12 Days of Bookmas -- Day 11 #bookmas

Play to win free books! Go here for an explanation of the contest and for a list of the many blogs where clues can be found.

Clues for Day 11 (posted noon December 13 and written by Jessica Alvarez):

Q-Name one or both of the magazines Jessica A interned with in college.

My clues: You're never going to get this one, but I'll make a stab at some clues. (1) What marching band members should always be; (2) Merle Haggard's Okies wore the manly kind.

Today's Vintage Ad

10 Self-Published Authors Who Were a Success

10 Self-Published Authors Who Were a Successs

Criminal Genius of the Day

Lost Homework Leads to NY Boy's Burglary Arrest - ABC News: Police say homework with the suspect's name on it was found in the woods behind the auction house.

PaperBack

Kell Holland (Harry Whittington), The Tempted, Beacon, 1964

Paging Philip Marlowe

Top dollar, and then some, for Brasher Doubloon

Hat tip to Art Scott.

Oregon Leads the Way

Marijuana flung from car pelts Oregon trooper

Hat tip to Jeff Segal.

Or Maybe You Did

Ten Movies You Didn’t See in 2011, but Should Have

Today's Western Movie Poster

The Little Professor Reviews The House of Silk

The Little Professor: The House of Silk

The 5 Most Horrifyingly Wasteful Film Shoots

The 5 Most Horrifyingly Wasteful Film Shoots

The 10 Best Movie Portrayals of Historical Characters

The 10 Best Movie Portrayals of Historical Characters

Pink Cadillac

Check out This Cool Cover

Sneak Peak At The New Hammer

Paging Charles Fort

Apples fall from the sky over Coventry - Telegraph: An avalanche of more than 100 apples rained down over a main road in Keresley, Coventry on Monday night.

The street was left littered with apples after they pelted car windscreens and bonnets just after rush-hour.

Tales From Super-Science Fiction edited by Robert Silverberg

Tales From Super-Science Fiction edited by Robert Silverberg: Robert Silverberg has assembled a collection of 14 stories from Super-Science Fiction. S-SF was launched during the sf boom of the mid-1950s. Paying a princely rate of 2 cents a word the magazine attracted fiction by Isaac Asimov, Robert Bloch, Harlan Ellison. James Gunn, Jack Vance, and Donald Westlake, and featured cover art by Frank Kelly Freas and Ed Emshwiller. Running for 18 bi-monthly issues (Dec ‘55 to Oct ‘59), the magazine eventually devolved into a publication capitalizing on the then-current craze of “monster” stories.

Editor Silverberg traces the genesis of Super-Science Fiction from it’s beginnings as an outlet for numerous colonization/expedition stories to its conclusion with such stories as “Creatures of the Green Slime,” “Beasts of Nightmare Horror” and “Vampires from Outer Space.” It’s fun, it’s cheesy, and we’re really looking forward to it!

Link via Ed Gorman.

The Show Must Go On, Again

In-N-Out customers still buy burgers hours after shooting

Hat tip to Art Scott.

Gary, Gary, Gary

Gary Busey withdraws Gingrich endorsement

J.D. Rhoades Interview

Thriller Novelist J.D. Rhoades Discusses His Latest Novel, Gallows Pole, and Why He Left Traditional Publishing to Go Indie

Song of the Day

12 Days of Bookmas -- Day 10 #bookmas

Play to win free books! Go here for an explanation of the contest and for a list of the many blogs where clues can be found.

Clue for Day 10 (Posted December 14, 2011) Lauren

I’ve always loved literary fiction. There’s something exquisite in an author’s ability to inspire new waves of thought in narration. I love being introduced to new worlds I’ve never seen before, new situations of beauty or horror or sorrow that I know, the minute they enter my mind, I’ll never forget as long as I live.

But it takes work, literary fiction. You can’t just relax and passively read through Chopin or Chandler or Vonnegut. For literary fiction to really do its job, you have to pay close attention and really lend your whole self to the text for a while. This can be an astonishing and mind-altering experience, if you let it. However, literary fiction exists on a spectrum, with the low end being upmarket commercial fiction and the high end being (cue earsplitting, hysterical scream) modernist literature.

