Do Some Good: Donate a Book (or Two, or Three)

We need your help! And by we I mean our community service group Kindness Corps, which operates out of the Pride Center of NJ.

We are running a book donation drive in the month of October benefiting the organization LGBT Books to Prisoners, which is a “trans-affirming, racial justice-focused, prison abolitionist project sending books to incarcerated LGBTQ-identified people across the United States.”

They are currently looking for softcover books that are new — or like new — in the following categories (listed after the jump).

Buy Our Book! Buy Our Book! “Unknowing: An Anthology From Beyond the Veil”

Unknowing: An Anthology From Beyond the Veil [edited] by Jeff Kowalski and Bill Riggio
Genre: Fiction, horror, anthology, short stories, suspense, dread, the unknown

Summary (taken from the original Kickstarter page):

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown” – H.P. Lovecraft

Our goal with this anthology is to publish some underground and unpublished authors, while exploring a genre near and dear to us: Horror.

Remember back in April when I shamelessly begged for support for a horror anthology that me and other Cassie (Cassie-wa) had contributed stories to? (If not, here’s a reminder complete with Nic Cage GIF for some reason.)

Anyway, long story short, the project was funded and we ended up raising $1,232 of our $600 goal! Which means success.

And now you can buy our book with stories from us and a bunch of other talented people in paperback, PDF and Kindle form! HUZZAH! The only thing better than getting the book made is getting people to actually buy it.

It will make a great Christmas/Festivus/Chanukah/Robanukah gift for those you love or merely tolerate.

In other words…

BUY OUR BOOK! BUY OUR BOOK! BUY OUR BOOK!

We have an ISBN number and everything. No, really.

Cassie-la’s Nerdy and Literary Frolic in London, England

Kelly was lucky enough to spend two glorious weeks in London for her graduate work in the summer of 2012 and had plenty of literary adventures that only a library student could have. So when I went back to London for a second time I knew I had to make with the literary loving. Especially since my first visit there exactly ten years ago at the ripe old age of 16 I was more concerned with finding all the locations where the people I had been reading about in the historical fiction novels I was obsessing over had lived and died.

Although to be fair, this trip I did a little bit of historical death rubbernecking too. It is London after all.

In addition to taking in some more sites- having gotten all the super duper touristy stuff out of the way on the first go around- I was able to do some smaller stuff. I was also determined to fill my gut with glorious glorious Indian food and drink all the cider.

Even better, thanks to some frequent flyer miles from my mother who I was visiting, I got to fly the entire way Business Class which entailed drinking free food and alcohol in the Business Lounge and being waited on by my awesome flight attendants: Danish Jorah Mormont and the old man from Up.

So without further ado, here are the equally nerdy and literary highlights from my trip.

Shameless Self-Promotion Time! Help Fund “Unknowing: An Anthology From Beyond the Veil”

Unknowing: An Anthology From Beyond the Veil [edited] by Jeff Kowalski
Genre: Fiction, horror, anthology, short stories, suspense, dread, the unknown

Summary (taken from the Kickstarter page):

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown” – H.P. Lovecraft

Our goal with this anthology is to publish some underground and unpublished authors, while exploring a genre near and dear to us: Horror. We’d love your help in this endeavor! In exchange for your pledge, we’ll send along an e-book (PDF, ePub, and perhaps other formats) collection of the stories once it’s complete.

Dear ladies, gentleman and tentacles, I thought I’d do something a wee bit different this week and talk a little bit about a horror anthology Kickstarter that my fellow Cassie (Cassie-wa) and I are contributing short stories to.

So we all know what I’m really saying is…

IF YOU LOVE THE SITE AND YOU LOVE US, OR YOU JUST LOVE HORROR SHORT STORIES YOU SHOULD SERIOUSLY DONATE TO OUR KICKSTARTER SO WE CAN GET SOMETHING IN PRINT THAT WASN’T PUBLISHED AT THE AGE OF TEN IN ONE OF THOSE TERRIBLE POETRY BOOKS. WE’LL LOVE YOU FOREVER.

Did that read as desperate? Nah, I played it cool.

Winter Is Already Over, You Know Nothing, Jon Snow: Getting Ready for “Game of Thrones” Battle Lemon Cake Style

Last year for the premiere of “Game of Thrones” season two, I embarked on a seemingly never-ending quest to find the best lemon cake recipe inspired by the Song of Ice and Fire series. This resulted in countless trips to the grocery stores to buy lemons and bags of flour, hours of trial and error and a whole lot of oven related burns. Although none that burned like having a pot of molten gold poured on my scale-less skin.

Thankfully, for season three (WHICH COMES OUT ON SUNDAY, OMG IT’S ALMOST HERE!!!) I know exactly which lemon cake to make, so I don’t have to waste my time. Bonus: Ommegang brewery has graciously provided Iron Throne Ale to drink while watching everyone you love die.

In anticipation of the season which will contain a whole lot of weddings and funerals- as in more than any Hugh Grant movie- I decided to share my lemon cake journey in a culinary adventure I like to call: Battle Lemon Cake.

This was originally posted during season two, throughout 2012, over on my personal blog (which gets very little use): Fli Brish. It has been touched up/edited accordingly to reflect all the shenanigans in season two and I have included appropriate yelling because I still have serious Team Lemon Cake feels.

