CAPTCHA aka Word Verfication

So. I had my eyes pried open this afternoon after seeing a tweet made by @Irisheyz77 about word verification for blogs. She was frustrated after attempting to comment on 3 blogs today, when all 3 required word verification.

CAPTCHA has never bothered me before. I use it on my blog, and most blogs I visit use it as well. I see it as an additional layer of spam protection, and truthfully - I wish my email provider required CAPTCHA to be completed before uploading emails into my inbox. The ratio of spam to "actual" emails is at a headache-causing 3:1. I always looked at it as a positive thing, and did not mind typing it in when commenting on fellow blogger's sites. I never thought of it as a comment deterrent, or a thing from which frustration and aggravation stemmed.

However, after seeing @Irisheyz77 strong reaction, I decided to open it up to Twitterland for additional feedback. Here are some of the replies:

@Irisheyz77: Blogger has a GREAT spam protector. Since they put it in I've had no spam & what does come is caught by it. if it doesn't work....you can always put it back. :-)

@Meghan_Moloney: I find it a bit unnecessary, especially if I'm signing in as one of my existing profiles (Google blogger). An extra step.

@Bookladysblog: Totally agree re: word verification being annoying & a deterrent to commenting. Suppose it depends on how important commenting & conversation are to you.

Like all bloggers, I blog because I love it. I like being able to talk about the books I've read, or the books I want to read. I like being able to showcase indie novels and authors. I like how it's added another layer on to my relationships with authors and publishers. And I also like the interaction it allows me with other bloggers. Nothing makes me happier than when I log into Blogger, and see comments anxiously waiting for me to publish them! And to think that having word verification on my blog might be turing away those very comments that I love so much, well....

Today, I have decided to take the plunge. While I am still going to moderate comments (which means new comments will not appear on a blog post until I publish/approve them), I have removed the word verification process. I will allow Blogger to filter my spam for me, and sit back and wait for that influx of comments I have unwittingly been turning away!

Or.. I am about to find out that the lack of comments had nothing to do with CAPTCHA and has everything to do with the quality (or lack thereof) of my content! Oh Dear!

So let me open this up to you guys: What do you think about comment word verification? Does it stop you from commenting? Does you use it on your own blog, but dislike when others use it? Are you more likely to comment here at TNBBC now that the word verification has been removed?

My Phone...or...My Friends?

Oh dear. I sorta knew it would come to this. I do not want to choose between my phone or my friends. At the break table, I am chewing and swallowing my breakfast, scrolling down through Twitter on my sexy little phone, and the people I used to socialize with are heckling me. One of them attempted to kidnap it. Sometimes they even leave an empty seat on every side of me. They don't understand the NEED to check my twitter-feed. I only have 20 minutes. It isn't enough time to Tweet AND chat. So much is happening, so many hashtags to follow, I cannot fall behind. I blink and twenty more tweets drop into my lap. There is not even enough time to tweet myself, only time to catch up. Feverishly scrolling against the clock, still reading the tweets from 5am, 6am, 7am...choking down my breakfast. They try to suck me into their break table conversation, but I only have a few minutes left. Reading the tweets from 8am, 9am, Ok, I think I am caught up... One second guys - let me just refresh the screen and SHIT! Twenty more tweets drop into my lap. They are whispering about me now, I am the butt of their jokes, I just know it. But damn it, I am so close to the end. And then the bell rings. We gather our garbage and tuck in our chairs and head back to work. So it appears I have chosen. Oh Phone, don't fail me now. They will not take me back without a fight.

What The Fuck.... Theatre

I now bring you some of the most fucked up hot topics of today:

• Dead Birds and Fish make the news: Is this Biblical end-times? A terrorist attack? Is it safe to go outside?

• Erasing the N-Word from a classic work of literature: Essentially rewriting history because as a society, we have become obsessed with being "politically correct". This is beginning to sound more and more like the future that M.Clifford predicted in his fictitious novel The Book. Keep your god-damned hands off of our literature!

• #lessambitiousbooks and #lessambitiousfilms: Twitter time-suckers. Addictive as hell and non-stop "pee your pants" fun! I've gotten nothing accomplished since this shit took off. Less ambitious book titles I've created: Around the Block in 80 Minutes; Oryx and Cake; The Not So Ha-Ha; Sigh, Babylon; The Chartreuse Mile; Catcher in the Tall Grass; A Weed Grows in Brooklyn. See what I mean, I can keep going... I was at this for hours!!!!

And that concludes my first installment of What The Fuck.... Theatre!

