Yoyogod's 2014 Challenge

I somehow managed to read 183 books last year. I wonder if I can break 200 this year. Probably not, but I consider it a worthy goal.

Anyway, I have book 1 finished:

1) Femme by Bill Pronzini

I don't usually read a lot of mysteries, but I enjoyed this one. If I enjoy the other volume in the series that I own I'll have to see about getting the rest of the series.

Welcome back!

Thanks.

2) The Magician's Apprentice by Trudi Canavan

I remember enjoying the series that this is a prequel to, and I enjoyed this too.

3) The Desert Spear by Peter V. Brett

This is yet another book that's a sequel to a book I read years ago. It's been long enough that I was actually a bit confused at first, but this was still good. I'll have to get the next volume in the series soon.

4) True Remarkable Occurrences by John Train

Avery short collection of "true" anecdotes, many of which are in fact urban legends.

5) Generations by Richard Matheson

This is definitely not Matheson's usual fare. It's an autobiographical novel about an imagined family gathering after the funeral of Matheson's father. In it, all the family members sit around talking and generally airing their dirty laundry. In the introduction, Matheson writes that he hoped to see this done as a play, and it is very much written in a play-like format, which makes me think it would be more enjoyable on the stage.

6) The Invasion/The Valley by William Meikle

This was one of those double books with two stories & two front covers. The Invasion was a pretty cool alien invasion horror story. The Valley was a very good lost world-type story about prospectors who accidentally unleash a swarm of giant scorpions. It was a good, fun read.

7) Die You Doughnut Bastards by Cameron Pierce

This was a collection of bizarro short stories and poetry. While it was good, I must say that I enjoy Pierce's longer works better.

8) The Lost Cyclist by David Herlihy

This was the rather interesting tale of the disappearance of Frank Lenz, who vanished (and was presumably murdered) in Turkey while attempting to bicycle around the globe in the late nineteenth century.

9) Captains Outrageous by Joe R. Lansdale

Landale's one of my favorite writers, and I love this series.

10) Kinsmen by Bill Pronzini

This is part of the smae series as book number 1. I think I liked this one better.

Wow, you're off to a great start! The Lost Cyclist looks interesting...

The Lost Cyclist was OK. I didn't think it was quite as interesting as it sounds though.

11) Fossil Lake: An Anthology of the Abberant ed. by Christine Morgan

This book is a bit of an odd one. There is an "author" and "editor" named Nickolaus Pacione who has his own "publishing company" called Lake Fossil Press on Lulu. When not writing virtually unreadable stories, he also likes to harass and threaten people on the Internet (google his name if you want the details on that). Some of his victims (and a few other people )got together to create this anthology to annoy him. It features quite a few really good works of horror, and several stories in which thinly veiled parodies of Mr. Pacione meet with misfortune. I think the best story in the anthology has to be Apartment B” by Stinky Cat, which was very funny.

12) John Dies at the End by David Wong

This was one of the books I got through the most recent SantaThing. It's actually something I've been meaning to get for a while now, so it was a great choice. I really enjoyed it.

13) Chills by Rick Hautala

This would have been one of Hautala's last books. Personally, I found the ending somewhat unsatisfying, but overall it was a good horror novel to read, especially in the middle of a snowstorm.

14) Poltergeist by Colin Wilson

Quite an interesting take on one of my favorite strange phenomena.

15) Mordenheim by Chet Williamson

This is a retelling of Frankenstein set in the world of Ravenloft, which as far as I can tell is a sort of Gothic horror version of Dungeons and Dragons. It's actually a pretty good story.

16) Blood Work by Kim Harrison

I found this in a pile of remaindered books at the grocery store, and picked it up since I like the series and haven't read this one (since it's a graphic novel and I don't read those as often as regular novels). It's a pretty good prequel to the series, but now I feel like I have to get the 2nd graphic novel to complete the story.

17) The Simon Iff Stories & Other Works by Aleister Crowley

I really enjoyed the Simon Iff stories. I didn't care as much for the Golden Twigs stories (which are the "& Other Works" of the title).

18) Code Monkey Save World by Greg Pak

This was a very cool short graphic novel based off of the songs of Jonathan Coulton.

19) Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire The Complete Series, Volume 1 by Michael Terracciano

This is very massive (over 650 pages) collection of a long-running webcomic.Despite being available online for free, I still really want to get volume 2 when it's released.

20) The Picture of Dorian Gray: An Annotated, Uncensored Edition by Oscar Wilde

I picked this up for the One LibraryThing, One Book group read. I wasn't sure how much I'd like it as I sometimes find the style of 19th century literature annoying. I actually enjoyed it, though.

21) Dark Surge by Gina Ranalli

Wow. I really enjoyed this one. It's one of the crepiest horror novels I've read in quite a while.

22) A Dreamer's Tales by Lord Dunsany

I generally like Dunsany's work, but sadly most of the stories in this collection were ones I'd already read in other collections of his work.

23) Machine of Death ed. by Ryan North et al.

This is a very interesting concept. Imagine if you could know exactly how you were going to die. Not when, just how (and with a prediction that is often cryptic). That's what this book is about.

Sounds like an interesting idea to explore. I'll keep an eye out for it!

24) Love in the Time of the Dinosaurs by Kirsten Alene

A bunch of monks (of the Kung Fu variety) are at war with dinosaurs. Then one of the monks falls in love with one of the dinosaurs. A fairly good story.

25) The Haunted House: A True Ghost Story by Walter Hubbell

This is not so much a haunted house story as it is a 19th century poltergeist case. It was one of the cases mentioned in the Colin Wilson book I read last month, and was in fact covered just about as thoroughly there. Apparently I downloaded this one onto my Kindle for free in 2012 and never read it. I cpould have just as easily skipped it.

26) Rat Island by William Stolzenburg

This was a pretty interesting book on the fight to exterminate invasive species on islands.

27) The Last Kind Words by Tom Piccirilli

IU've had a few of Piccirilli's works laying around for a while, and I finally decided to read one. I really enjoyed it.

28) The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski

This is part of a popular Polish fantasy series. It was mostly a collection of short stories with a framing tale as well. It was pretty good with many warped versions of fairy tales.

