I have a B&N membership - but a Kindle.

My lendable book list is very short, since I get most of my books from the library, but anyone who wants is welcome to borrow them.

An Artificial Night by Seanan McGuire, (October Daye #3) (currently on loan)
Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen
The Mystery of Grace by Charles de Lint (currently on loan)
Leave Me Breathless by Trista Ann Michaels (a truly terrible contemporary menage romance novella I wasn't able to read.)

My B&N email address is deena AT dlmfisher DOT com

Random Stephen King quote from Danse Macabre for consideration:

I think that writers are made, not born or created out of dreams or childhood trauma-that becoming a writer (or a painter, actor, director, dancer, and so on) is a direct result of conscious will. Of course there has to be some talent involved, but talent is a dreadfully cheap commodity, cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work and study; a constant process of honing. Talent is a dull knife that will cut nothing unless it is wielded with great force-a force so great that the knife is not really cutting at all but bludgeoning and breaking (and after two or three of these gargantuan swipes it may succeed in breaking itself . . . which may be what happened to such disparate writers as Ross Lockridge and Robert E. Howard). Discipline and constant work are the whetstones upon which the dull knife of talent is honed until it becomes sharp enough, hopefully, to cut through even the toughest meat and gristle. No writer, painter, or actor-no artist-is ever handed a sharp knife (although a few people are handed almighty big ones; the name we give to the artist with the big knife is "genius"), and we hone with varying degrees of zeal and aptitude.

That reminds me, it's time for my annual re-reading of Danse Macabre. It's my favorite book by him, and I wish he'd do an updated version.

Yeah, it's a re-read every few years for me, too. I learned so much from that book. I was SO let down that "On Writing" sucked.

It's my favorite book by him, and I wish he'd do an updated version.

It is an interesting mash of stuff, including all his biographical remembrances.

What's fascinating too is that it was written in 1981 when viewing something like Tourneur's The Cat People was really difficult to do. And movies like Freaks were apocryphal. There was no complete print in anything like circulation, just the chopped up roadshow versions.

Back in the days when you'd get your TV listings and immediately turn to the movies section and have to plan to stay up until 2am to watch some obscurity you wanted desperately to see.

I'm getting some of the same thing with Skaal's The Monster Show (another great book on horror), which was written in the mid-nineties and so many key works were still unavailable on video, waiting rediscovery.

Reminds me of my record hunting days where I literally spent over ten years looking for certain LPs I'd only read about.

Incidentally I downloaded a txt version of Danse Macabre right off the intertubes so you could probably nab a copy for your Kindle or iPhone.

I used Danse Macabre, along with The Stand, Carrie, and Dead Zone, for my first big English research paper in 8th grade. Loved that I could write a paper on someone as modern as Stephen King in the early 1980s.

Incidentally I downloaded a txt version of Danse Macabre right off the intertubes so you could probably nab a copy for your Kindle or iPhone.

Reeeaaaly? Because I was about to search for a version I could read on the iPhone.

Reeeaaaly? Because I was about to search for a version I could read on the iPhone.

Well, the text version is now in your inbox.

Btw, did you get The Divine Comedy's song "The Happy Goth" I sent?