Back in 1993 the world was introduced to the cult world by a fairly psychotic man named David Koresh. (For those of you reading this that were born in the late 80’s just google him.) Civilization as a whole was aware of cult society, but I think this was the turning point for recognition and condemnation.

I’ll admit… that fiery day in Waco rarely crosses my mind (I live 50 miles from there) but every once and a while something sparks that particular train of thought, and off my wild brain goes.

“The Red Church” was (in short form) a look at cult life from the inside.

Whispering Pines is a quaint little mountain town, or at least it is according to tourist.  According to its inhabitants, its a town haunted by it’s past.  Literally.  A dead preacher, an evil cult leader, and a monster with “eyes like kidneys.”  While half of the town is sucked in by Archer (Cult leader and self-proclaimed 2nd son of God) the other half (the sane half) is struggling to do little more than stay alive.  Each night a new “sinner” is turning up dead, and the police have no hard evidence to put the killer away.  What do you do when you think the killer is a ghost? What do you do when the whole town is against you? What do you do when your “GOD” asks you to sacrifice your own child.

“Nicholson” impressed me a few weeks ago with his latest novel “The Skull Ring” but I still remained skeptical of  “The Red Church” for 2 reasons.  1.  I was afraid that the writing would be lacking seeing as how THIS novel was actually an earlier work (you know… the whole growth with time and experience thing) and 2.  After a few chapters I was afraid the book was going to turn into a sermon instead of the monster thriller I expected.  I was…as usual…wrong on both accounts, and I’m actually quite happy to admit to being so.  “Nicholson’s” writing was not only fluid and amazingly imaginative, but for some reason I think it was actually better than in “The Skull Ring.” The narration was multi-perspective which is not only difficult to write but sometimes (not in this case) difficult to read.  The multitude of perspectives combined with the flawless character development made the book an easy read, and to top off the pot, his expected (at least by me) glimpse into a mentally unbalanced mind was perfectly executed.

This was a horror book that spouted details with the best of them.

There was immaculate conception, a mysterious half eaten man in a graveyard, a suicidal priest, creepy ambient laughter, finger filled puke, a wacko mommy, little boys with worms in their mouth, a REALLY smelly offering plate (that actually made me a little queasy), and 1 very epic “Come To God” moment in the front of the church.

This book is (of course) not for everyone, if you are looking for mushy make a direct left and choose a different isle, but if you are a fan of horror…saddle up.  This one is a must read.

Happy reading my fellow followers and remember: always carry an emergency kit in your car… you never know when you are going to end up in the bottom lake and need to bust a window.

For a complete book description click image.

****~ (4/5)

Happy Reading and remember: Reading is contagious…pass it on!

Moo Baa La La La

For complete book details click image

Product Description

1.  I’m not out in this crap trying to lug around 2 small children and

2. I’m glad I don’t live in a mud hut like poor unfortunate Abraham Lincoln.

I have never claimed to be much of a history buff, as a matter of fact, unless it has to do with WWII I could really give a flying crap, but that all changed when I picked up “Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter.”

Forget everything you know about American History, it’s a load of poopie, and just for a second consider the alternatives.

What if  Abraham Lincoln was less “Honest Abe” and more “Buffy-esq Abe?”

What if the 1850’s Typhoid epidemic was really “Vampire fever?”

What if the slave trade was just a really well though out blood smuggling ring?

History just got a whole lot more interesting didn’t it.

I was first introduced to “Seth Grahame-Smith” about a year ago through his controversial adaptation of a classic. “Pride & Prejudice and Zombies” was witty, it was fun, and it was…for a lack of a better term… completely deranged.  Which ever little voice it was inside of his head that told him to spiff up the old and make it new, we all should collectively buy it a drink.  In this particular case (AL-VH) his ability to take such a drab subject and turn it into a page turner was not only impressive, but amazingly enjoyable.

Abraham Lincoln is a man on a mission:  Flush out the existence of vampires and keep it quiet! After the loss of not 1 but 2 loves, his mother and his beloved Anna, his vow becomes his life.  Traveling the river with a list of names (ironically supplied by one of his “vampire friends” Henry) and a coat full of sharpened goodies, Abe starts to cut down the vampire community… 1 head at a time.  Keeping flawless journals and flawed friends (aka Edgar Allen Poe) kept Abe in line… or did it? What really started the Civil War…and who was there to watch it all go down?

Written in the form of a biography the plot can sometime be a bit slow…drug down by unnecessary factual details, however the unprecedented concept is so far in left field it is almost impossible not to enjoy.