29) Sparrow Rock by Nate Kenyon

This was a rather enjoyable apocalyptic horror novel about teenagers trying to survive a nuclear holocaust/attack of genetically-engineered insects. It's definitely better than Kenyon's disappointing second (The Reach)& third novels (The Bone Factory), and almost as good as his first (Bloodstone). It's a shame he hasn't written any more horror novels since this one.

30) Harbinger by Philippa Ballantine

This book wasn't a bad conclusion to its series.

31) Stories to Poke Your Eyes Out To by Jonathan Moon

I won this book in a contest last year and finally got around to reading it. It's an enjoyable collection of bizarro and horror short stories.

32) Vanilla Ride by Joe R. Lansdale

This is one of my favorite series. Sadly, this is the last volume that I own, and there's only one more that I don't own (excluding a few high-price limited edition books).

33) Vector Borne by Michael McBride

A nice sci-fi/horror thriller featuring killer mutants and a volcanic eruption.

34) The Stainless Steel Rat Returnsby Harry Harrison

This was overall enjoyable, but definitely not the best book of the series.

35) The Fading Place by Mary SanGiovanni

This was a decent little story about a mother and baby who get kidnapped by a crazy woman.

36) The Grass King's Concubine by Kari Sperring

This was a good, and fairly complex fantasy novel about a wealthy young woman living in a world that's in the middle of its version of the industrial revolution. She, and her husband, go in search of her family's origins and a mysterious magical kinggdom.

37) The Horror...The Horror by Rick Hautala

This was a nice, short autobiography of one of the greta horror writers.

38) Savage Harvest by Carl Hoffman

This was an interesting investigation into the 1961 death of Michael Rockefeller, who may very well have been killed and eaten by headhunters.

39) Read Responsibly by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambuam

I got the rest of the books in this series as part of a Kickstarter campaign last year, but this one is out of print, and I only just gott a used copy.

40) The Undead Pool by Kim Harrison

This wasn't really the best book in the series, but it was till pretty good.

41) Ex-Purgatory by Peter Clines

Wow. This is a really good series. I hope there's a fifth volume someday.

42) Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson

Holy crap that was a big book. Big, but good. I'm looking forward to the next volume, whenever itcomes out.

43) Amazonas by Alan Peter Ryan

This was a fairly cool horror novella.

44) The Last Whisper in the Dark by Tom Piccirilli

This was pretty good, but it felt more like two novellas edited together than a novel.

45) Fortress of the Elder God by Hideyuki Kikuchi

I generally like the Vampire Hunter D series, but this volume, which was essentially D vs (a wimpy version of) Cthulhu, wasn't all that great.

46) Immersion by Lee Thompson

I don't think I've ever read a book that left me wanting to say "Huh?" as badly as this one did.

47) Samurai Vs Robo-Dick by Steve Lowe

A story about a stoner, a samurai, a wendigo, and fascist neighborhood association.

48) Epitaphs edited by Tracy L. Carbone

This is a collection of horror stories by various writers who live in New England. As with many such collections, it was a bit of a mixed bag. There were some stories I loved, some stories I hated, and many that fell somewhere in the middle.

49) The Colorado Kid by Stephen King

This was an interesting mystery with no real resolution.

50) All-Night Terror by Adam Cesare & Matt Serafini

A recently fired employee goes postal, takes over the public access station he worked at, and shows some disturbing horror movies. There were some pretty good stories in here (though I don't think they'd actually work well as horror movies).

51) BLTs Taste So Darn Good by Stephen Pastis

This is a collection of comics one of the better comic strips published today.

52) Alone by Richard E. Byrd

This is an account of the months Byrd spent alone in a small Antarctic base during the winter. At first I thought it was kind of boring, but then it picked up when he nearly died from CO poisoning.

53) This Little Piggy Stayed Home by Stephan Pastis

I got this book (and the BLT one) as part of a dollar sale with the proceeds going to charity. They are funny strips.

54) Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett

The latest Discworld novel seems to have gotten fairly mixed reviews, and I can see why. It's not a bad book, but it just doesn't seem like it's quite up to Pratchet's usual standards.

55) The Lascar's Dagger by Glenda Larke

This was a promising star to a new fantasy series.

56) Sides by Peter Straub

This was a bit boring. It's the collected nonfiction of Peter Straub from the past few decades. Unfortunately, this mostly consists of introductions he wrote to other people's books and criticism of his own books that he wrote under as his alter ego, "Putney Tyson Ridge." Frankly, the onlt essay that was really interesting was a brief biography of Straub's mother.

57) Merlin's Mirror by Andre Norton

This was a reasonably interesting take on Arthurian legend told through the eyes of Merlin and set in a world in which the ancient astronaut theorists are correct. It wasn't really Norton's best work, but it was still an enjoyable read.

58) Old Man Scratch by Rio Youers

This is a decent story about an elderly man with an equally elderly neighbor who is a total scumbag.

59) Sherlock Holmes: Revenant by William Meikle

This is a decent Sherlock Holmes pastiche in which alchemy is used to allow Professor Moriarty to come back from the dead. Despite being narrated by Watson, it doesn't really sound like Watson's voice, but that's not a big problem for me.

60) Holes for Faces by Ramsey Campbell

This is a collection of horror short stories by one of the greats. It's a got a lot of atmospheric horror. I found some of the stories confusing, but it was still very good.

61) Safe Art by Simon Haynes

This was a very funny book. I loved it.

62) Queenmagic, Kingmagic by Ian Watson

This was certainly one of the strangest fantasy novels I've read. It's set in a world governed by the rules of chess. One of the white pawns falls in love with one of the black pawns, and the pair soon travel to worlds based off of snakes and ladders, monopoly, and go. While the concept was interesting, I thought the execution was flawed, and I really didn't care for the ending at all.

63) The Awakened City by Victoria Strauss

I apparently read volume one of this two volume series seven years ago, and enjoyed it. I'm not sure why I waited so long to read this volume, and I'm not sure if it's because I waited so long between volumes, but I didn't care for this one a s much. I don't think it was terrible, but it was fairly mediocre-ish.

64) Dead Man's Song by Jonathan Maberry

I must say that I really enjoyed this one. Now I have to get volume 3 if I can find it at a reasonable price, since it looks like it's out of print and used copies are going for $12+ on Amazon.

65) I'm Not Sam by Jack Ketchum & Lucky McKee

This certainly wasn't what I was expecting. Jack Ketchum tends to write some pretty gruesome and disturbing horror. This isn't gruesome at all and it's not really horror, either. It is disturbing, though, especially the ending. It was very good.