There is one particular author of modernist literature whose work I simply can’t get through. Ever since I ignorantly took a college intensive on this author in my senior year of college, thereby allowing him or her to effectively hijack my life, I have disliked the work of this very highly-acclaimed author of modernist literature. I will be haunted by it as long as I work in publishing, since modern authors quote him or her all the time.

Who is this author?

My clue: Guillermo del Toro

The Show Must Go On

Holiday shoppers' horror as 'man stabs his wife to death' in a Walmart on Saturday afternoon - and store stays OPEN

Today's Vintage Ad

10 Most Ridiculous Fad Dances of All Time

10 Most Ridiculous Fad Dances of All Time

74 Great Films To Watch On YouTube

74 Great Films To Watch On YouTube

PaperBack

Harry Whittington, Slay Ride for a Lady, Handi-Books, 1950

No Comment Department

Orange UK: Six green plastic sheep on a West Sussex roundabout have been put behind bright yellow safety barriers to stop drivers thinking they are real.

Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.

The 20 Most Controversial Rules in the Grammar World

The 20 Most Controversial Rules in the Grammar World

Today's Western Movie Poster

4 Signs of Adulthood for Reluctant Grown Ups

4 Signs of Adulthood for Reluctant Grown Ups

10 Bizarre Movie Toy Tie-Ins

10 Bizarre Movie Toy Tie-Ins

Texas Lands One in the Top 10

The hottest-looking cities in the US: Travel Leisure magazine wanted to know where the hottest people in America live -- and why not? It's a valid query. The magazine's survey found that, while New York claims the most stylish population and Washington, D.C. the most intelligent, the 10 hottest cities are . . . at the link.

Natural Masters Of Disguise

Natural Masters Of Disguise

Incredible Pencil Drawings of Pop Culture Celebrities

Incredible Pencil Drawings of Pop Culture Celebrities

The Dead Pool

Send Him Some Duct Tape

MacGyver actor Richard Dean Anderson looks clueless as his car breaks down

Hat tip to Art Scott.

And Keep Off His Lawn!

At 100, the doctor is still in | Cincinnati.com | cincinnati.com: Dr. Fred Goldman still makes house calls.

He must, he explains. That’s where the patients are.

“If they’re sick and can’t leave home,” he said, “I go to see them.”

PimPage: An Occasional Feature in Which I Call Interesting Books to Your Attention

Joe Hannibal is back!

Amazon.com: Goshen Hole (The Joe Hannibal books) eBook: Wayne Dundee: Kindle Store: Following the life-altering events of THE DAY AFTER YESTERDAY, Joe Hannibal is back in action! Operating now out of the Lake McConaughy region in west central Nebraska, Joe still carries a PI ticket but doesn't solicit investigative cases like in the old days. This doesn't mean, however, that trouble doesn't still have a way of finding him, even when he doesn't go looking for it

.

As a favor to a new friend from the lakeside community, Joe agrees to do some discreet checking on the pal's ex wife who seems to have gone missing from her digs in nearby Cheyenne, Wyoming. In no time at all, Joe finds himself at odds with a shady local businessman, on the radar of a bloodthirsty Mexican crime boss, and in the crosshairs of a rogue bandito who won't hesitate to take down not only his primary target but also anybody/everybody else who tries to get in his way.

Before he can find the answers he set out after, Joe must endure the fight of his life and in the process learns that the dusty back roads and wide open spaces of the high plains can be every bit as dangerous as the meanest streets from the cities of his past.

Susan Gordon, R. I. P.

Susan Gordon: As a young actress, Susan Gordon had featured roles in six motion pictures, guest-starred in nearly thirty popular television shows, and performed in a live performance of The Miracle on 34th Street which aired on NBC on Thanksgiving Friday in 1959. Her movie credits included: The Five Pennies; Attack of the Puppet People; The Man in the Net; Tormented; The Boy and the Pirates; and Picture Mommy Dead. Her more than two dozen television roles included a diverse group of television productions, including: The Twilight Zone, Gunsmoke, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Donna Reed Show, and My Three Sons. Interestingly, Susan appeared in four separate episodes of My Three Sons but played a different character each time.

