Thursday, January 27, 2022

Cat Thursday - Snark


Welcome to the weekly meme that celebrates the wonders and sometime hilarity of cats! Join us by posting a favorite lolcat pic you may have come across, famous cat art or even share with us pics of your own beloved cat(s). It's all for the love of cats! Share the link to your post with your comment below.






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Monday, January 24, 2022

Yearly Remembrance - Heath Ledger


Gah! I'm two days late this year! Sorry, Heath. 

April 4, 1979 - January 22, 2008
Gone too soon 



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Thursday, January 20, 2022

Cat Thursday - Talent


Welcome to the weekly meme that celebrates the wonders and sometime hilarity of cats! Join us by posting a favorite lolcat pic you may have come across, famous cat art or even share with us pics of your own beloved cat(s). It's all for the love of cats! Share the link to your post with your comment below.








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Tuesday, January 18, 2022

2022...A new year of reading and reading challenges


No fancy frills this year, or best-of lists. I'm ready for bare bones, no nonsense. 

Two things I want to focus on this year...read more, write more.


My first book of the year (an annual event hosted by Sheila at Book Journey). It's a good one so far. Vampires in a Mexico City of the not so distant future, several different vampire species. Silvia Moreno-Garcia is becoming a favorite for me. I read Mexican Gothic last year and man, it was a good one. She is so talented!

It's reading challenge time again! I'm signing up for a few, and I'm participating in all the challenges I host (including a revamped Read Your (Book) Shelf Challenge). 

Challenges listed below:
Book Challenge by Erin 16.0
2022 TBR Pile Challenge
Read with Fey: Reading Challenge for Writers
I Read Horror Year-Round
1000 Books Project: Fantasy 2022
2022 Book to Movie (and TV) Challenge
2022 Read Your (Book) Shelf Challenge

First up...the twice a year challenge - Book Challenge by Erin 16.0


Freebie – Read a book that is at least 200 pages
In the House in the Dark of the Woods, Laird Hunt

Read a book that’s first word of the title starts with the letter C (the articles A, An, or The are allowed)  Certain Dark Things, Silvia Moreno-Garcia

• Read a book published in 2020 or 2021; these two years have been tough on many of us, but let’s celebrate books that were introduced to us these years
The Year of the Witching, Alexis Henderson

• Read a book with the word one of the following words in the title: you, your, you’re, you’ll, you’ve, yourself  Thank You for the Flowers, Scott Nicholson

• Read a book set on an island  Ten, Gretchen McNeil

• Read a book from an indigenous or First Nations author
The Only Good Indians, Stephen Graham Jones

• Read a memoir, biography, or autobiography  Poe: A Life Cut Short, Peter Ackroyd

Read a book with one of these words in the title: Ace, King, Queen, Jack, or Joker; plural or possessive is okay (i.e. Aces or Ace’s) but variant of the word is not (i.e. can’t be kingdom or hijack); also, the word must be in the title of the book, not the author’s name (i.e. can’t be Jack Kerouac or Stephen King)  Queen Victoria and the Men who Loved Her, Robert Stephen Parry

• Read a book of poetry or a book written in verse.
The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth, Robert Graves

• Read a book by Jane Austen, inspired by Jane Austen or a Jane Austen re-telling
Longbourn, Jo Baker

This is a private Facebook group. You can check it out and join here. Next challenge starts July 1st.


Read 10 books (2 alternates allowed) which have been on your shelves for at least one year. 
  1. The Vampire Armand, Anne Rice
  2. Merrick, Anne Rice
  3. Blood and Gold, Anne Rice
  4. A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf
  5. Temples, Tombs & Hieroglyphs: A Popular History of Ancient Egypt, Barbara Mertz
  6. The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson
  7. Red Queen, Victoria Avelard
  8. Fevre Dream, George R.R. Martin
  9. Other Fires, Lenore H. Gay
  10. Once, James Herbert
  11. The Death Pit, Tony Strong
  12. Year of Wonders, Geraldine Brooks
Alternates:
  1. Silas Marner, George Eliot
  2. Murder in the Cathedral, T.S. Eliot
Full details and sign-up here (Deadline: January 31)


Read 10 books for writers by the end of the year (or you can set a lower or higher goal). I'm going to attempt 10, but not sure which ones yet. Probably The Vein of Gold by Julia Cameron will be one of them. I'll have my list on the 2022 Challenge page. Full details and sign-up here. Also, the challenge host has a Books for Writers list here

Now, on to the challenges I'm hosting...