66) The Battle Royale Slam Book ed. by Nick Mamatas & Masumi Washington

This had quite a few interesting essays on the book, manga, and film versions of Battle Royale.

67) John Silence: The Complete Adventures by Algernon Blackwood

A collection of some good occult detective stories.

68) Vampires: The Occult Truth by Konstantinos

Probably the most interesting thing in this was the letters from "real" vampires. It also includes vampiric protection spells, which might come in handy if I'm ever attacked by a psychic vampire.

69) All the Earth Thrown to the Sky by Joe R. Lansdale

This was a really good YA novel by one of my favorite writers.

70) How Much for Just the Planet? by John M. Ford

I'd often heard this mentioned as a very funny Trek book. To be honest, I didn't think it was too funny. It certainly was strange, though.

71) Broken Piano for President by Patrick Wensink

This is a very strange and twisted novel about hamburgers, corporate espionage, drinking, cosmonauts, murder, health food, and really bad music. The main character is a member of a fairy crappy band, but when he drinks he blacks out and becomes a super genius. He somehow designs really tasty burgers and marketing campaigns for two rival fast food chains. It's strange as heck, but was one of the better bizarro novels I've read.

72) Soulstorm by Chet Williamson

This was a very good haunted house novel.

73) Transients and Other Disquieting Stories by Darrell Schweitzer

This was a collection of good horror stories.

74) Night of the Wendigo by William Meikle

This was very enjoyable horror novel about an archeological dig that unleashes a wendigo, a killer storm, and ice zombies on New York City. The only problem I had was with a few Britishisms being used by supposedly American characters ( one character refers to his mum instead of his mom and the word Oriental is routinely used where Americans would say Asian).

75) Devil Red by Joe R. Lansdale

This is the most recent novel in the Hap & Leonard Series. As is usual for this series, it was a great read. I'm just kind of sad that the only thing left in the series is a few shorter pieces (at least until the next one comes out).

76) Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King

This contained some really disturbing short stories.

>70 yoyogod: King's short stories are always more troubling for me than his novels. That guy can be so creepy - ha!

>71 scaifea: I think I'd agree. His short stories are really good.

77) Weak and Wounded by Brian James Freeman

This is another collection of horror short stories. They're good, though a bit on the vague side.

Congrats on blowing past 75!

>73 drneutron: Thanks

78) An Arsène Lupin Omnibus by Maurice Leblanc

Arsène Lupin is a really great character, and I really enjoyed this book with one exception. The first volume in the omnibus, Arsène Lupin versus Holmlock Shears, didn't appeal to me at all. I suspect that's because instead of having Lupin as the main character, the book focused on Holmlock Shears, who is a fairly two-dimensional Sherlock Holmes parody. I will have to try and get the rest of the series at some point.

79) William Shakespeare's The Empire Striketh Back by Ian Doescher

You know, I'd really like to see this done as an actual play.

80) Voodoo Tales: The Complete Ghost Stories of Henry S. Whitehead by Henry S. Whitehead

This has some really great early 20th century horror stories.

81) True Ghost Stories of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania by Dororthy Burtz Fiedel

This is a fairly mediocre collection of true ghost stories. About the best thing I can say about it is that they are local to me. In fact one is very local (it takes place on my street).

82) Bad Moon Rising by Jonathan Maberry

There, now I've finished the Pine Deep Trilogy. I definitely enjoyed it, but I think it would have been better if it had been severely pruned and been done as a duology.

83) The Greater Good by Sandy Mitchell

I really love the Ciaphas Cain series.

84) Jack in the Green by Charles de Lint

This is a really cool take on Robin Hood, only set in the American southwest, which seems to be de Lint's current favorite setting for stories.

85) The Last Weekend by Nick Mamatas

This was an enjoyable, literate zombie novel. It's about an alcoholic, wannabe writer who is living in San Francisco when the dead rise. Unlike most zombie novels, there's not much gore and hardly anyone gets eaten. It makes a nice change.

86) The Universal Mirror by Gwen Perkins

This, on the other hand, was one of the most boring fantasy novels I've ever read. There wasn't any real conflict until until about 2/3 through the book when one of the main characters is arrested and the others have to rescue him. There is also a strong undercurrent of gay romance that never seems to go anywhere for some reason. Also, the only reason the villains of the story are defeated is because they're morons. I apparently downloaded the Kindle edition for free 2 years ago, and free is probably about all I'd recommend paying for this.

87) Superman Versus the Ku Klux Klan by Richard Bowers

An interesting history of Superman and the KKK written for children. The story culminates with a 1940s Superman radio show in which Superman actually fights the KKK.

88) Better Than Sex by Hunter S. Thompson

Here we see Thomson's take on the 1992 presidential election. Despite there being much less mention of drugs, you still get the feeling that he was on something throughout.

89) Blue November Storms by Brian James Freeman

This was a really cool, little horror novella about a bunch of friends who go to their cabin in the woods and get into trouble after some blue meteorites crash nearby.

90) The Riddler's Gift by Greg Hamerton

This is another fantasy that I got for free for my Kindle. I definitely enjoyed it more than The Universal Mirror, and I may very well read the second volume in the series as it is available for free as part of the Kindle Lending Library.

91) The Collected Jorkens: Volume 3 by Lord Dunsany

I really wish I could have gotten volumes 1 & 2 before they sold out and were only available at ridiculously exorbitant prices (currently $482 for 1 and $175 for 2). These are really great stories and I want to read the rest of them.

92) The Beardless Warriors by Richard Matheson

This isn't my usual sort of thing. I mostly got it because Tor released a bunch of Matheson's books in really inexpensive editions a few few years ago. I don't usually read World War II novels, but Matheson is a good writer and I enjoyed it.

93) Red Green's Duct Tape Is Not Enough by Steve Smith

This book was fairly funny, but I think it is more for men who are way over the hill than those of us who are only almost over the hill.

94) Thank You for the Flowers by Scott Nicholson

I won this in a contest a couple of years ago and somehow never got around to reading it. It's a pretty good collection of horror (and a couple of fantasy) short stories.

95) The Return by Bentley Little

This started as one of the creepiest horror novels I've read in a while, but as is so often the case in Little's novels, the ending sucked.