Hat tip to Doc Quatermass.

PimPage: An Occasional Feature in Which I Call Interesting Books to Your Attention

Amazon.com: Split Decision (Fight Card) eBook: Jack Tunney, Paul Bishop, Mel Odom, Eric Beetner: Kindle Store: Kansas City, 1954.

Jimmy Wyler is a fighter punching his way straight to the middle. All he wants is to make enough dough to buy his girl, Lola, a ring. And maybe make the gang back at St. Vincent’s orphanage proud.

A slick mobster named Cardone has an offer for Jimmy – money, and lots of it – for a fix. Jimmy takes the fight. The ring is almost on Lola’s finger, until Jimmy collides with Whit – another mobster with another up-and-coming fighter.

Whit has an offer of his own. Same fight, different fix. Now Jimmy is caught between two warring factions of the Kansas City underworld. He can’t make a move without someone getting mad, getting even, or getting dead.

From sweat-soaked fight halls to darkened alleyways, the countdown has begun. With his girl and his manager in the crossfire, everything Jimmy ever learned about fancy footwork and keeping his defenses up may not be enough …

Fight night is approaching and nobody is going to be saved by the bell.

No Comment Department

An Annotated History of Lindsay Lohan Nudity

Hat tip to Art Scott, who calls this "an absolute gem of web scholarship."

PimPage: An Occasional Feature in Which I Call Interesting Books to Your Attention

And right now it's free if you own a Kindle!

Amazon.com: Judgment (The Jury Series) eBook: Lee Goldberg: Kindle Store: This is AN ALL-NEW EDITION, completely revised and reformatted for 2011...

JUDGMENT is the classic action/adventure novel that was a runaway paperback sensation in the 1980s...and that skyrocked the career of Lee Goldberg, best-selling author of THE WALK, the MR. MONK novels, and THE DEAD MAN...

This is the ultimate JUDGMENT...as it was originally meant to be.

Brett Macklin was a freewheeling son of sunny California, a collector of vintage cars and a connoisseur of beautiful women. But when his father is murdered by a street gang, Macklin becomes something else--a deadly weapon against crime, a relentless vigilante who won't stop until he's wiped out the killers who have turned Los Angeles into a war zone.

The 45 Best Mugshots Of 2011

The 45 Best Mugshots Of 2011

Song of the Day

Yet Another List I'm Not On

Bestselling Books On Amazon 2011

Hat tip to George Kelley.

First It Was the Thin Mints Melee . . .

Marilyn Manson CD Thief Cuts Off Longview Security Guard's Ear with Hatchet

The 25 Most Beautiful College Libraries in the World

The 25 Most Beautiful College Libraries in the World

12 Days of Bookmas -- Day 9 #bookmas

Play to win free books! Go here for an explanation of the contest and for a list of the many blogs where clues can be found.

Clue for Day 9 (posted noon December 13 and written by Kim Lionetti): What three authors has Kim chosen to read more than once?

My clues: A lunar blossom, an unmarried woman, and a shaky guy.

Or Maybe Not

10 “Saturday Night Live” Cast Members You Forgot

A Short Joe R. Lansdale Interview

Author Spotlight: Joe R. Lansdale by Jennifer Konieczny | Fantasy Magazine

Today's Vintage Ad

Secret agenda: 20 classic spy movies

Secret agenda: 20 classic spy movies

Once Again, Texas Leads the Way

Police Say Aspiring Crime Writer Wanted Estranged Hubby Whacked

Your Move, Cap'n Bob

Smithsonian Magazine: Through the open door to my right are over 85,000 figures, with 12 times that amount stored away in boxes in buildings behind the museum. Noguera tells me that in 1941, his father received a set of toy Spanish soldiers from his father for his second birthday. That was the beginning of a vast private collection.

PaperBack

Harry Whittington, Guerrilla Girls, Pyramid, 1961

Well, Duh

Hurricane predictors admit they can’t predict hurricanes: Two top U.S. hurricane forecasters, revered like rock stars in Deep South hurricane country, are quitting the practice because it doesn’t work.

William Gray and Phil Klotzbach say a look back shows their past 20 years of forecasts had no value.

