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Here's to my birthday twin! I loved her so much I named myself after her! 🥳

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I just finished How To Ru(i)n A Record Label, Larry Livermore’s first-hand account of the rise and fall of legendary East Bay punk label Lookout Records, which he cofounded and, among many other bands, gave the world Green Day.

I’m not a massive nonfiction fan, but Livermore’s voice and brutally honest accounts of major and minor events made this a great read, not just for fans of pop punk music, but those who like a good story well told.

I was introduced to Lookout Records by my roommate at the start of my freshman year of college when he loaned me Energy by Operation Ivy. I couldn’t stop listening to it. It was my gateway to Green Day, Screeching Weasel, Mr. T Experience, Pansy Division, and so many more awesome bands.

I loved Lookout’s releases so much, it became one of two labels from which I would buy a new release even of I didn’t know the band. The other was 4AD, home of the Pixies.

And my love of the East Bay pop punk sound led to me see Green Day play a small club in Richmond, VA about a year before they signed with a major label. The second time I saw Green Day was last year at SoFi Stadium in L.A. Quite the change.

(It’s also worth mentioning Richmond, VA’s own Avail became one of the few non-East Bay bands on Lookout.)

Anyway, if you’re a music fan, an old punk, or just like a good memoir about a historic moment in music created by a handful of outcasts and misfits, check out the book.

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What if this year was the year I finish reading The Neverending Story?

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Picked up a neat little pocket sized edition of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes this weekend and got around to starting it this afternoon, but a few pages into it, we've hit a serious problem.

There's a misprint.

According to this edition, Holmes's landlady is named Mrs Turner.

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Library Friday (On Saturday)

No new books this week, so here's my plan for the weekend:

Almost finished with Miracle and, as happens with every book about words I've ever read, it's putting me in the mood to write. Pre-Code should be exciting in another direction, and I'm anticipating adding a lot to my watch list.

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Just mentioning again...

...that all the prices on our Ebooks Direct ebook bundles are still holding at Black Friday levels (pretty much 50% off, and in some cases more...), because frankly I think everybody can use a little bit of a break around now.

I invite you to pause the doomscrolling (assuming that's what's been going on), take a few deep breaths, and visit another universe. Or two.

The complete* Young Wizards bundle is here:

Or maybe you want just the feline wizards? Their bundle's here.

And the LGBTQ-centered Middle Kingdoms bundle is here:

And if you're feeling like going utterly ham, here's the Whole Store bundle. At a truly silly price. (Possibly we need our heads felt, but that's an internal issue.**)

As usual: all these bundles are DRM-free and come with our lifetime free replacement guarantee. (Because as non-billionaires, we somehow don't feel any urgent need to make you pay for lost or mislaid ebooks twice). Lose a loaded device, have a drive crash, or suffer some other local difficulty that results in ebook loss? Mail us with your order number and we'll send you new download links.

That's it! That's the post. Support your local non-AI-using authors!

And thanks, everybody. :)

(I keep forgetting to add this, probably because i hate it: UK friends, please note that we can't sell directly to you any more, because of Brexit. Dammit. But still: sorry.) :/

*Except for Games Wizards Play, which we can't offer due to not holding rights for it.

**As one of us used to be a professional head-feeler, so we can handle such requirements in-house.

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Library Friday (On Saturday)

Decided this might be a fun thing to do on my weekly trips, then didn't get around to it yesterday. It's fine, though, I think this ☝️ sounds more fun.

Behold! Yesterday's haul!

I read The Cruel Prince on Libby last year, then got halfway through the next book before I realized I was too distracted trying to read it on my phone and I'd probably finish it faster with a physical copy. I can't wait!

I Was A Teenage Slasher is going to be my fourth from Stephen Graham Jones, and I've heard the end of this one is a bit devastating. Needless to say, I'm REALLY excited for that.

Also, in honor of the season, my library is doing "Blind Date With A Book" and I couldn't resist.

I'm not even going to unwrap this until I'm ready to read it. This sounds a little outside of what I usually pick, but it feels more in the spirit of a blind date. I hope it goes well!

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January 2025 Wrap-up

This seems to work for what I've watched from month to month and I want to avoid last year's reading list that's way too long and leaves no room for discussion, so here we go!

Interview with the Vampire - Anne Rice

Read this forever ago and felt the need to revisit (can't imagine why). How had I forgotten how much of a drama queen Louis is at times? I'd also forgotten how devastating certain other scenes are, so trying to finish reading this at work before it had to go back to the library was a challenge.

Why Bowie Matters - Will Brooker

I still regret not picking this up when I saw it marked down, but at least I gave the library traffic with it. It's not a biography as much as it is a retrospective of David Bowie's career and an exploration of his influence and legacy. The author spent a year living as Bowie during the different stages of his life, retracing his steps, as he calls it, and leads the discussion on how we all could benefit from Bowie's example to live with a bit more audacity in the name of self-discovery.