96) Warrior Wolf Women of the Wasteland by Carlton Mellick III

This is certainly one of the stranger books I've read. In a post-apocalyptic world, McDonald's has herded the remainder of humanity into McDonaldland where everyone eats McDonald's food three times a day, works for McDonald's, and worships Ronald McDonald as their god. All of the women have been infected with a parasite that causes them to slowly turn into wolves whenever they have sex. Some of the men are also infected with a parasite, but they just grow extra limbs. It makes for an interesting story if you don't mind violence and perverse sex.

97) The Night of the Ripper by Robert Bloch

This was a fairly interesting fictional take on the Jack the Ripper case.

98) Grimm Fairy Tales Presents: Sleepy Hollow by Dan Wickline

I admit, I mostly picked this up because I wanted a book that would fit into one this month's TIOLI challenges that I didn't have a book for. I was unfamiliar with the Grimm Fairy Tales series, and based on this example, I'm not inclined to become more familiar with it. It basically took the Headless Horseman concept and used it for an exceptionally lame story of murder and supernatural revenge on a college campus.

Which is really weird since the headless horseman isn't a Grimm's fairy tale... :)

99) The Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore

As usual, Moore has written a very funny book. It is a sequel to Fool, and is written in bawdy, vaguely Shakespearean language. The book itself is a bit of a mashup of Othello and The Merchant of Venice with a bit of "The Cask of Amontillado" thrown in. There is also some man on dragon sex, which is nearly as disturbing as it sounds. It's a good read, though nor Moore's best.

100) The Stand: Complete and Uncut by Stephen King

I read the original version of The Stand back when I was a teenager. Overall the uncut version was enjoyable, but with extra pages added to an already overly long book, it seemed to drag in spots.

101) Hild by Nicola Griffith

This wasn't my usual sort of book. I don't normally read much in the way of historical fiction, but I enjoyed it. I did think that the pacing was a bit slow in spots, but that may just be a matter of personal preference.

102) Indian Summer by Rick Hautala

This was a scary novella that's a bit of a prequel to Hautala's novel Little Brothers. To be honest, I think I liked this one better as the concept seemed to work better in the shorter format.

103) Skin Game by Jim Butcher

This is another great entry in the Dresden Files.

104) Chaos by Mary SanGiovanni

I really enjoyed this. It was a really creepy novel. Unfortunately, it had some formatting issues, but nothing bad enough to make it unreadable.

105) Night in the Lonesome October by Richard Laymon

This is a pretty good horror novel about the strange things that happen at night. It seems to have much less sex and gore than I've seen in the other Laymon novels I've read.

Dead Man's Song by Jonathan Maberry

This book was fairly nice.

106) FaceOff edited by David Baldacci

This book certainly had an interesting concept. To raise money for the International Thriller Writers, a group of thriller writers wrote stories in which some of their characters teamed up. I mostly got it for the stories with F. Paul Wilson's Repairman Jack and James Rollins' Grasyon Pierce of Sigma Force. Overall, it was an enjoyable anthology, but I was sadly disappointed by how little Slappy the Ventriloquist Dummy from R. L. Stine's Night of the Living Dummy actually appears in his crossover with Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's Aloysius Pendergast. The only story I didn't like was the one by Jeffery Deaver and John Sandford, which just seemed to drag on a bit. It's definitely a book that's worth reading, and I plan on getting some of the books by the author's I was unfamiliar with.

107) Frankenstorm by Ray Garton

This was kind of like 28 Days Later only set in California during a hurricane. It was pretty good.

Sounds like it's right up my alley!

108) City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett

This wasn't what I was expecting from this book, and I mean that in a good way. It's a fantasy with bit of mystery (and maybe some thriller) thrown in for good measure. I liked it a lot.

109) Fog Heart by Thomas Tessier

I seem to recall that I read this because someone somewhere said this was a really good horror novel. It was certainly good.

110) Monster Nation by David Wellington

Wow, this was a really good zombie novel. I don't know why I let it sit on my to read pile for so long. Now I have to get a copy of volume 3.

111) William Shakespeare's The Jedi Doth Return by Ian Doesher

I think I enjoyed the Shakespearean version more than the actual movie.

112) Biters - The Reborn by Harry Shannon & Brett J. Talley

I finally received my early reviewers book from February. It really wasn't worth the wait. Not that I'm saying it's bad. It's actually pretty decent.

113) The Living and the Dead by Greg F. Gifune

This was a pretty creepy book about Mothman and ghosts.

114) Six Guns Straight from Hell edited by Laura Givens & David B. Riley

There are some people who can write a really good weird western,. Sadly, none of them contributed stories to this book. The only story that I really enjoyed was "Long Night in Little China," which read like Big Trouble in Little China fanfiction. If I hadn't gotten this for free on the Kindle years ago, I'd feel ripped off.

Yikes! Thanks for taking one for the team. Looks like I can cross that one off my list... :)

115) Rogues edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois

This collection I did enjoy. It's got a Song of Ice and Fire story, a Kingkiller Chronicle story, a Hap Collins and Leonard Pine story, a sequel to Neverwhere, a cameo by Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, and plenty of other stories by great authors. After reading it, I'm addind The Tales of Alaric the Minstrel and Sir Hereward and Mr. Fitz. The only story I didn't care for was Paul Cornell's, which I found too confusing.

116) Artful by Peter David

Wow. This was a surprisingly great book. I wouldn't have expected to say that about a book in which the Artful Dodger (from Oliver Twist), Princess Alexandrina Victoria (who would later be Queen Victoria), and a young Abraham Van Helsing (from Dracula) battle against vampiric versions of Fagin and Mr. Fang (both also from Oliver Twist), but I'm saying it. This book was funny and entertaining with plenty of action and even some genuine horror.

117) The Interrogator and Other Criminally Good Fiction edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg

This was a really great collection of crime fiction.

118) Mysteries by Colin Wilson

Not as good as The Occult, but still interesting

119) Seeds of Change by Thomas F. Monteleone

This was Monteleone's first novel, and you can tell. Luckilly he's gotten a lot better in the last 40 years.

120) Grave Wax by Kelli Owen

This was a great little story.

121) Dusk by Tim Lebbon

This is probably the darkest fantasy novel I've read, which isn't surprising as Lebbon is primarily a horror author. It's a good book, and I'll be adding the rest of the series to my list.