Think of it as history 101 with a kick, a jump start to alternative thinking… or better yet, don’t think about it at all…take it for what it is, a fun read about a man we all know, or don’t know…as the case may be.

Happy reading my fellow Hunters and remember: mistaken identities happen… just be happy you’re not the one tromping through the woods half naked with Abe Lincoln on your tail.

For A Complete Book Description Click Image.

***~~ (3/5)

Enjoy!   Misty

BookChatter

I found “The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms” while updating my Shelfari page last month, and was immediately intrigued. A relatively unknown author was stunning the literary world into silence with her “brilliant” (to quote about 10 articles I read on it) creation of not only a new world, but one that was so amazing it had already been named as a top pick for several awards for 2010. With such promises as “War of the God’s” and “the ultimate battle for power” being tossed around like dirty laundry it was almost impossible for me to NOT read it.

One word: WOW

After the first couple of pages, my faith in the ability of another fantasy novel intriguing me so fully was restored, and by chapter 2 I was sucked in.

The Sky world is ruled by 1 family, and to deny them or betray them means certain death, but when a lost heir to the thrown suddenly reappears, plans and conspiracies start to unfold. Who is this rugged warrior girl? When the God’s suddenly take notice of her so does everyone else, what Yeine doesn’t know however, is that she is just a pawn in a really large game of chess. While the clock ticks, Yeine rushes to find answers, but when the answers she seeks so intently turn out to be more horrific than she first imagined can she handle them? Who can she trust? Who can she love? And who is the real leader of humanity?

“NK Jemisin” floored me with her ability to create a world that only a true master of imagination could. Her writing was fluid and the plot, though easily followed, twisted and turned creating surprises and confusion at exactly the right moments. Her ability to capture the thoughts and actions of so many different cultures and personality types was impressive, and the fact that this was her debut novel and a start to a new series, not only shocked me, it impressed me in ways other authors never have.

There was an evil cousin willing to destroy her surroundings for power, a desperate chase at the first moment of darkness, a little boy who loved disappearing walls, a very bitter grandfather, an empire in the sky, a scary moment between 2 gods, a beautiful man who had forgotten how to be gentle, and several fight scenes that brought a whole new meaning to “brotherly love.”

If you love stepping out of yourself and into a world that is fueled by jealousy, love, deception, acceptance, and pure unadulterated hatred then this is a novel you do not want to miss.

If you are a fantasy lover and relish in the details of a God’s inevitable mortal flaws, then this is a book for you.

If you…like to read…this is a book for you.

I cannot wait for book #2!

Happy reading my fellow Mortals and remember: if there is a will there is a way, sometimes it just takes a little self control.

For a complete book description click image

***** (5/5)

Happy reading and remember: Reading is contagious…pass it on.

The Boy Who Wouldn’t Share

Click Image for Complete Details

From School Library Journal

Product Description

Edward has oodles of toys but doesn’t share any of them with his little sister, Claire. She cannot ride his rocking horse, hug his teddy bear, or even think about touching his Slinky.

“They’re mine!”

he says. That is, until one day when Edward finds himself stuck under his enormous pile of toys and can’t move! With a little help from an unlikely ally, he learns that if he can share with others, they’ll share right back with him.

Mike Reiss’s wickedly funny verse and David Catrow’s remarkable gift for comic illustration make this one book you’ll want to share—again and again!

After scrambling to finish my book today…and being unsuccessful, I thought I would let y’all ponder an article I read today. Just 1 more reason to be in love with my Kindle.  Happy Reading!

Battle of e-readers shows Kindle books much cheaper than Nook, Sony

Tom Barlow

Mar 1st 2010 at 3:00PM

After reviewing various e-readers recently in one of our savings experiments, I thought I would compare the cost of a variety of books currently sold by the three dominant forces in the e-book field, Amazon (Kindle), Barnes & Noble (Nook), and the Reader Store, which sells books for the Sony Reader.

For this study, I chose the New York Times selection of the 10 best books of 2009; five fiction, five non-fiction. I avoided current bestsellers, since they are often subject to price wars and loss-leader pricing.

The results of my survey were startling. Since Amazon recently came to an agreement with major publishers, agreeing to sell e-books in Kindle format at a price closer to that of of the printed versions (a sop to the brick and mortar book business), I wasn’t surprised the prices had risen on Amazon above what had been $9.99.

