Anyway, this is a (damaged) stepback cover.

Today I read ‘The Torture Pool’, by MacKinlay Kantoe. New author for me - fun story. Swamps and quicksand always get me nervous…

Final GarbAugust Notes:
Applied to Bingo Card Prompt: Nudity on the Cover
Decade: 1950s
Anything Goes Week
Assessment: A fast-flashing firecracker - terrific.

Reading this for GarbAugust - specifically the Cozy Cat Mystery prompt. We’re still in Anything Week (which is more than a week; narrower weekly criteria kicks in on Aug. 11). I love cats, and this Prompt is in Memory of a BookTuber no longer with us, who loved cats. I have read two other books in this series, as well as other, harder-edged, Crime novels by Hitchens. Always ready for her to bring it…

Final GarbAugust Notes:
Read for Bingo Card Prompt: ! in the title
Decades Covered: 1970s, 1960s, 1930s (multiple copyright dates for various pieces included in the book; I read entire contents for GarbAugust
Assessment: Nostalgia, and respect for Atlan’s historic second appearance in the series, persuade me not to reduce this to 3 stars after my first read in about 45 years. Plus, I did have fun!

These books seemed really cool to me when I was 11 years old. The covers were very striking, and they were easy to zoom in on, at the bookstores. As I got older and got to go downtown to Used bookstores, it was wonderful to find the rarer, earlier entries in the series. The Ace run was just folding when I got hooked, but I wouldn’t have known that. I think #46 was one of the first dozen or so I ever read. Or close.

When did I read this? ….hmmm, this probably got read by me, oh, let’s say 1979, 1980, somewhen around there. Thanks to GarbAugust, and CriminOlly, for making me suddenly love the thought of going back to Perry Rhodan, with Nostalgia plus Feels happening. Haven’t seen that Thora drawing since was in my teens (if then!). I will read all the extra material, not just the Perry Rhodan adventure.

I’m applying this one to the Nudity on the Cover prompt, when it comes to the GarbAugust Bingo Card. Originally, I was planning to save this for Sex & Violence Week later on, but I think I want something a bit spicy for Anything Goes Week, as other Mysteries I get to soonest will be light on the naughty bits - they being by Agatha Christie and Dolores Hitchens. I hope this is better than the other Kane I read.

I read an entertaining Crime story called ‘The Deadly Orchid’ by T. T. Flynn. After recently reading The Black Lizard - which I loved - any female villain like the Orchid will have a hard time measuring up to the Black Lizard! But of course the Black Lizard had a whole novel to work her schemes.

Final GarbAugust Notes:
Book Applied to Bingo Card Prompt: Modern Trash
Anything Goes Week
Decade: 2020s
Assessment: I absolutely loved it. I had bought this book before deciding to shoehorn it into GarbAugust, as ‘trash’. It’s ’trashy’ by virtue of being a humorous monster book, written in a very cheeky style - but of course there are serious underpinnings, and social commentary.

This is very entertaining. And I guess I’m going to say it is a decent pick for the Modern Trash Prompt, in the GarbAugust reading challenge. I mean, the underpinnings of the Golem lore, reason for being, and all that, are very serious. But this is a book where The Golem learns things from Curb Your Enthusiasm, and is accidentally given LSD. A humorous monster tale of any type seems to work for GarbAugust.

Re-reading for GarbAugust, for the Prompt: ! in the Title! I looked through all my books, including short story books, vainly looking for an exclamation point in a title…and then remembered all my Perry Rhodan books, in storage. Spybot!, and Planet Topide: Please Reply! lose out to Again: Atlan!…partly because in addition to the cheesy !, we don’t even have a complete sentence, or clean one-word, for a title!!!!!

I read two Western tales - as penned by Max Brand, and then Luke Short - followed by ‘One Hour’ by Dashiell Hammett.

Final GarbAugust Notes:
Read for the Prompt: Trash in Translation
Anything Goes Week Continues
Decade Checked Off: 1920s
Assessment: I loved it. And any worries that it would not be, in some ways, trashy enough for GarbAugust disappeared in about 10 pages. It was such a blast! The Black Lizard’s weirdest proclivities, revealed near the end, made things a teeny bit silly, but overall, this was amazing fun!

Reading for GarbAugust. Prompt is: Modern Trash. Anything Goes Week continues. Decade: 2020s. I loved this author’s previous Horror novel, The Dead Run, though it didn’t seem to find a wide audience…it, or its sequel. I think this will have a somewhat different feel than those books. But it’s a monster book with humour, and who knows what else. Probably not the trashiest book ever, but I think there’s enough here.

Final GarbAugust Notes:
Applied to Bingo Card Prompt: Green on the Cover
Anything Goes Week
Decade: 1970s
Assessment: Perfect for GarbAugust. Sleaziness, offensive 1970s attitudes, gangster stuff, sex & violence. Not the fanciest whodunit in the world, but good enough for 1970s private-eye/noir Crime fiction.

I like this one a lot, and it’s perfect for GarbAugust - besides the Green on the Cover thing - due to all-around sleaziness, violence, and gangster stuff. I’m curious about the whodunit aspect…assume the obvious, or get ready for a big surprise…?

GarbAugust notes: Reading for Green on the Cover, Anything Goes, 1970s. Off to a strong start. Been a while since fiction has put me inside a slaughter-house, with graphic descriptions. Before was the movie Killer of Sheep, one of the Preacher graphic novels...and of course, anything like this makes me ruminate on Faber's Under the Skin. Disturbing images.

Final GarbAugust Notes:
Read for Anything Goes Week
Applied to Bingo Card Prompt: More Than 2 Guns on the Cover
Prompts it can cover, if I don’t get to certain books: Vigilantes; Killer Kids
Assessment: Re-read. This is a forgotten Punisher story, that would probably strike fans as too “light-weight” - but I have always loved it, and the Punisher makes a brutal decision at the end.

Things are looking up, after Kidnapped By Cannibals, and the cringe-y Edgar Wallace story in this book. But I got to some of the ‘Pulp Poetry’ as I’m calling it - and I feel these poems fit the Weirdly Specific Sub-Genre category for GarbAugust, without it really being a cheat - and the pulp Sports (Boxing) story by Paul W. Gallico, ‘The Yellow Twin’, that was easy to predict and yet still a great read.

Reading for GarbAugust. Maybe 'Trashy enough', not Trashy - but I do not consider it a cheat. Applying it to Prompts: Anything Goes, 1920s (It think this will be my most-represented decade), Trash in Translation. My first time with this author, and I am quite excited about the potential Espionage angles. Or, whatever.

Final GarbAugust Notes:
Anything Goes Week
Decade Covered: 1890s
Bingo Card Prompt Applied: Would Not Read On The Bus
Assessment: Bad Trash, not Good Trash ("This time, it's not ME; it's YOU!")

I'll finish it later today - it'll be a bit of a relief. The opening, in Scotland, was fun, and the general sense of adventure and story-telling is sound...but a book like this has become horrendously hard reading. I spotted it weeks ago at a Used bookstore, and picked it up for the GarbAugust reading event - and it fits that - but I didn't really consider what I was letting myself in for. Better trashy reads await!

You don’t wanna know.

1890s; Would Not Read On The Bus; Anything Goes Week. No cannibals, yet. I was just starting to think the cannibals, against all odds, were going to come to Scotland some damn way - but, I think we’ll be going to sea, soon. So far, this is more like The Fifth Form at St. Dominic’s - with a Quint or Ishmael character handy at the local pub, for good stories. But I think we sail soon…!