122) Encounters with Enoch Coffin by W. H. Pugmire and Jeffrey Thomas

I don't like much modern Lovecraftian horror--largely because too much of what I find is more Derlethian than Lovecraftian--but I really enjoyed this book.

123) The Story of Ain't by David Skinner

This was about the creation of and the controversy surrounding Webster's Third. It's an interesting look at the fighting between linguistic descriptivists and prescriptivists, which is still going on today.

124) Monster Planet by David Wellington

This was mostly good, but I thought the ending was a bit of a letdown.

125) The Circle by Bentley Little

This was a spooky little horror novella made up of three interconnected stories about a witch terrorizing a neighborhood.

126) Brian Boru: Emperor of the Irish by Morgan Llywelyn

Wow, this wasn't very good. I suspect that Llywelyn took her much longer adult novel The Lion of Ireland, and edited it down to about 1/3 its size to turn it into a young adult novel. This leads to far too many instance where we are merely told that things happen instead of being shown things happening. Also, despite being labeled "young adult," the vocabulary seems pretty simplistic, far more so than any of the other YA books I've read.

127) The Black Echo by Michael Connelly

I picked this up since it was about one of the characters from the FaceOff anthology I read last month. I really enjoyed it, and now I'll have to get the rest of the series.

128) Fearful Symmetries edited by Ellen Datlow

While not all of the stories in this collection were my sort of horror, they were all good stories. I really enjoyed it. The only problem I had was getting ripped off by the publisher because I preordered through Kickstarter.

Charging me $25 for a book with a $16.99 cover price (that I could have gotten at significant discount on top of that from Amazon) seems slightly shady to me. Naturally, I was foolish enough to preorder The Year's Best Weird Fiction Volume One through Indiegog, which was put out by the same publisher also for $25, which I now find I could've preordered from Amazon for a little over half that.

128) Weird England by Matt Lake

If I ever visit England, which seems unlikely, I'd want to see as many of these weird places as possible.

129) Addicted to the Dead by Shane McKenzie

Wow, this was not only a really great zombie novel, it was a great horror novel. It completely inverted the genre; instead of being about helpless living people being devoured by zombies, it's about helpless zombies being devoured by the living.

130) Wicked Carlisle by Joseph David Cress

The true crime in Carlisle, Pennsylvania seems much more tame than the crimes the author presented in his other books, Murder & Mayhem in Cumberland County and Murder & Mayhem in York County.

131) Batman: The Black Mirror by Scott Snyder

Amazon had a big sale on ebook versions of select Batman graphic novels to celebrate his 75th birthday yesterday, so I picked up some of them. I randomly chose this one to read first, and I enjoyed it. I haven't actually read any Batman comics before, though I have seen some of the TV shows and movies, so I was at least generally familiar with the characters and the overall concept. This story focuses on Commissioner Gordon's son (who I hadn't heard of), who is a psychopath. It's pretty good.

132) Batman: The Killing Joke by Alan Moore

This was a great Batman story focusing on the Joker.

133) The Vanishing of the Mona Lisa by Martín Caparrós

I picked this up out of a discount bin because it fits with one of this month's TIOLI challenges. I almost didn't read it because it has such bad reviews here and on Amazon. I gave it a shot, though, and while it isn't one of the most entertaining things I've ever read, it isn't terrible. Yes, the story is a bit disjointed and hard to follow, but I suspect that's done for literary effect (or possibly a result of the translation).

134) Batman: Year One by Frank Miller

This one I actually was familiar with, because they made an animated movie out of it. It's a really good story.

135) The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo

I'm very glad I got a review copy of this book. It's a really good book, but it's not the sort of thing I'd usually buy for myself. Despite being essentially a fantasy novel, it seems like the sort of book that's more likely to be found in a general fiction section of a bookstore than the sci-fi/fantasy section, which makes it less likely that I'd have seen it.

136) Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller

A good story, but parts of it are so 1980's they're laughable.

137) Glimpses: The Best Short Stories of Rick Hautala by Rick Hautala

These were in fact some really great short stories.

138) Batman: The Long Halloween by Jeph Loeb

This was good Batman noir story.

139) Batman: Hush

I still have one more Batman story to go, but I think I'm Batmanned out for now. This was a good story.

140) The Dead Man Vol 1 by Lee Goldberg, James Daniels, and William Rabkin

I remember hearing about the concept for this series when it was first announced. A guy comes back from the dead, but he's haunted by an evil being called Mr. Dark, and he has the ability to see people who have been infected by evil. It sounds cool, but it's poorly executed.

This was an omnibus edition of the first three books in the series. The first was good, but cou;d have been better. The second was nonsensical. The third was boring.

141) The Big Blow by Joe R. Lansdale

This wasn't Lansdale's best, but it was a good bit of historical fiction about the boxer Jack Johnson set during the 1900 Galveston, Texas Hurricane.

142) The Last Night of October by Greg Chapman

I found this a bit disappointing. The concept is good, but I found the execution flawed. Every year on Halloween, the ghost of an old man's childhood friend knocks on his door trying to get in. Then, one year a visiting nurse let's it in. The story sounds cool, but the characters were so annoying I was hoping the ghost would kill both of them.

143) The 6th Extinction by James Rollins

This was a great book.

144) The Extraordinary Voyage of Jules Verne by Eric Brown

This is a rather interesting story in which Jules Verne travels through time and helps rescue the future from a dictator.

145) How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes by Will Cuppy

I mostly picked this book up because it has an introduction by P. G. Wodehouse. It's a collection of short, humorous descriptions of various animals. It has some funny bits, but is also a bit dated. The best part is probably the illustrations.

146) To Wake the Dead by Richard Laymon

This was a pretty good mummy horror story. It would have been better (and shorter) without the sadomasochistic sex dungeon, crazy stalker, and teen runaway subplots that didn't add to the main mummy story.

Also the ebook version, which I read, is terribly formatted. It seems as if 47 North scanned in the print edition and didn't bother to remove the unnecessary, extra-wide margins and didn't have anybody proof read it afterwards.

147) Temeraire: In the Service of the King by Naomi Novik

This was a really great omnibus edition of the first three novels in a series of historical fantasies about dragons in the Napoleonic War.

148) After Dark by Manly Wade Wellman

Silver John is definitely one of my all-time favorite characters. In this novel, He battles the Shonokin, who are recurring villains in Wellman's John Thunstone series.