The two scientists from Colorado State University will still discuss different probabilities as hurricane seasons approach — a much more cautious approach. But the shift signals how far humans are, even with supercomputers, from truly knowing what our weather will do next.

Best News of the Day

Titan Books - The Return of Matt Helm: Titan Books announced today that beginning in 2013, they will reissue the original Matt Helm spy thrillers written by Donald Hamilton, starring the famed counter-agent whose career included 27 novels spanning more than three decades, four films, and a network television series.

The first Matt Helm novel, Death of a Citizen, was released in 1960, just two years after publication of Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale—which hadn’t yet caught on in the United States. Otto Penzler noted, “Whereas Bond was a sophisticate who knew wine, expensive cars, and tuxedos, Helm lived much of the time in the American Southwest, drove a pickup truck, and wore flannel shirts.” The novel introduced a man in his mid-thirties, 6’4” and intelligent, who had been a military assassin eliminating Nazis during World War II.

Once Again, Texas Leads the Way

Fire station burns down while crew is at Christmas party: The 911 call came Saturday night while the firefighters for a small South Texas all-volunteer department were at a Christmas party: Their 60-year-old fire station was ablaze.

By the time the crew arrived and put out the flames, the Linn-San Manuel Fire Department had lost the building, a pumper truck, rescue gear and medical equipment, The Monitor reports.

Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.

Today's Western Movie Poster

Monte Hale

As God Is My Witness, I Thought Goldfish Could Fly

Company apologises for publicity stunt gone wrong

Here's the Plot for Your Next Neo-Noir Novel

The Washington Post: A truck driver claims his prostitute fiancee suffocated as they celebrated their engagement with a meth and bondage sex party. Then he drove from California to Mississippi with the corpse in the cab of his 18-wheeler and set fire to the truck — with himself and the body inside.

10 Most Memorable TV Cameos

10 Most Memorable TV Cameos

AbeBooks: Admirable Anthologies: Jazz, Pulp, Pigs, Teapots & Poetry

AbeBooks: Admirable Anthologies: Jazz, Pulp, Pigs, Teapots & Poetry: You love literature so copies of The Norton Anthology of English Literature by M. H. Abrams (volumes 1 and 2) already have a prime spot on your bookshelf. Norton’s anthologies of short fiction and poetry are probably also up there.

But there is a lot more to anthologies than Norton. This selection dives into the unheralded but vast array of anthologies published over the past 80 years and many are out-of-print. Of course, there are numerous collections of poetry and short stories because both are ideal for anthologies where the reader craves diversity and varying styles of writing throughout the book.

Soon to Be a SyFy Movie!

Killer beast stalks Olympic Park as experts fear alligator or python on the loose

Overlooked Movies -- A Rage in Harlem

A Rage in Harlem is loosely based Chester Himes' For Love of Imabelle. This time instead of a bale of cotton stuffed with cash, the mcguffin's a car with a trunkload of gold, brought to New York by Imabelle, played by Robin Givens as Imabelle, who looks great in red. Coffin Ed and Gravedigger are players, but the heavy lifting is up to Forest Whitaker as the naive shulb Imabelle picks to help her out. His somewhat smarter brother is played by Gregory Hines.

Those who have read Himes' novels (and if you haven't read 'em, go do it) know that they're filled with violence and dark humor. This movie comes as close to capturing their spirit on film as about anything could, I think, which means it's very bloody and also funny, at least to me. I'm afraid this is another one that nobody likes except me. And maybe Fred Blosser, judging from his comment last week.

This is also another movie with a great soundtrack. In fact, right after the movie, which I saw in a mall theater, I walked down to a music store and bought a soundtrack cassette. A few years later, I bought it on CD. It's that good. Just for fun, here's a track listing:

1.	Brown Eyed Handsome Man - Chuck Berry [2:16]
2.	Walking Along - The Solitaires [2:35]
3.	Elevator Operator - Little Richard [2:21]
4.	We Belong Together - Robert & Johnnie [2:45]
5.	Juke - Little Walter [2:42]
6.	Bo Weevil - Fats Domino [2:46]
7.	Adios - Little Jimmy Scott [3:28]
8.	Ain't Got No Home - Clarence Frogman Henry [2:20]
9.	Please Please Please - James Brown [2:45]
10.	Church Bells May Ring - The Willows [2:27]
11.	Heaven is in Your Heart - Darryl Pandy [4:05]
12.	Honest I Do - Jimmy Reed [2:45]
13.	Pledging My Love - Johnnie Ace [2:27]
14.	Sugar Daddy Blues - LaVern Baker [2:57]
15.	Just Because - Lloyd Price [2:47]
16.	Luckiest Girl in the World - Betty Boo [2:07]
17.	Dust My Broom - Elmore James [2:53]
18.	I Asked for Water - Howlin' Wolf [2:51]
19.	I'm in Love Again - Fats Domino [2:01]
20.	Bo Diddley - Bo Diddley [2:29]
21.	Why, Oh Why? - Betty Boo [2:40]
22.	Let the Good Times Roll - Shirley & Lee [2:23]
23.	A Rage in Harlem - Little Jimmy Scott [3:23]
24.	Heaven is in Your Heart (90s version) - Darryl Pandy [3:47]

A Rage In Harlem

Well, That Settles It

Gary Busey Endorses Newt Gingrich

PimPage: An Occasional Feature in Which I Call Interesting Books to Your Attention

If you like vampires and vampire films, you can't go wrong here. This is a an amazing survey of nearly 500 pages on quality paper, with great still and posters, not to mention valuable commentary. Check it out.

Amazon.com: The Vampire Film: From Nosferatu to True Blood Fourth Edition - Updated and Expanded (9780879103958): Alain Silver, James Ursini: Books: This newest edition will track the form's evolution from such 1970s reinventions as Count Yorga Vampire and Blacula, The Hunger and Vampire's Kiss in the Eighties, Interview with the Vampire, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and the Blade series in the Nineties, through 30 Days of Night, I Am Legend, and the Underworld series in the first decade of the 21st century. All these films plus celebrated international examples such as Thirst and Let the Right One In and the hit television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, New Amsterdam, Angel, The Vampire Diaries, and True Blood are covered in this long-awaited, completely revised, expanded, and redesigned fourth edition that follows the vampire figures, both male and female, through the millennium and beyond.

Feral Hogs Update

msnbc.com: Fort Worth Code Enforcement officers say around 30 feral pigs escaped from a north side meat processing plant Sunday morning. The hogs scattered into a nearby neighborhood to escape the butcher’s block.

Song of the Day

12 Days of Bookmas -- Day 8 #bookmas

Play to win free books! Go here for an explanation of the contest and for a list of the many blogs where clues can be found.

Clue for Day 8 (posted noon December 12 and written by Jessica Faust): While traveling to speak at the New Zealand Romance Writers Conference (amazing by the way), I had a lot of time to read. I mean A LOT of time to read. That's 30+ hours of plane time. Luckily for me I was two books behind on one of my all time favorite authors. Who is that author and what two books was I behind on reading?

My clues: The author shares a name with my son. The two book titles reminded me of a kid named James, that is, if he'd pursued some insects in a giant lunar body.

10 Incredibly Bizarre Death Statistics

10 Incredibly Bizarre Death Statistics

Uh-Oh

NYPOST.com: Mike Myers is in talks to turn his series of hit “Austin Powers” spy-spoof flicks into a Broadway musical.

Free e-book!

I don't know why they're giving it away, but this is a huge bargain. I read this one and reviewed it here.

Amazon.com: The Cloud Roads eBook: Martha Wells: Kindle Store

Today's Vintage Ad

PimPage: An Occasional Feature in Which I Call Interesting Books to Your Attention

First, go read this interview with Anthony Neil Smith. Then you'll definitely want to buy his book, which I've just finished and which I highly recommend.

All The Young Warriors eBook: Anthony Neil Smith: When two of the Twin Cities' “Lost Boys” — young Somali men drafted to fight for terrorists back in the homeland — kill a pair of cops on his home turf, detective Ray Bleeker is left devastated. One of the dead cops was his girlfriend.