Free PDF of Jeremy Shipp's "Camp"

Jeremy Shipp, the Bram Stoker Award Nominee and author of Cursed - recently reviewed here; Sheep and Wolves; Fungus the Heart; and Vacation, is offering a free PDF version of his short story "Camp".

Jeremy has achieved Twitter-cult status with his trippy 140-character comments about attic clowns and yard gnomes. You can follow him at @jeremycshipp .

His short stories have been published in numerous online magazines, and he is heavily active within the blogging community - guest posting and interviewing with fans of "Bizarro" fiction.

If you have ever wondered whether or not you should purchase one of his novels, here is your chance to preview his writing for free. Simply click this link, and you shall find yourself the proud owner of "Camp" .....

Review: Subversia

Read 1/1/11 - 1/4/11

4 Stars: Strongly Recommended

Pgs:214

I'm a fan of Duke Haney. I fell in love with his novel Banned For Life, which I reviewed here in March. As a struggling actor, screenplay writer, musician, and author, I don't think there is anything out there that this guy hasn't seen or done first hand... and in Subversia, his newest release - an autobiographical collection of stories/essays - he puts it out there, "warts and all", for the whole world to read.

From attending summer camp at the age of 10 under the perverted eye of a Camp Director who took naked photographs of the boys, to finding himself plagued by compulsive-obsessive thoughts of murdering his family, to chance encounters with Elliot Smith and Al Pacino, to spending 9 years of his life writing and rewriting Banned... Duke allows us to walk a mile in his well-worn yet incredibly hip shoes.

Subversia reads like a conversation between two very close friends. Tweeting with Duke as I read through the book, I explained to him that it's almost as though he is sitting beside me at a bar, sharing stories of his childhood and young adult life over a couple of beers. These are the sort of things you talk about when you're on a first date with a girl; embarrassing stories that you think might impress her, or get her giggling; horrific stories that will make her gasp; stories that allow you to show her your scars. These are the things that made you who you are, and you want her to either accept them, or run away screaming.

"Forever Strangers" reveals his tender, thoughtful side - discussing the millions of strangers who weave in and out of our lives, and the few who manage to make an impact as they pass through. This is a topic I could talk forever on. It begs us to ask the age-old questions - What's our purpose? Why am I here? Does anything I do really matter?

"The Uninvited" shows his vulnerable, easily spooked side - hearing strange noises in the house, calling a friend on the phone contemplating the place being haunted, only to find that a big ass rat has moved in! And then contemplating how the heck to rid himself of it. This one made me giggle, because (1) I am terrified of ending up someplace that is haunted, and so every noise I hear immediately starts me thinking of ghosts and spirits and (2) if you swap "rat" for "spider" I would be climbing the walls in fear until I knew the damn thing was dead, dropped into the toilet, and flushed away for good. (For those of you who read this story: Duke tells me that, to this day, he doesn't know what happened to the rat.)

In "Romance, Bromance, and Deja Vu" he teaches us that yes... men ARE like women. They can get catty and let people come between them too.

Drug abuse, wild punk rock concerts, a short lived James Dean icon phase, a car accident that nearly killed him, all of the shitty side jobs he worked and screenplays he wrote to keep a dollar in his pocket... it's all in here.

Most of these essays were previously published on The Nervous Breakdown, an incredibly cool online magazine that Duke regularly contributes to.

My hat off to Duke. For having the guts to put his life stories out there, in black and white, to be dissected by the public, because that is not always an easy thing to do. Man, This guy can write. And he deserves to be read. I have a much greater appreciation for his novel Banned now, having read everything he went through and understanding more of what went into it.

I also want to thank Duke - for supplying me with a signed, tea-stained copy of this book to review. I will cherish it always. (and yes, I sniffed the pages.) And for humoring me over Twitter this past week.

Congrats to The Nervous Breakdown as well, for this is their very first release as a brand spankin' new publishing company (TNB). I cannot wait to see what you guys are serving up next!

Free eBook Download of Sukkwan Island

In anticipation of the soon-to-be released Caribou Island, Harper Collins is offering a free eBook download of David Vann's novella "Sukkwan Island".

The novella, originally found nestled between short stories in Vann's Legend of a Suicide, recently won France’s prestigious Prix Medicis award for best foreign novel.. and can be downloaded with an excerpt of Vann's new novel.

For those of you who are long-time followers, you may remember that I reviewed Legend of a Suicide back in April. I was blown away by "Sukkwan Island", and Vann's writing style in general.

You can download your free copy of this novella via amazon, sony, or kobo. And you totally should!

"Scars on the Face of God" Giveaway

The first TNBBC giveaway of 2011!!

This one is coming to you compliments of C.G. Bauer himself...