149) Professor Challenger: The Island of Terror by William Meikle

This is a pastiche of Doyle's The Lost World. Shortly after World War I, the British military has gotten ahold of some velociraptor eggs and is training them on an island. Naturally everything ends up going all Jurassic Park.

150) Fool's Assassin by Robin Hobb

Hobb is one of my favorite authors and this is a good book.

151) Satanic Summer by Andersen Prunty

This is a strange tale of bizarro horror. It's set in a small town where a monster is running around killing any men it comes across and having sex with all the women.

152) Time Traders by Andre Norton

This was unexpectedly another omnibus. It was a free download, and I just expected it to contain The Time Traders, but it also contains Galactic Derelict, which is the second volume of the series. It was a pretty good read, but it was somewhat disconcerting to have a story set in what is presumable the future with enemies who are Russian, but not commies. The book was written during the height of the Cold War, so I suppose some Einstein decided it would be a good idea to "update" the story after the collapse of the USSR. They'd have been better off leaving well enough alone.

153) Ariosto by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Wow, I'm surprised to see that this was both a World Fantasy Nominee and is on a list of the 100 best modern fantasy novels, because it's not that good. It's half alternate history and half fantasy. The alternate history is pretty good, but the fantasy pretty much sucked.

153) Deceiver by Kelli Owen

I really like this little horror novella. It's about a man whose wife has been murdered while she was away on a trip. He finds a journal in her luggage that reveals things he really didn't want to know. My only real complaint with the story is that the police seem to be extraordinarily incompetent.

154) Shadowland by Peter Straub

This book was bit slow to get started, but I enjoyed it once it got moving.

155) Quicksand House by Carlton Mellick III

This was a really great book. Once I started reading it I couldn't stop.

It's a bizarro sci-fi/horror novel about two kids who live in a world where children are raised by machines in a nursery until they're claimed by their parents. Unfortunately the parents should have claimed the older of the two years ago, and eventually the machines break down, forcing the children out of the nursery into the crumbling, monster-haunted house beyond.

156) City of Iron by Chet Williamson

This was a fairly decent paranormal thriller type of book about CIA agents tasked with disproving paranormal phenomena. Unfortunately, it has one of those annoying endings where nothing is actually resolved because there are two more books in the series.

157) The Pet by Charlse L. Grant

This was a pretty good 80's horror novel about a teenaged boy whose imaginary horse friend kills anyone who hurts him.

158) Big Bang by Simon Haynes

I love the Hal Spacejock series. It's just laugh out loud funny. i did think that having a race of alien, pig-like warriors be called the B'con was a bit over the top, though.

159) Hoaxes by Curtis D. MacDougall

This book is a bit dated, but is still an interesting collection of hoaxes with information on why and how hoaxes succeed.

160) Homestead by James A. Moore

And I managed to finish this short novella. I don't think it's Moore's best work, but it was an enjoyable little horror story.

161) Batman: Earth One by Geoff Johns

I had one more Batman graphic novel left over from last month, and I decided to read it now since I needed a book with an animal in the title for a TIOLI challenge, and the ER book I was planning on using still hasn't shown up. I think I saved the worst Batman story for last. this one is a rather boring reimagining of Batman's origin.

162) Let the Dead Sleep by Heather Graham

I picked this up because it features characters from the FaceOff anthology I read a few months ago. It wasn't bad, but it does have some problems. The hero inherits her fathers antiques store and is told to read his book and "use the light," but she lacks the brain power to figure out that this means to use the light on the desk next to the book. Once she finally figures it, she learns how to destroy the possessed bust that has been causing trouble throughout the book. That method is to smash the bust. sigh

163) Wearing the Cape by Marion G. Harmon

My brother gave me this as a birthday resent back in April, and I finally got around to reading it. It was pretty good.

164) The Complete Four Just Men by Edgar Wallace

I enjoyed this one. It's a collection of early 20th century novels and short stories about a group of men who kill evil doers that the law can't touch.

165) Halfway House by Weston Ochse

This was a great book. Since it was an ER book, I'll have to try to write a full review tomorrow.

166) Limbus Inc.: Book II ed. by Brett J. Talley

Limbus Inc is an interesting premise, and this book has a great line-up of writers.

167) After the Funeral by Agatha Christie

I've never read any Christie before, and I probably wouldn't have read this if the publisher hadn't sent me a review copy (presumably to help promote the new Poirot novel they're publishing). Now I'll have to dig out the other Christie books that I got at a thrift shop and never got around to reading. And maybe buy some of her other books too.

168) The Witch with No Name by Kim Harrison

Wow, what a great ending to The Hollows series.

169) The Falcon Throne by Karen Miller

I'm a bit torn on this book. On the one hand, I enjoyed it enough that I'll keep an eye out for the rest of the series when it's published. On the other hand, there was way to much political maneuvering and not enough action (or magic). In some ways it almost felt like the author was trying to cash in on the popularity of A Game of Thrones by writing something in a similar vein.

170) Furious Cool: Richard Pryor and the World That Made Him by David and Joe Henry

I picked this up because the Unshelved webcomic did a book club on it, and when I went to add it to my Amazon wishlist, I saw that they were selling new hardcover copies for about $2.50 for no apparent reason. I've never seen any of Richard's standup routines, and I've only seen a few of his movies. I new he was a very talented man, but until I read this, I never new that he was also a deeply troubled man with a long history of drug abuse and spousal abuse.

171) Curly: An Illustrated Biography of the Superstooge by Joan Howard Maurer

Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk

172) They That Dwell in Dark Places by Daniel McGachey

This was one of the best modern collections of ghost stories that I've read.

173) Fear City by F. Paul Wilson

I love Repairman Jack, and this was a great book. Sadly, it is also the last one that is likely to be written about him.

174) Live Pterosaurs in America by Jonathan David Whitcomb

The author manages to make a fairly decent case for the possibility of pterosaurs not being extinct, but he ruins it by having an appendix that is essentially a lengthy creationist rant against evolution.

175) Black Hole Blues by Patrick Wensink

This is a bizarro novel that started off really well, but had the crappiest ending I have ever read.

176) Urn & Willow by Scott Thomas

Another collection of ghost stories. I didn't care for this one as much as the one I finished last week.

177) The Devil You Know by Mike Carey

A book about a freelance exorcist. I'd add volume 2 of the series to my Amazon wishlist, but it seems to have vanished.