What did surprise me was how many books remained at that low price, and the shocking difference in price between Amazon, the Reader Store and Barnes & Noble. In just these 10 books, books for the Sony Reader were 11.5% more expensive, while the Nook cost 41% more.

I asked Mary Ellen Keating, senior vice president of corporate communications and public affairs for Barnes & Noble, about this price disparity. She replied via e-mail “eBooks are an emerging category and many pricing models are being tested by both publishers and retailers. What’s important is that we are committed to providing our customers with the widest catalog of digital books and eperiodicals, that they can read and take with them on their computers and most (or mobile) devices. We are not focused on any one device, rather we’re about giving consumers choices as to where they want to read their digital content. We are also committed to offering these ebooks and periodicals at a very competitive price.” Take from that what you will.

Is Amazon continuing to sell these books at a loss to build its Kindle business? That would be my guess. In the meantime, those of us who read books on another platform, Blackberry in my case, have a choice between versions of the Nook and Kindle readers. Guess which one I’ll be using.

Happy Reading!

E-Book Hoarding Disorder: A New Digital Disease
By Patti D.

Published today in the NotSoNewYorkTimes

American consumers are facing a new challenge with the emergence of new forms of mental disorders related to the popular new digital book technology, or e-Readers. The American Psychiatric Association has just issued a press release stating that E-Book Hoarding Disorder will be formally recognized as a sub-form of OCD in the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSMVI)

The current President of the APA, John McKindlenook, stated yesterday: “It is only recently that we have come to understand the seriousness of obsessive compulsive hoarding and have recognized that this is a mental illness that is very difficult to treat. Researchers at Amazon University have recently completed studies which confirmed the presence of a specialized form of this disorder specific to owners of e-Reader devices. This disorder has been named E-Book Hoarding Disorder. Little is known yet as to the effectiveness of any current treatments for this serious disorder.”

E Book hoarding can follow one of two patterns. Some users display both patterns. These mixed type cases appear to be particularly difficult to treat. Most users, however, lean more heavily to one of the two subtypes.

The Tangible Evidence E-Book Hoarder collects a variety of physical objects related to e-Readers. Patients with this sub-type may own multiple contemporary e-Reader devices. (Contemporary e-Reader devices are those manufactured during the same period of time, as opposed to devices purchased to replace technologically defunct earlier generations). For example, the patient may own both a Kindle DX and Nook, and be contemplating the purchase of the new iPad. (Opinions differ on whether the purchase of an iPad device qualifies as an e-Reader. Medical professionals should use caution in basing their diagnosis of e-Reader disorder on the contemporary purchase of this device as its use as an actual e-Reader is debatable.) Tangible Evidence Hoarders may also collect a wide variety of “skins,” cases, sleeves, back-up devices, headphones, speakers, specialized book-lights and other similar physical objects which the reader believes will enhance their use of the device.

The second form of this disorder appears to be restricted primarily to the downloading of extensive numbers of e-Books, far in excess of those which the book owner can actually read. This subtype appears to have elements of both Digital Content Hoarding and Bibliomania (neither of which are official DSM diagnoses. See Wikipedia for further information about these disorders.) Official efforts to name this subtype have resulted in some controversy. It is popularly nicknamed “Freebie & Indie e-Book Hoarding” by some psychiatric specialists and Kindle users. Others disagree with this name since many books that are hoarded are neither free nor independently published. Typical users do, however, acquire hundreds, or even thousands of free eBooks from sites such as Project Gutenberg and Google Books. The more severe cases have resorted to downloading a popular free software, Calibre, to allow them to hoard books from an ever widening range of sources and file formats. Many websites, including AddAll Ebooks and Jungle Search, plus a wide variety of blogs assist Freebie & Indie e-Book hoarders in furthering their collections.

The causes of E-Book Hoarding Disorder are not yet understood. It appears that both genetics and environmental determinism probably play a role. Regardless of the cause, the outcome can be quite serious as it can have severe financial recriminations for the E-Book Hoarder, especially when the disease progresses to the downloading of extensive collections of New York Times best sellers which can no longer be sold for 9.99 under the new MacMillan and Apple Agency model.

Research into this mental illness, which does appear to be progressive, is currently being funded by a consortium of companies which are usually at odds with each other. Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, and Jeff Bezos, the founder, president, chief executive officer and chairman of the board of Amazon.com, have agreed to cooperate in funding a search for further information about the causes of this disease. Each of the major publishing houses have agreed to contribute 35% of all author royalties to the search for a cause. Several popular authors have pushed the Authors Guild into agreeing with this arrangement since they are afraid to offend their publishers. (Their primary concern seems to be that they would have to resort to digitally created artwork for the covers of their future novels.)