You may remember me reviewing Scars on the Face of God at the beginning of December, the book that I searched high and low for in bookstores, book sales, and library sales for over a year... and fell hard and fast for!

Here is the description from Goodreads:

"Hex signs protect every barn and outbuilding. The local tannery spews its poison on the land and in the river. And babies disappear at birth.

An orphan and one-time felon who earned his nickname -from the sound a crowbar makes when it hits a man-s head,- Johannes -Wump- Hozer is now the custodian of Our Lady of the Innocents parish in Three Bridges, PA. Wump is old and tired. He-s fought all his life against the tannery-s waste, against God, and against the blind eyes of his good neighbors. Nowadays he tries to ignore the old priest-s exploits with the young women of the parish and the strangeness surrounding the local orphanage, and does what good he can for his wife, the church, the sisters who run the orphanage, and the poor orphans themselves.

Then childhood memories and strange presentments begin to plague Wump when a brick wall unearthed at the site of a new restaurant collapses, and raw sewage carries hundreds of baby bones into the pit left behind. Looks like the devil-s made Three Bridges his playground, and Wump needs to find out why; the babies keep screaming and he has to make it stop."

Chris is offering up one signed copy of his novel.

The giveaway is for US Residents only

and ends midnight January 7th.

Here's how to enter:

1. Post a comment telling Chris and I why you want to read his book and be sure to leave a way for me to contact you.

2. Please do not enter if you have won a book from TNBBC in the past three months. We want to make sure we are sharing the book-winning experience with everyone!

Author Interview w/ C.G. Bauer

I can't think of a better way to ring in the New Year than with an author interview! Today, we have C.G. Bauer with us, author of Scars on the Face of God - a chilling tale of a small Pennsylvanian town where religion has gone horribly horribly wrong.

A native of Philadelphia, Chris shares with us how his personal experience with religion helped shape his novel, his feelings on the eBook craze, and which actors he would cast in the film version of Scars..

How old were you when you first realized that you had a knack for writing?

I wrote one sci-fi short story while I was in my twenties (on a typewriter), its sole hard copy weighed down by crusty Wite-Out and eventually lost to posterity during one relocation or another. I wrote no other creative/fictional pieces until I was in my forties when I began a novel about corporate greed, takeovers, layoffs, cross country relocation and, um, slow-pitch softball. (Sing along with me, kids: “Which of these things is not like the other…?”) Eight to ten years and 130,000 un-publishable words later The Rabbit, Stilled was finished, only to be relegated to back-up disk after an unsuccessful campaign at finding an agent, with a few agents mentioning that it was about 50,000 words too long for an unknown debut author. (Think shelf space.) But Rabbit may rise again someday after a rewrite, considering its main characters had their origins in Scars on the Face of God, this because Scars was purposely written as a shorter novel (88,000 words) after Rabbit to make Rabbit publishable. Good plan, right? The problem: Scars is paranormal/horror, Rabbit is mainstream contemporary. Hey, shit happens.

I also authored a tongue-in-cheek advice column during my early years at an insurance company, which, as my current employer, must remain unidentified due to the potential for copyright violations, unauthorized usage of trademarks, etc., etc. Suffice it to say the column was purportedly written by a cartoon dog named Snoppy, the frustrated and cynical twin brother of another cartoon beagle with nearly the same name yet arguably more significant notoriety.

Who or what was your greatest influence?

My greatest influences have been situational as well as author-inspired. For Scars it was my discovery of the real-life religious artifact manuscript Codex Gigas (“Giant Book”, aka “The Devil’s Bible”) when I surfed the net after asking the question “What if the Devil wrote his own Bible?” A Bohemian monk wrote the massive book in the 13th century as a penance because of one monastic indiscretion or another, and it was completed, according to legend, in one night with the help of the Devil. Over the centuries it became the spoil of a few European wars and now resides in Sweden’s Royal Library.

A hilarious telephone conversation I eavesdropped at a seaside restaurant, between a mobster wannabe and his nosey mother, led to my published-then-recorded short story titled “You’re a Moron,” seen in the pulp fiction e-zine Thuglit (Jan. 2009) and heard/performed in an audio version at Well Told Tales (Sept. 2009; 22,000 downloads and counting).

On the author front, I’ve been most inspired by Dean Koontz, specifically his supernaturally gifted yet wonderfully honest fry-cook character Odd Thomas. And I’m still enamored by the undereducated voice that Steve Shilstone used to relate his account of fictional baseball shortstop Chance Cain in his novel Chance.

In your interview with Philadelphia Stories, you mentioned that your novel – Scars on the Face of God – took 3 years to write. What was the writing and editing process like for you?