178) Haunted Heritage by Michael Norman and Beth Scott

A fairly decent collection of true ghost stories. It would have been better without the lengthy (and boring) chapter on ghost lights.

179) Pennsylvania Dutch Country Ghosts Legends and Lore by Charles J. Adams III

This was one of my favorite books of true ghost stories when I was a teenager. Partially, that's because it's local to mee, and partially, it's because I love the cover, but mostly it's because the author is actually a pretty good writer.

180) Bat Wing by Sax Rohmer

This was an interesting mystery from the 1920's.

181) Black Hat Jack by Joe R. Lansdale

I don't read many westerns, by Lansdale is one of my favorite writers (and there was a half-off sale for preordering this back in March) so I ordered it. It's an interesting story about an African-American cowboy.

182) The Absence Above, A Presence Below: Re-Envisioning Centralia, Pennsylvania by John G. Sabol, Jr.

A short, but fairly interesting look at Centralia, a town that is no more, thanks to an underground coal fire.

183) I, Slutbot by Mykle Hansen

A strange bizarro sci-fi novel (with surprisingly little sex considering the title) about the destruction and re-creation of Earth.

184) Wizard's Hall by Jane Yolen

I'm guessing I picked this up because I'd heard it was some sort of proto-Harry Potter. Even considering that it's written for a much younger aged reader than me, it's not very good.

185) Agatha Heterodyne and the Sleeping City by Phil Phoglio and Kaja Foglio

One of my favorite webcomics, now in hardcopy form.

186) Gathered Dust and Others by W. H. Pugmire

This is a collection of Lovecraftian horror by one of the best writers of that type, though I think it isn't his best.

187) Year's Best Weird Fiction, Volume One edited by Laird Barron

As is usual with these best of the year collections, I thought most of the stories were really great, but there were a few that I didn't like at all.

188) Ten Percent of Nothing by Jim Fisher

This was a nice true crime book about fraudulent literary agent/publisher Dorothy Deering.

189) The Hungry Moon by Ramsey Campbell

This had to be one of the best horror novels I've read in a while.

190) Four and Twenty Blackbirds by Cherie Priest

I didn't find the ending to this book particularly satifying, but it was otherwise very enjoyable.

191) Fear the Reaper: America's Rural Mysteries, Hauntings, & Horrors by Troy Taylor & Rene Kruse

This is a collection of 19th and 20th century true crime stories set in rural America. It's generally interesting, but as with so many small press books, it could have used a much more thorough editing job than it got. I do have one complaint. The dedicate nearly 80 pages to the rather boring case of Margaret Hossack, who isn't even interesting enough to get her own Wikipedia page for me to link to. She's a woman who was convicted (and then unconvicted in a second trial) of murdering her abusive husband with an axe while he slept. It's a case that isn't as gruesome or mysterious as the others, and I can't fathom why the authors devoted so much space to it.

192) World War Cthulhu ed. by Brian M. Sammons and Glynn Owen Barrass

This was a pretty good collection of Lovecraftian war stories. It is a tad repetetative, though with the World Wars, Vietnam, and the American REvolution being over represented as settings (and the Deep Ones, the Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath, and the Mi-go being overrepresented in the monster department). Still, if you like pulpy action horror, then this is a good choice.

193) Beyond the Valley of the Apocalypse Donkeys by Jordan Krall

I'm glad I got this free as part of the Kindle Lending Library, because even after finishing it, I still don't know what the heck it was about. I know it involved a nudist colony, a strange film titled "The Apocalypse Donkey," nude women wearing donkey masks, a green hummingbird, and pancakes, but it just made no sense.

194) The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss

This is a strange sort of novella that provides a great deal of insight into one of the more intriguing characters from The Kingkiller Chronicle

195) Disposal by Jeff Strand

I think I must have gotten this novella as part of a grab bag or something, because I don't usually buy limited edition Jeff Strand books (plus it's a PC copy not the usual numbered limited). It;s a very gory and humerous tale that comes with a whopping 10 introductions by other horror authors.

196) Occultation by Laird Barron

Barron is a good writer, but his stories are generally a bit too ambiguous for my tastes.

197) The Walls of the Castle by Tom Piccirilli

It's an odd thriller novella with a hint of horror, and it's set in a giant hospital known as The Castle. I really liked this one.

198 The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman

This is an amazing book, and as much as I love Neil Gaiman's writing, the best part is Chris Riddell's illustrations. It's a retelling of the "Sleeping Beauty" fairy tale with Snow White cast as the hero. It's very short, coming in at around 69 pages (about half of which are taken up by the illustrations), but it's well worth reading.

199) Children of Chaos by Greg F. Gifune

This is a disturbing horror novel that, according to the afterword, was inspired by Heart of Darkness, only set in Mexico and with the Antichrist.

200) The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

This was a very cool and very peculiar mystery about a book, it author's mysterious life, a mysterious man who wants to burn said book, a viciously corrupt policeman, a young boy, and love.

201) Ouija Gone Wild by Rosemary Ellen Guiley with Rick Fisher

This is an interesting book about the Ouija. IT talks briefly about the history of the talking board and provides some guides to its use, but the bulk of the book is spent recounting stories of its use.

202) Ghost Heart by Weston Ochse and Yvonne Navarro

A YA fantasy about a boy who runs away from hope to try and get his parents back together.

203) Dark Screams: Volume One ed. by Brian James Freeman & Richard Chizmar

I was lucky enough to get a review copy of this forthcoming ebook. It's got some great stories in it.

204) Joyland by Stephen King

This was an interesting crime novel with some supernatural elements.

205) In Search of Blandings by N. T. P. Murphy

This book traced the real-life people and places that served as an inspiration to P. G. Wodehouse. It's pretty interesting stuff for a fan, and I especially liked reading about the exploits of the members of the real Pelican Club.

206) A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane

This is another book that I picked up because of the FaceOff anthology. It was a pretty good story. Now I'll have to add volume 2 to my wishlist.

207) Masques and Wolfsbane by Patricia Briggs

These were OK. It's a collection of Briggs 1st novel and its sequel. They're not her best works, but they're still enjoyable.

208) The Accidental Knight by Christie Golden

Here we have the first fantasy novel based off of the digital TCG Hex: Shards of Fate.It's an entertaining story and provides a decent introduction the the game's setting.