The investigation grinds to a halt when he discovers that the young murderers have fled to Somalia to fight in the rebel army. He's at his wits' end when the father of one of the boys, an ex-gang leader named Mustafa, comes looking for answers, wanting to clear his son's name and refusing to take no for an answer.

Bleeker and Mustafa form an uneasy alliance, teaming up to help bring the boys back home to stand trial. But little do they know what Somalia has in store for them.

Murder, warfare, piracy, love, betrayal and revenge. ALL THE YOUNG WARRIORS is an epic thriller that will have you white-knuckling your eReader all through the night.

Devastating Explosions

Use your cursor and mouse to pull the hand down on the red button.

Devastating Explosions, at the Touch of a Button

PaperBack

Harry Whittington, Journey into Violence, Pyramid, 1961

Christmas is Coming

Boston.com: Jack Kerouac fans, a seller on Etsy makes--wait for it--a soap to take on the road. Embedded in each made-to-order bar is the above black-and-white photo of the Lowell native and Beat Generation author Kerouac.

The 5 Biggest Cheaters in Game Show History

The 5 Biggest Cheaters in Game Show History

Today's Western Movie Poster

Uh-Oh

Lifetime remaking The Blue Lagoon as a movie appropriate for all basic-cable audiences

Archaeology Update

Oldest Known Mattresses Found

Link via Neatorama.

Classic Burlesque

Classic Burlesque: We Aim to Tease - Photo Gallery - LIFE

Could be NSFW.

Top 10 Unusual Ancient Weapons

Top 10 Unusual Ancient Weapons

Tea for Two

PimPage: An Occasional Feature in Which I Call Interesting Books to Your Attention

This novel's been out of print for 25 years or so, and now Arte Publico Press has brought it out in paperback. Check it out.

Amazon.com: Partners in Crime: A Rafe Buenrostro Mystery (9781558857414): Rolando Hinojosa: Books: It's a cool Monday morning in October 1972, and the Belken County Homicide Squad is dealing with a dead body found in an abandoned car in the middle of a cotton field. Lieutenant Detective Rafe Buenrostro and the four other men making up the squad are accustomed to corpses, even though they live and work in a mostly rural area of South Texas along the Mexican border.

The bloody scene at the Kum Bak Inn is a different story, though, and one that is impossible to get used to: three men--including one of their own--slaughtered so brutally that their faces, arms, legs and even genitalia have been completely severed from their bodies. Two witnesses spared this horrific death are able to provide first-hand descriptions of the killers: three Mexican nationals, armed with machine guns, driving a cream-colored, four-door Oldsmobile.

These clues send Rafe and his colleagues down a twisting path strewn with leads and assumptions, many of which lead to dead ends after patient, plodding examination. But it's a meeting with their Mexican counterpart, Captain Lisandro Gomez Soli­s of the Tamaulipas State Police, which sets them on the trail that will eventually lead them to the killers. The way is littered with suspects and shady characters, including a veteran car thief, unsuspecting drug mules, dirty bank tellers and double-crossing Mexican gangsters.

Foreshadowing the horrifying violence plaguing Mexico and the border area, Rolando Hinojosa's first mystery novel featuring characters from his acclaimed Klail City Death Trip series about life along the Texas-Mexico border was originally published in 1985 and has been out of print for many years. Partners in Crime is a procedural whodunit that will satisfy the most hardened mystery book aficionado.

Song of the Day

Today's Vintage Ad

Gift Ideas For 10 Major Species Of Science Fiction Fan

Gift Ideas For 10 Major Species Of Science Fiction Fan

First It Was the Thin Mints Melee . . .

Man hit with chicken during fight over busy schedule

PaperBack

Harry Whittington, Strangers on Friday, Zenith, 1959

5 Things That Make You Happier Than They Probably Should

5 Things That Make You Happier Than They Probably Should

Headline Test

Real or Onion?

Obscure and Underrated Disney Films

Obscure and Underrated Disney Films

Today's Western Movie Poster

6 'Based on a True Story' Movies with Unpleasant Epilogues

6 'Based on a True Story' Movies with Unpleasant Epilogues

Top 10 Soap Operas of All Time

Top 10 Soap Operas of All Time

30 Freakiest Ads of 2011

30 Freakiest Ads of 2011

Calamity Jane