I work fifty-plus hour weeks at my day job plus my commute takes another two plus hours out of each workday. The only way I find time to write is if I don’t sleep, so I write and edit (and social network, surf the net, procrastinate, etc.) by rising by five a.m. seven days a week, working until seven a.m. on weekdays, nine a.m. on weekends. I found I like what I’ve written in the morning then I often find I don’t like that morning’s production in the evening, turning so cynical that my evening edits can occasionally produce a minus word count for the day. Since I’m also part of two writers’ critique groups I decided to replace my evening writing routine with critiquing other people’s work at night, rather than my own. Minus-word-count problem solved.

Your novel is set in Pennsylvania, yet has a very southern, gothic feel to it. How did you decide on its tone and setting?

I’m thinking the tone has been set by my first-person narrator-protagonist Wump Hozer, a blue-collar, salt-of-the-earth type who wears his heart on his sleeve. One reader compared the narrative to some of Mark Twain’s storytelling. Wump comes across as anti-religion, or at least anti-Catholic, while his wife Viola, whose pre-Wump plan was to join a convent, keeps him grounded in a belief in God. From Wump’s perspective God’s existence is rooted more in providing punishment, with said punishment often delivered to the wrong people.

Reasons the novel is set in Pennsylvania, just outside of Philadelphia: I’m a Philadelphia native; Philadelphia has a very large and active Catholic population; the fictional St. Jerome’s Home for Foundlings is fashioned after St. Vincent’s Home, an iconic orphanage on the Delaware River that now provides services to unwed teenage mothers; and in deference to the leather tannery subplot, the greater Philadelphia area had a number of tanneries in operation in the nineteenth century.

All of your characters, for better or for worse, are incredibly unique and intensely flawed. What went into the creation of the four main characters - “Wump” Hozer, the narrator; Father Duncan, the new priest; Leo, a mentally handicapped boy; and Raymond, Leo’s blind, mute, wheelchair-ridden best friend?

Wump Hozer is a composite, fashioned after a now-deceased gruff uncle, a South Philly truck driver from a large family (one of eleven, twelve, maybe more siblings) who were major hellions during their younger years. There was also a real-life “Dogshit Johnny” (Wump’s childhood nickname), grandfather to a writer friend of mine, who did police his neighborhood in search of, ahem, dog shit, and who did deliver it to tanneries for money. Fertilizer is apparently an excellent leather-softening agent.

Father Duncan, former pro ballplayer who got his call to the priesthood from a dead relative, was a character made completely from scratch. I love baseball and wanted to provide an earthy, macho quality to his portrayal as a priest, a profession not typically known for its machismo. There’s also something about the potential of seeing a baseball bat-wielding priest that gets me going in the good guys vs. demons department.

Leo, Raymond and Teddy are fashioned after three children I remember from my northeast Philadelphia upbringing. As an adult I felt it odd that there were this many and more mentally and physically impaired kids in a small, four-city block area. Their real-life counterparts were what gave the tannery waste-dumping storyline its purchase. I believe the real-life Leo (real name Jimmy), probably in his early fifties now, may well still run errands for the people in the neighborhood.

If Scars on the Face of God were to be released as a movie, which actors would you cast to play the roles of “Wump”, Father Duncan, Leo, and Raymond?

Like most authors, I love being asked this question regarding something I’ve written.

Jeff Bridges as Wump. Looking forward to seeing Bridges’ portrayal of Rooster Cogburn in the remake of True Grit, and I loved his cantankerous country-western singer protagonist in Crazy Heart.

As Father Duncan, the late Merlin Olsen. He was a soft-spoken giant of a man, NFL Hall of Famer, a football announcer, and a supporting actor from Little House on the Prairie. Hey, with all the new zombie science out there and a decent Hollywood special effects team, we should be able bring him back for this role. Okay-fine, if I have to go with someone living, Joaquin Phoenix. I loved his baseball swing in M. Night Shyamalan’s crop circles thriller Signs, plus his Johnny Cash portrayal in Walk the Line proves he looks great in black.

Leo is a no brainer. Leonardo DiCaprio can borrow from his Arnie Grape role in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. (Yes, at age thirty-six DiCaprio could play a ten-year-old boy, he’s that good an actor.)

As Raymond, Stephen Hawking. That was too easy.

Directing: M. Night Shyamalan. This would be just the vehicle for him to return to his roots as a premier teller of eerie Philadelphia stories. Plus he’s a Philly native. You listening, M?

Religion plays a large role in Scars. How did your 12 years of Catholic School influence its plot?