Kelly’s Last Minute Gift Guide for your Literary-Minded Loved Ones

If you celebrate Christmas, I’m sure the constant barrage of emails, 5 pounds of fliers in your newspapers, and incessant commercials promoting the LOWEST PRICES OF THE SEASON FOR REALSIES THIS TIME have alerted you to the fact that you have NINE days to shop for your loved ones. And perhaps you are like me – procrastinator extraordinaire with no stomach for advertisements hawking soda machines.  (Personal soda machines are like fetch, they’re never going to happen). Also, since you are presumably a fan of books and literary fun times, maybe you want some cool gift ideas for the bibliophiles in your life. You are in luck, my friend.

Below, I’ve compiled a pile of presents any book lover would love to see under his or her Christmas tree. And any applicable discount codes if I could find them. Happy procrastinating, friends!

Kelly’s Literary Adventures in London

Oh hey there. So it’s been a few months since I’ve posted – grad school kicked my butt for 16 weeks straight. After which I went almost immediately to London for a summer class on libraries and archives in the United Kingdom. I spent two glorious weeks in “class,” if one can call attending tours of libraries, museums, and archives (with supplementary lectures and biscuits!) class. Yet the library gods have deemed it credit-worthy, and I am certainly not complaining.

Besides getting credit for drinking cider and visiting awesome libraries, I was of course thrilled to be in England for literary reasons. It’s the land of Shakespeare and Austen, Phillip Pullman and JK Rowling. London permeates the texts I’ve read throughout my life, and even the streets are filled with constant reminders of literature. Metal placards are placed casually on the sides of buildings, proclaiming my favorite authors lived and worked around me. Yeats worked in a house around the corner from my hotel, which is now a shop of some kind. Freaking Yeats! Walking around London was this weird collision of fiction, history, and the present, and I’ve tried to articulate some of my favorite/nerdiest moments below.

I See Brains in Your Future: Cassie-la Tests Out the Zombie Tarot from Stacey Graham

Coming June 5th from one of our favorite book publishing companies Quirk Books is a tarot card set with a fun unique take on all themed tarot card sets before it. With a detailed 96 page instruction booklet from Stacey Graham and gorgeous artwork from Paul Kepple, this 78 card tarot deck is a double threat. Triple if you take into consideration the zombie theme. The Zombie Tarot: An Oracle of the Undead is perfect for getting yourself out of a sticky undead situation.

What makes this deck so unique is how it takes the theme to a whole new level. I have a Vertigo themed deck, and while it is beautifully illustrated by Dave McKean, that’s as far as the theme goes: the illustrations on the cards. The Zombie Tarot on the other hand is both illustrated with a zombie theme and then takes that theme to another level. This set was created to guide those during the zombie apocalypse out of certain situations. Inside the fully illustrated instruction booklet is detailed how the undead started to rise- after a toxic spill- and explains how the cards should be used, to get yourself out of a sticky situation. Stuck in a location with limited supplies? Not sure where to hide or what provisions to stock up on? The Zombie Tarot can help make informed decisions for your future.

For a quick look at why you should buy the Zombie Tarot, please read my Product Spotlight on the geek-centric website CulturSHOCK. For an in-depth look at the un-boxing and specific tarot card spreads, keep reading. Or you can do both. ::puppy dog eyes::

May the Odds Be Ever in Your Favor: Cassie-la Discusses Her “Hunger Games” Preparations

It’s finally here! After much internet excitement, a butt load of merchandise and more than enough internal squeeing, it is finally the official release day of The Hunger Games!!! An unlimited number of exclamation points could not explain my excitement. Hopefully I won’t be regretting all of this after tonight and walk out of the theatre grumbling that “the book was better”, but let’s be honest, that’s a distinct possibility. Especially if they pull a Watchmen and change the ending to appeal to the masses. Such is the damage of being a rabid bibliophile.

The plan for tonight is for myself and the other Bibliomantics along with some close friends and my sister to see a 6:30 screening of the film, and sometime next week review it in lieu of a typical Bibliomantic Book Club book, so be on the lookout for that soon. Or soonish, depending on when we all have time to write stuff up.

My first step in preparing for the film was to re-read the novel. I initially bought and read it at Infinitus 2010, which was pretty dangerous because all I wanted to do was keep reading and we had Harry Potter things to do! Thankfully I was able to slip some reading in poolside, before bed, and on planes. I was a little scared to re-read the novel to be honest because I loved it so much the first time and I was afraid that re-immersing myself would somehow tarnish my first impressions. In retrospect this was a ridiculous fear since it was just as good (if not better) the second time around! Again, I devoured the text, reading for hours just to see how Katniss’ story evolved, even though I had already read it less than two years ago. Suffice it to say it broke my heart all over again. That’s a post all in itself.

When Social Media and Literature Meet: Cassie-la Explains Rabbit Hole Day

Today my apartment flooded. It wasn’t your normal type of flooding, but rather like a bubble bath had overflowed into our apartment. It was warm and smelled like cinnamon so besides the waterlogged nature of my library, I didn’t have too many complaints. The pets are another matter, as Boxcar and Jameson do not like water, no matter how warm it is or how much it makes the house smell like Cinnamon Buns.

When I called our 24/7 Emergency Maintenance Hotline I was told it was a widespread problem and they were working to stop the overflow as soon as possible. Which was fine by me since the house was super warm and it didn’t add to my electric bill.

Someone did eventually come fix the problem, although their Wet Dry Vac looked like something out of the “Flinstones” and it eyed me rather suspiciously the whole time. Sorry Wet Dry Vac, in this economy beggar’s can’t be choosers.

Today is Lewis Carroll’s birthday, which also means that it’s time yet again for the internet to celebrate Rabbit Hole Day. Let the fun and confusion commence!