209) Silent Joe by T. Jefferson Parker

Another book I got because of the FaceOff anthology. I really enjoyed this one, and it's a shame it doesn't seem to be part of a series.

210) Dead World Resurrection by Joe McKinney

I got this one through ER, so I'll have to do a full review later, but it was a pretty good book.

211) Moe Howard & The 3 Stooges by Moe Howard

The autobiography of one of my favorite comedians. It's funny and touching.

212) Midnight's Angels by Tony Richards

I didn't realize that this was volume 3 of a series until I started reading it as it wasn't listed as such here or at the store. Even so, I didn't have any trouble following the plot, and I enjoyed it enough to add volume 1 to my wishlist.

213) The Nickronomicon by Nick Mamatas

This is a collection of some very strange Lovecraft-themed stories.

214) Christmas in Pennsylvania by Alfred L. Shoemaker

I picked this up for free on the kindle a few years ago and finally got around to reading it. It's an account of the Christmas traditions of Pennsylvania in the 18th,19th, and early 20th centuries. It's a bit dry, but still interesting.

215) One Night in Sixes by Arianne 'Tex' Thompson

This is a fantasy western that--unlike most other fantasy westerns I've read--is set in a fantasy world. The native americans are all shapeshifting animal people who speak Spanish. Except for the fish people who speak French for some reason. It was interesting, though a bit confusing in parts. I enjoyed it, and will pick up the next volume when it comes out.

216) DarkNet by John R. Little

If this hadn't been an ER book, I probably wouldn't have finished it. It's the sort of book with lots of torture and degradation, which normally leaves me feeling disturbed enough that I stop reading about halfway through. On top of that, I found the plot twists to be entirely too predictable, which led to it simultaneously disturbing and boring me.

On top of that, the book could have done with a better editing job. For instance, why is the call sign for a radio station in Seattle, Washington given as WLRY when everyone knows that west coast station call signs start with a K? I'm also unclear on how the villain got such good hacking skills.

I'd pass on this book.

217) Rasputin: The Untold Story by Joseph T. Fuhrmann

Rasputin was a far more interesting and complex person than I would have guessed.

218) In a Deep, Dark December by Paul Finch

This is a collection of Christmas-themed horror stories. It's pretty good.

219) Headstone City by Tom Piccirilli

This was an interesting mafia laden thriller with fairly strong supernatural overtones. I definitely need to read more of Piccirilli's books.

220) The Gyris Mission by Simon Haynes

While I don't like the Hal Jr. series as much as Haynes' adult Hal Spacejock series, I do enjoy them. Maybe I should get some of these for my nephews.

221) Philadelphia Ghost Stories by Charles J. Adams III

A collection of ghost stories from the city of brotherly love. It's pretty good.

222) Uri: A Journal of the Mystery of Uri Geller by Andrija Puharich

So apparently, in the 70's the author of this book and Uri Geller teamed up to prevent World War II at the behest of extraterrestrials. Or something.

223) Great White House by Christoph Paul and Brody Thomas

The US owes China a lot of money, so in this book China attempts to collect on the debt by flooding Washington using their weather control technology and by getting PETA to attack the White House using a swarm of genetically modified great white sharks. The book uses actual politicians as its characters, which while it accentuates the humor, it also means that the book is destined to become terribly dated within a few years.

One very interesting feature is that despite being a work of political humor, the book takes a fairly neutral stance. Both the Democratic and Republican politicians appearing in the book are presented as caricatures of themselves. I certainly makes for a fairly fun read.

224) Turn Down the Lights edited by Richard Chizmar

This was a collection of short stories put out to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Cemetery Dance Magazine. They're all by masters of the horror genre, and other than the Peter Straub story, they're all pretty good stories.

225) King of the Bastards by Brian Keene and Steven Shrewsbury

This is certainly a departure for Keene. He is best known as a horror writer, but in this book he teams up with Shrewsbury to write a sword and sorcery novel. It makes for a really good story, but I am surprised at how much of a wimp Meeble was, considering he is one of the Thirteen (the big bad guys from Keene's Labyrinth mythos).

226) Thieftaker by D. B. Jackson

I rather enjoyed this historical fantasy/mystery. It's been added to the list of series I want to get the rest of sooner or later.

227) The Mansion by Jonathan M. Smith

This was a self-published, first novel, and it shows. The book is riddled with grammatical errors (just about every time he used the possessive he forgot the apostrophe). The dialogue is extremely unrealistic (real people use contractions a lot more often than the author). The plot was made no sense (I literally said "Huh?" at least five times while reading this). The setting is confused (I couldn't tell when it was taking place as the many anachronisms pointed to various time periods between the 1950's and present day). It took nearly half the book for the characters to even hear about the mansion in the title (probably because there were way too many flashbacks). It's not the worst self-published book I've read, but I really wouldn't recommend it.

228) The Great Iron Ship by James Dugan

A history of the Great Eastern. I believe I picked this up after reading that the ship was popularly believed to be cursed. There were riveters accidentally sealed in the hull during construction (and several other deaths aboard) plus it seems to have been grossly mismanaged, so who knows.

De-lurking to say that I've enjoyed following your reading and your reviews this year, even if I haven't been posting here much. Happy Holidays!

>226 scaifea: Thank you, and happy holidays to you as well.

229) The Crucifixion Experiments and The Blue Heron by Gord Rollo and Gene O'Neill

A rather enjoyable pair of mysteries/thrillers by two horror authors. The Crucifixion Experiments is about a police lieutenant who has to unravel a series of murders by crucifixion, and The Blue Heron is a bout a pair of former Vietnam War soldiers who has to track to the person who is killing off their old platoon.

230) Villains Inc by Marion G. Harmon

The followup to Wearing the Cape. It's an enjoyable superhero story. I'll read volume 3 sooner or later.

231) The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham

This was a bit dated, and I thought it wasn't as good as Day of the Triffids, but it was still fairly enjoyable. I think it's one of those rare books where I might have actually enjoyed the movie version better.

232) Pray You Die Alone by Anderson Prunty

A collection of horror short stories. They were really strange ones, which is to be expected as Prunty is also a bizarro author. It made for a fun, quick read.

One final book for the year:

233) Treasure Hunter by W. C. Jameson

This was my ER book from November.The guy certainly has some interesting stories, but not as interesting as the book's description made them out to be.