In elementary school I was an altar boy. Plus—surprise—I was also afraid of the nuns. Standard fear stuff like not wanting to get cracked across the knuckles with a ruler, avoiding after-school detention with snoring elderly bearded female gnomes robed in black, avoiding embarrassment at not having word-for-word recall of my Catechism, that sort of thing. In Catholic high school not much changed: Afraid I’d get cracked across the face by a hall-patrolling, yardstick-wielding priest (the school’s “disciplinarian”), then contending with detention (called “jug”) after bitching to said disciplinarian for his said cracking across my said face. I’m now more of a cradle and grave Catholic, getting back to church for baptisms, weddings and funerals only. As I’ve gotten older I prefer to be more attuned to simply treating other living things the way I’d like to be treated and calling that my religion.

This novel was originally released as an eBook, and earned you a finalist slot in the 2010 EPIC awards. As a writer and a reader, what is your take on the rise of eBooks and eReaders?

I’m loving the eBook revolution. While I admit as an older fart I’d rather read ink on paper, I love the idea of generating customer interest in a product that can be satisfied nearly instantly by downloading it on the spot. Impulse buying at its finest. Point, click, sold, delivered! A published novelist friend mentioned this real-life scenario: He attended a writers conference as a panelist, visited an audience table, was soon told that everyone at the table had downloaded his novel to their Kindles by the time he’d finished answering their questions. Yet even with this endorsement I fess up to not owning an eReader of any kind just yet. It’s not because I’m too set in my printed word ways. It’s simply because I have a stack of unread print novels that I’m determined to finish first before I load up a Kindle or some other device with more unread novels. There are only so many hours in a day…

What are you currently reading?

I just finished the non-fiction NYT bestseller Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern, now a TV sitcom starring William Shatner. Hilarious, tears-in-my-eyes, lol book and a quick read. No feel for the sitcom but somehow I don’t see the blue-humored charm translating well on network TV, considering its charm has so much to do with its f-bomb and equivalent content. Justin’s father’s quotes are so incredibly irreverent, politically incorrect and raunchy that the reader has him instantly pegged as either a truck driver, hockey player or drill sergeant, and all of them in need of more fiber. Wrong on all counts. His real-life dad, now retired, taught nuclear medicine! Unbelievable. Currently reading Patient Zero by multiple Bram Stoker Award winner and NYT bestselling author Jonathan Maberry. Outstanding premise: zombies being used as pawns in a terrorist plot. Excellent read. Also in my queue: Jonathan’s second installment in the series, The Dragon Factory; another non-fiction offering, Jeanne Denault’s Sucking Up Yellow Jackets, a humorous yet somewhat tragic memoir about raising an Asperger’s Syndrome child who was fixated on motorcycles and explosives.

What can we expect from you next?

I’m into the second half of a standalone novel with the working title Hop Skip Jump, a paranormal mystery about reincarnation and channeling. One sentence summary: What happens when souls try to come back to where they’re needed the most and other entities are hell-bent on not letting that happen? Plus my comedic/tragic horror short story “Zombie Chimps from Mars” will be coming out in this winter’s print edition of Shroud Magazine (www.shroudmagazine.com), publication date pending.

What websites/authors/novels would you recommend to our audience?

I recommend my small press publisher’s website (drolleriepress.com), publisher of legend and fantasy fiction. I also recommend my own website (cgbauer.net) of course, but it’s a cautious recommendation in that it’s currently undergoing significant reconstruction.

I’ve found myself visiting crime fiction websites more often these days, this because I’d like to write some longer crime fiction pieces. Pulp fiction websites: Thuglit, Plots with Guns, Beat to a Pulp. Horror websites: Horror Bound, everywritersresource.com/horrormagazines (hundreds of horror magazines). Authors I’m following nowadays: Jonathan Maberry is hitting his stride in horror (adult and YA) and comics; new novelist Dennis Tafoya is making waves with his crime fiction (Dope Thief, The Wolves of Fairmount Park); the venerable Stephen King; Jeffrey Deaver; Dean Koontz.

Thanks much for having me here, Lori. Happy reading and blogging in 2011, to you and those who follow you. And if folks are interested in contacting me for signed copies of Scars on the Face of God they can do so at cntbauer101@yahoo.com.

Review: Volt

Read 12/30/10 - 12/31/10

4 Stars - Strongly Recommended

Pgs:207

Release date: 3/11

So in my mad rush to cram another book into 2010 - I cracked this collection of short stories open and found myself unable to lift my eyes from it's pages. Not because I wanted to finish it before the ball dropped, but because it completely sucked me in and refused to spit me back out!