I host this challenge at my sister (horror) blog, Castle Macabre
Here are the prompts and levels. 
I have a couple of ideas on what I'll be reading, but not sure on all of them yet. I'm going for the Chilling level again this year. I did pretty good last year. I think I was only two books shy of reading 12.
  • Book by a BIPOC (female)
    Certain Dark Things, Silvia Moreno-Garcia
  • Book by a BIPOC (male)
    The Only Good Indians, Stephen Graham Jones
  • Folk Horror (Ideas: https://tinyurl.com/yy8jj56a or https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/83087.Folk_Horror_Mystery
  • A Gothic horror classic (published 50 or more years ago, published no later than 1972)
    The House on the Borderland, William Hope Hodgson
  • A modern Gothic tale (published within 50 years ago, published 1973 or later)
    Dracul, Dacre Stoker/J.D. Barker
  • Purple, orange, or green on the cover
    Running with the Demon, Terry Brooks
  • Serial killer from the past - fiction or non-fiction (before 20th century) Examples: Jack the Ripper, H.H. Holmes, Burke and Hare (List of serial killers before 1900)
    The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson
  • Short story collection/Anthology
  • Slasher
  • Vampires
  • Werewolves
  • Witches
Levels:
Spooky: Read 6 books from 6 categories
Chilling: Read 12 Books from all 12 categories
Frightful: Read 2 books from each category for a total of 24 books
Horrifying: Read 3 books from each category for a total of 36 books

Full details and sign-up here

The next three challenges are hosted by me on Gather Together and Read, my reading community site.


January - June 
The Once and Future King, T.H. White

July - December 
The Gormenghast Trilogy: Titus Groan/Gormenghast/Titus Alone, Mervyn Peake




I'm going to keep it conservative and go with level...
The Enthusiast - Read 1 - 3 books (2022 releases only)
Also, additional levels...
Not Ready to Let Go: read at least one (1) book made into a movie or series in 2021
Living in the Past: read at least one (1) book made into a movie in previous years
The Movie Was Better (What?!): watch the movie(s) for the book(s) you read.

Potential books:
The Black Phone, Joe Hill-from 20th Century Ghosts (June 24)
Death on the Nile, Agatha Christie (Feb 22)
The Nightingale, Kristin Hannah (Dec 23)
Blonde, Joyce Carol Oates (2022)
House of the Dragon/Fire and Blood, George R. R. Martin (2022)
Kindred, Octavia E. Butler (2022 or 2023 estimated)
Red Queen, Victoria Aveyard (2022 potentially)
The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton (2021)
The Last Duel, Eric Jager (2021)
The Woman in the Window, A. J. Finn (2021)
The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan (2021)
All Things Cease to Appear, Elizabeth Brundage (2021)
Ten, Gretchen McNeil (2017)

Pretty sure I will watch the movies/shows that go along with these. 



12 books in a year, choosing randomly from your own bookshelves...whether you have one, or 21 (like me!). 


That's it! What challenges are you doing this year? Whatever they are, I wish you luck!

 

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Thursday, January 13, 2022

Cat Thursday - Random



Welcome to the weekly meme that celebrates the wonders and sometime hilarity of cats! Join us by posting a favorite lolcat pic you may have come across, famous cat art or even share with us pics of your own beloved cat(s). It's all for the love of cats! Share the link to your post with your comment below.


No authors and cats this month. I'm already late posting, and I was having major difficulties finding an author with cats that I haven't already used. Hopefully, I can find something next month.

Sorry for the late post!









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Monday, January 10, 2022

Yearly Remembrance - David Bowie


David Bowie - 8 January 1947 – 10 January 2016

Rest well, Starman.



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Thursday, January 6, 2022

Cat Thursday - I do what I want


Welcome to the weekly meme that celebrates the wonders and sometime hilarity of cats! Join us by posting a favorite lolcat pic you may have come across, famous cat art or even share with us pics of your own beloved cat(s). It's all for the love of cats! Share the link to your post with your comment below.






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