Amazon Kindle Discussion Board participants are suspicious of this cooperation between normally competitive companies. A participant posting under the moniker, TheWorldsBiggestKindleFan seems to have summed up this suspicion in his short post, “I think it’s pretty suspicious. They say they are looking for the cause. No mention has been made about a treatment though. I think they are looking for a cause so they can exploit it. I think they just want to know how to get us to buy even more books. They want us all to be hoarding e-Books!” User TinFoilHat suggests something similar, but much more eloquently, “I think it’s all a scam. Bezos and Jobs aren’t even human, man. Follow the money trail, man.”

Disclaimer: None of the quotes in this article are real. This is a work of fiction. No disrespect is intended to any person. I have no medical or psychiatric expertise. If you take this as real or serious in any way, then I have a bridge to sell you.

I found this book a few months ago and plopped it into my “to read” list without much hope of it ever being released to Kindle, but a few days ago, when I finished the shortest book on the planet, I decided…hey…why not let someone else pick my book?  So I did.  I called my husband and said “Hey…pick a book!” (sounds pretty simple right?)

Apparently not so much, the man immediately picked 2 books that weren’t even out yet (HELLO!!!) and then finally landed on this…the book I had given up hope on.

“World War Z” was great! It was also unlike any other book I have ever read in my entire life.  It was…in short form, a biography written about a war that never existed.”

Now shush it! I know that you are thinking….Geez… really?? A biography… you are kidding right?  If I wanted to spend time with reality I’d turn on the Discovery Channel. (which I love by the way) but have no fear…this is the most interesting mock-bio you will ever have the pleasure of digesting.

In 1996 the world as we know it was overrun by Zombies, and for the few thousand that survived, the struggle was not without consequence.  Entire families were lost in the battles, your neighbor was suddenly hungry for your eyeballs, and your son’s little league coach suddenly became more of an arrogant ass than he already was.  The years were long and the winters were bitter.  New countries were formed from the rubble of desperation and alliances were formed that were otherwise unimaginable.

Now, while I make the premise sound a lot “funnier” than it actually is, the book was still undeniably intriguing and courageously written.  “Max Brooks” wrote in the form of interviewer/interviewee, trying to get a human perspective and timeline of the war that changed the world.  Each section is a detailed account of a singular persons experiences starting from the original outbreak and taking you to the rebuild of a torn planet.  The plot was clearly defined through each person’s story and while there was an enormous amount of detail in each “sitting” it in no way drug down the flow of the book.

There were stories from a disabled artist/neighborhood watch member, the former US Joint Chief of Staff, a human trafficker, a money hungry pharmaceutical developer, a movie director, a doctor/smuggler, a mother who ripped of a zombies head with her bare hands to save her daughter, a soldier from the epic battle of Yonkers, an asylum patient, a female soldier who was taught not to desert her post the hard way, a girl who followed her daddy north, and a former spy who knew the truth before anyone else did. (just to name a few)

My conclusion? I’m glad that my husband didn’t write it off as quickly as I did… because to miss this read would have been a shame.

Read it if you like zombies, read it if you find the human psyche fascinating…read it if you want a well written book with a whole new twist on an old topic.

Get it, live it, love it…pass it on!

Happy reading my fellow Zombies and remember: you don’t have to be the fastest person alive…just faster than the people around you!

For a complete description click image.

****~ (4/5)

Keeping that in mind… today is Thursday and that means its time for “It’s a Tween Thing”

I always loved Science as a child, lets face it, mixing things together and seeing what happens is just plain fascinating! So…for a new twist on a old subject here is Science with FOOD!

Happy Reading my fellow Kindle-ites and remember: When THIS worlds got you down…Pick up a new one!

p.s. I’ll post the review for “World War Z” tomorrow.

Science Experiments You Can Eat!

For a Complete Description Click Image

Product Description

About the Author

Vicki Cobb is a pro at explaining the cohesive and adhesive properties of water. but she can never seem to remember that plants like water too! She finally had to decorate her home with artificial plants to keep from killing the live ones.

Ever since Science Experiments You Can Eat, Vicki Cobb has been delighting children, parents, and teachers with the fun of making science discoveries. Now, with the new Science Play series, she sets her sights on the youngest children. who are natural scientists and are always experimenting. Vicki Cobb and her husband divide their time between their homes in White Plains, New York. and Manchester, Vermont.