2010 seemed to be bursting at the "short story" seams. I read more short stories this year than any other years combined and it looks as though 2011 is headed in the same direction. What I love about Alan Heathcock's collection, what sets his book apart from most other collections, is an interconnectedness amongst his characters and their setting.

Volt is a series of short stories that all take place in the made-up town of Krafton: A bad luck, back-woodsy sort of place that reeks of tragedy and mischief. Running into some of the same characters, at different points in their lives, helped create a sense of familiarity and eased the transition between stories for me.

We meet Jorgen as a sort of love-sick, confused young man on the verge of returning to the war - and then catch up with him much later in life, when an outside police force contact Helen, the local sheriff, with a warrant for his arrest after he fails to show for a court date. By this time, we've already met Helen, the local sheriff, as she rescues the townspeople during a flood while reminiscing about a murder she attempted to cover up. Vernon, who we know once helped his father dispose of a man he killed, winds up knocking on his ex-wife's door many years later with a shoe box filled with unread letters from his dead son.

Reading Volt is almost like flipping through the family album, or reading a decades worth of back to back newspaper clippings from a single town. Each story cuts deeper and deeper into the wounds of Krafton and it's residents. Each chapter pulls the skin back a little farther, exposing more of it's filthy rotting core.

Heathcock is a master at torturing his characters - sometimes physically, sometimes mentally. Heathcock allows them to grieve and grow and be human. But he does not hand them resolutions. They do not get closure. We are left to believe that their pain and suffering and frustrations continue long after the stories we've read have ended. That is the beauty of Volt.

His writing and his stories reminded me very much of author Benjamin Percy - who, believe it or not, is acknowledged on the back cover of the ARC with advanced praise for Volt. A must read for fans of the dark, dreary, underside of humanity.

Many thanks to publisher Heathcock's publisher Graywolf Press for making the ARC available to me for review!

Review: The Visiting Suit, Stories From My Prison Life

Read 12/26/10 - 12/30/10

4 Stars - Strongly Recommended

Pgs:263

Every once in a great while, I read a book that speaks to me in ways I never quite expected it to. In Xiaoda Xiao's non-fiction book, he chronicles his five year prison sentence in China during the reign of Chairman Mao. And I sat in awe as he showed me just how wonderful it is to be a citizen of the United States, how lucky we are to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and how fortunate we are to have the ability to hire a lawyer and sit before a judge and jury.

At the age of 20, Xiaoda drunkenly tears a poster of Mao from a wall and confesses the accident the next morning. Without a trial, he was sentenced to five years in a labor reform prison as a "counter-revolutionary" who "viciously attacked the Great Leaders Brilliant Image".

Working every day in the stone quarry, attending the humiliating and degrading thought reform courses at night, Xiaoda suffered at the hands of his group leaders, prison chiefs, and even his own cellmates. Nightly confessions and denouncements were a mandatory ordeal, and a necessary step in the reformation of the "counter revolutionary" soul. Acknowledging ones dirty, abnormal, twisted thoughts (or sometimes acknowledging the ones that the group leaders thought you held) was the only way to guarantee peace at night, and a potential transfer to easier labor positions.

Imagine living in a world where a jealous neighbor or suspicious wife could write a letter accusing you of false acts that would get you thrown into jail without a moments hesitation. Imagine receiving smacks on the head, and kicks in the shins, and being verbally humiliated (by the very same prisoners who you work side by side with during the day) for those false accusations until you confessed to them. Because standing up for yourself and proclaiming your innocence would only land you in solitary confinement, or cause your arms to be handcuffed behind your back overnight, or cause your daily ration of food to be withheld.

As Xiaoda so craftily puts it "To survive the labor reform camp, one had to learn to become a faithful dog..or an idiot.."

Prisoners were always under suspicion, constantly under surveillance - a cellmate could, at any time, report back to a group leader or Chief your thoughts and feelings on certain topics - and sometimes even the recipients of the "Ultimate Revolutionary Humanity", which in prisoner terms stood for the Death Penalty. Heck, even shouting out the word "Amnesty" while dreaming could spawn an investigation that would end with you standing in front of the firing squad as your fellow prisoners stood by and watched.

Xiaoda's memoir, told in connecting short stories, gave me a greater appreciation for the country I live in. After what he had been put through, it amazes me that anyone in China would intentionally break a law, knowing the horrible fate they were committing themselves to. Rape, adultery, and negative acts towards the Great Leader were all sure fire ways to land you in a labor prison. Why in the world would anyone do anything that would cause them to suffer the things that our author was put through? And worse so for him - since he what he did was an unintentional, drunken mistake with no true malice behind it.