The Angel of Indian Lake - Stephen Graham Jones

This completely bypassed all of my expectations and wrecked me in the process. The entire series is a slasher fan's slasher, Jade Daniels is The Ultimate Final Girl, and a whole bunch of other bits of glowing praise. As with the other two books in the series, there were a few bumps in the road (specifically, a few plot details that either came out of nowhere or didn't go anywhere and a few action scenes that were hard to follow) but that only accounts for about 10% of my feelings. Which were enormous. I spent the last 150 pages sobbing and tearing my hair out, and I can't remember the last time I was scared to find out what happens next. I needed my own copy yesterday. Nobody better ask me what I want for Christmas this year.

Fight Club - Chuck Palahnuik

As of typing this, I just finished this book about an hour ago, and I read it all in a blur. It'll take another read or two for me to really form an opinion on it, I think, but that's fine. The writing is engaging and even if you know what the big twist is (and it's pretty hard not to), it's still frenetic and cracked out enough to be interesting. Also possibly the angriest book I've ever read.

And that's that. Meet you back here next month!

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the cruel choice between pdf (free) vs physical copy (annotatable)

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This is important. Fuck Amazon books, Apple books. Shop local.

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Do you have the Libby library app?

If not, download it to your phone, and under "Add library card" select the button to search for a library and start typing in "queer"...

Sign up with an email, no actual address required, and you are good to go 🏳️‍🌈

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Stephen Graham Jones could write Beverly Marsh but Stephen King WISHES he could write Jade Daniels

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What I Read In 2024

First of all, I highly recommend getting a library card, as my local branch and Libby are responsible for about 80% of this list. Second, if you want to read more classics, you might give Serial Reader a shot. Their collection is huge. Third, italics will indicate a reread and a heart means it's one of the year's faves and I might talk about it in depth one day. Lastly, it looks like I trended towards haunted houses and Peter Pan retellings this year, and also found a new favorite author...

The Damned Thing - Ambrose Bierce

Carmilla - J. Sheridan Lefanu

The Maker of Gargoyles - Clark Ashton Smith

Frankenstein - Mary Shelley

❤️ Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

Fire - Kristin Cashore

❤️ If We Were Villains - M.L. Rio

The Trouble With Twelfth Grave - Darynda Jones

❤️ Spinning Silver - Naomi Novik

Thornhedge - T. Kingfisher

Blood and Chocolate - Annette Curtis Klause

A Walk In the Woods - Bill Bryson

Nettle and Bone - T. Kingfisher

The Witches of Moonshyne Manor - Bianca Marais

❤️ The September House - Carissa Orlando

We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson

Hell House - Richard Matheson

Longshadow - Olivia Atwater

The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty - Anne Rice

❤️ Camp Damascus - Chuck Tingle

Light Magic For Dark Times - Lisa Marie Basile

The Woman In Black - Susan Hill

A Study in Scarlet Women - Sherry Thomas

The Familiar - Leigh Bardugo

Final Girls - Riley Sager

My Dark Vanessa - Kate Elizabeth Russell

The 1990s Teen Horror Cycle - Alexandra West

❤️ The Child Thief - Brom

Your Shadow Half Remains - Sunny Moraine

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Vol 1 - Naoko Takeuchi

Family Business - Jonathan Sims

❤️ Gerald's Game - Stephen King

The House That Horror Built - Christina Henry

❤️ Wolf Creek Origin - Greg McLean

A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess

❤️ Bury Your Gays - Chuck Tingle

It Came From the Closet - Joe Vallese (editor)

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches - Sangu Mandanna

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Vol 2 - Naoko Takeuchi

❤️ Labyrinth - Jim Henson, A.C.H. Smith

Night Shift - Stephen King

The Accidental Highwayman - Ben Tripp

Fright Favorites - David J. Skal

❤️ My Heart Is A Chainsaw - Stephen Graham Jones

Dead End Girls - Wendy Heard

Doctor Sleep - Stephen King

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Vol 3 - Naoko Takeuchi

Lifeblood - Gena Showalter

The Creeper - A.M. Shine

The Crow - James O'Barr

Harmony House - Nic Sheff

The Talented Mr Ripley - Patricia Highsmith

Hook's Tale - John Leonard Pielmeier

The Cruel Prince - Holly Black

Juniper and Thorn - Ava Reid

The Lost Boys - Craig Shaw Gardner

Dracula - Bram Stoker

❤️ Don't Fear the Reaper - Stephen Graham Jones

Bloody Jack - L.A. Meyer

Scarlet - A.C. Gaughen

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Vol 4 - Naoko Takeuchi

Murder at an Irish Wedding - Carlene O'Connor

❤️ My Best Friend's Exorcism - Grady Hendrix

Wakenhyrst - Michele Paver

In These Hallowed Halls - Marie O'Regan (editor)