A truly thought provoking, heartbreaking tale of a man wrongly convicted, beaten and broken for something he willingly confessed as an accident... A story that details the pain of being forced to surrender your pride in the fight for your sanity. The Visiting Suit teaches us how to stand up for what's right by backing down and doing what others want you to do in order to survive.

Another superb release from Two Dollar Radio! Many thanks to them for making this book available for review. For more information on Xiaoda Xiao and to read an excerpt of The Visiting Suit, please visit their site by clicking here.

In Which Xiaoda Xiao Witnesses His Groupmate's Ultimate Revolutionary Humanity

Here's a peek inside my current read:

"The scene was somehow less terrifying than the first show trial I attended. Since then, I had been prone to perceive the execution with a dialectical viewpoint by comparing the situation of the condemned prisoner with that of myself. I concluded that, although a violent death was horrible, after the firing squad had finished their job, the condemned man wouldn't have to worry about his stone quota, nor would he need to conduct self-condemnations or receive denouncement from other inmates anymore, whereas I, as a witness of the death penalty would continue to suffer both in the quarry and in the barracks. Only when I thought this way was I able to overcome the mental trauma that the atrocious scene left behind."

- The Visiting Suit, Stories From My Prison Life - Xiaoda Xiao

Smartphone #Fail

Yes, Folks. It's true. Even a super-adjusting, time-managing fool like "your truly" can fail sometimes. I can usually multi-task like a maniac and switch priorities on a dime, but when it comes to making time for all my cool new techie toys - I suck.

I have been totally snubbing my iView eReader and garnishing all my attention on my beautiful little Droid these past two weeks.

While sitting at my husband's aunt and uncle's Annual Christmas Eve Dinner Party, I broke my golden smartphone rule - and downloaded a (gasp) GAME. I found the really cool free app Doodle Bowling, and downloaded it. My kids and I played a few rounds, and realized that for each game you play, you get a "coin". These coins can be saved and used to "purchase" different backgrounds on which to bowl. And I want them... I want them ALL...

The starting background is a child-like drawing of a bowling alley lane - and each roll of the ball pops a hole in the paper. It doesn't look like much, but it is addicting as hell to play. (See - this is why I didn't want to start downloading games.. I knew I would get sucked in.)

Here's a short video - for those who might not have played it yet:

(By the way - is this what the world is coming to? Creating video trailers for smartphone apps? Seriously?)

So between this time-sucking game, and checking Twitter every 10 minutes, I have no energy or motivation to use my eReader. It doesn't have WiFi, so all I can use it for is reading, and I mean, well.... really. I have ACTUAL books for that!

"Scorch Atlas" Giveaway

As one year slowly fades into the other, as another decade passes before our eyes, I feel it is only fitting to offer you, my fellow friends and followers, a giveaway of apocalyptic interconnected stories. So... to help you usher in the new year...

TNBBC is giving away one copy of Blake Butler's Scorch Atlas!

Here's the description from Goodreads:

"In this striking novel-in-stories, a series of strange apocalypses have hit America. Entire neighborhoods drown in mud, glass rains from the sky, birds speak gibberish, and parents of young children disappear. Millions starve while others grow coats of mold. But a few are able to survive and find a light in the aftermath, illuminating what we’ve become. In “The Disappeared,” a father is arrested for missing free throws, leaving his son to search alone for his lost mother. A boy swells to fill his parents’ ransacked attic in “The Ruined Child.” Rendered in a variety of narrative forms, from a psychedelic fable to a skewed insurance claim questionnaire, Blake Butler’s full-length fiction debut paints a gorgeously grotesque version of America, bringing to mind both Kelly Link and William H. Gass, yet imbued with Butler's own vision of the apocalyptic and bizarre."

This novel has seen many a match - check out these youtube videos of people scorching Scorch Atlas. While I am not sure if this is a publicity stunt to gain more readers, or seriously deranged reactions to his novel, it certainly has piqued my interest!

This giveaway is open to residents of the US and Canada

and will end on January 31st.

Here is how to enter:

1. Post a comment telling me why you want to read this book and be sure to leave a way for me to contact you. If you win, I want you to come back to TNBBC and let us know if the book made YOU want to put a match to it, too. (but please, promise me you won't hurt it!)

2. Please do not enter if you have won a book from TNBBC in the past three months. Let's give some other book lovers a chance to win!

Good luck everyone!

Review: The Orange Eats Creeps

Read 12/09/10 - 12/25/10

2 Stars - Recommended Lightly / Not as an Introduction to Genre

Pgs:172

It's a christmas miracle! For a moment there, I thought for sure that I would never finish this novel. December has been an awful month for me when it comes to reading. I barely had any time to sit down and just get lost in a novel, and when I did find time, this one wasn't really sucking me in - I wasn't "feeling it", and found myself rereading paragraph after paragraph trying to make sense of it all.

Grace Krilanovich is a first time novelist who creates her own form of storytelling in the feverish and incredibly trippy The Orange Eats Creeps. In it, Grace introduces us to a self proclaimed slutty teenage hobo vampire junkie who begins the search for her missing foster sister/lover Kim - driven on by drug induced ESP, random clues at local convenience stores and back alleys, and nightmare dreams involving cat-rat-snakes things. (I think).

She appears to be a loner, bouncing from one group of similar day-sleepers to another, bedding down with strange men in gas station bathrooms, mini-mart storage rooms, abandoned houses, and rail cars along the way. She had a steady boyfriend named Seth at one point, but loses him and his friends somewhere within the story. (I think). There seemed to be an excessive amount of sex - consensual at times, other times taken by force, with one person at times, other times with many...

As she wallows in memories of her House Mom and the evil things she was put through while residing under her roof, her inability to locate Kim, and the senseless acts she puts her body through, she is also pillaging pharmacies for cough medicine on which she gets high. (I think).

To be honest, I am not entirely convinced she is a vampire at all. At least, not in the traditional sense of the word. She eats and drinks, though she seems to mostly throw it all back up, but that could just be due to her completely horrid choice of products to ingest - days old containers of coffee, packets of sugar, and similar other non-substantial goodies. Though there is a fairly decent amount of blood sucking - or, at least, some obvious fetish with blood - I never truly believed that our doped up, strung out narrator was an actual vampire.

A girl hovering somewhere between life and death - yes. An honest to goodness vampire - not so much. For me, it read more like a teenage runaway trying to live the life of a vampire, masquerading around town like a child masquerades around her room in a princess gown pretending to be Snow White or Cinderella.

This book thoroughly confused the heck out of me. Reading like the collected thoughts of someone suffering from an extremely high and delusional fever, most of the story was pure gibberish. If read individually, the sentences themselves were gorgeous and painful and stunning But when laid out next to each other, they meant nothing and made no sense at all.

I felt a bit like Alice when she fell down the rabbit hole. There were moments, little snippets of clarity and lucidity, but mostly the story just left me scratching my head.

Despite my struggle to understand the point behind The Orange Eats Creeps, it's author and publisher (Two Dollar Radio) have made quite the impact on book lists and awards for 2010. Krilanovich was recognized by The National Book Foundation's "5 Under 35", and a finalist for the Starcherone Prize. Reviewers everywhere are praising the hell out of it.

So while it might not have been the perfect book for me, and had me temporarily questioning my ability to read, digest, and differentiate between a good book and a bad book, I suggest you check out some other reviews before siding with me.

However, if you DO happen to read it, and find it as jarring and fragmented as I did, please comment below and share your thoughts. I feel like I need someone to talk to about this one.

In the meantime, check out the book trailer:

I want to thank Two Dollar Radio for making this book available to me for review. Although I did not love the book, I ADORE Two Dollar Radio and their previously reviewed novels (Termite Parade and The People Who Watched Her Pass By). I am very much looking forward to starting their novel The Visiting Suit - up next!

Merry Christmas Eve's Eve

As I got older, and the internet and email started trumping snail-mail, I slowly started to phase out celebrating holidays and anniversaries and birthdays and things with Hallmark (paper and envelope) cards. It was so much easier, not to mention cheaper, to send a text message or email wishing the person a "happy 30th" or a"Merry Christmas" - and I could be guaranteed that it would arrive on time!

However, this year, my mailbox has been bursting at the seams with christmas cards from close friends, blogging buddies, authors, and publishers! And it's made me realize something.... Nothing comes close to matching the excitement of tearing open the envelope of a christmas card or the smile on your face as you read it, and the fun of finding someplace special to showcase it.

Many thanks go out to Graywolf Press, Patrick Wensink, Lorena from Goodreads, Andrew Shaffer, my brother and sister-in-law, and my best friend Mariann for taking the time to pick or create my christmas card, gently placing it into an envelope, lovingly applying stamps on it, neatly addressing it, dropping it off at the post office, and having it find it's way to me before Christmas!

While I do love e-cards, and texts, and emails wishing me happy holidays, I adore the timeless tradition of receiving christmas cards in the mail.

And I am making a New Years Resolution today - to stepping it up and mailing out some 'paper and envelope' cards in 2011 in appreciation and celebration to the publishers, authors, bloggers, and friends I am so very thankful to have met in 2010! Because I want people to feel the same way I do when I open the mailbox ... and see one waiting in there for me!