This Week's Travel Reading, Dresden Files Edition

It had been a spell (pun intended) since I dipped into the literary world of The Dresden Files, Jim Butcher's series of novels about Harry Dresden, private eye and wizard.

Yes. Wizard.

See, Harry investigates supernatural occurences in and around Chicago--that's why my friend Margo recommended the series to me in the first place, knowing that that's my hometown--and winds up throwing down with vampires, werewolves, evil wizards and even, occasionally, dragons. Butcher doesn't always get the geography quite right--putting locations too close to one another, for example--but he captures the vibe of my city nicely while still telling compelling--sometimes frightening--tales.

Side Jobs is a collection of short stories that take place between the novels and feature Harry facing off against any number of things that go "bump" in the night. They're lots of fun and brisk reading while riding the El or bus, though not quite as involving as Butcher's novels are. There is at least one, maybe two of those I haven't gotten around to yet.

They're next.

This Week's Travel Reading, Shocktober Edition 10/18/21

Having started the month with H.P. Lovecraft, I couldn't see myself going through the rest of Shocktober without at least touching on my favorite horror author (and a major influence on Lovecraft): Edgar Allan Poe.

Like Lovecraft, Poe didn't live very long; he was just 40 years old when he succumbed to...what, exactly? There are no records regarding why Poe died, and speculation over the years that he died due to accute alcoholism (or one of the many diseases inherent in that condition), but no one knows with any certainty.

Before he died, though...man, did he conjure up some nightmares.

The Pit and the Pendulem. The Cask of Amontillardo. The Masque of the Red Death. The Tell-Tale Heart. My personal favorite, The Black Cat. And so many more.

As with the Lovecraft volume I recently acquired, this Collected Poe really isn't suited to travel reading--it weighs about 10 lbs. and would wreck my neck and back if I were to tuck it into the backpack for reading on the long train/bus ride to and from the job.

Still, it's comforting to flip through as the days grow shorter and cooler, and the nights grow longer and deeper.

This Week's Travel Reading, Shocktober Edition 10/11/21

Okay, true confession: This is NOT this week's travel reading.

How could it be? This volume of H.P. Lovecraft's collected stories--picked up at this year's Printers Row Lit Fest--weighs several pounds, and just lifting it is something of a chore, much less carrying it around in my backpack five days a week.

Still, it is something I'm plowing through at home, and I have been since the middle of last month.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born in Providence, RI on August 20, 1890. He died on the Ides of March, 1937.

In between? He wrote some of the most horrific fiction ever committed to paper.

Several of his stories have been adapted for the big screen and the small, with the best adaptations happening during the three-season run of Rod Serling's Night Gallery. Especially good were "Pickman's Model" with Bradford Dillman as a tortured artist working desperately to hide the inspirations for his hideous paintings, and "Cool Air" starring Henry Darrow as a man whose room must be kept at ice-cold temperatures...or else.

At the movie houses, Lovecraft loomed large, especially in the 1960s and 1970s with movies like The Haunted Palace starring Vincent Price and Debra Paget (mmm...Debra Paget...wait, what were we talking about again? Oh, right...Lovecraft), Die, Monster, Die starring Boris Karloff and Nick Adams, and The Dunwich Horror starring Dean Stockwell.

Lovecraft also provided ample inspiration for comic book creators like Mike Mignola, whose Hellboy often encounters monsters and "elder gods" from Lovecraft's writings.

Now, you must excuse me--I have about 600 pages to go...

This Week's Travel Reading, Hard Case Crime Edition

Yes. I know. I keep saying that I don't like Stephen King's novels--or, at least, don't like the way he spins his wheels repeatedly before getting to the point, or the plot.

And yet? Here I am again, reading his latest paperback from the Hard Case Crime imprint.

Why am I bothering, you ask?

For one thing, Hard Case Crime puts out a regular stream of excellent, "lost" crime novels by some of the finest practitioners of the art--Mickey Spillane, Donald Westlake and James M. Cain have all had thrillers appear under the imprint. King has as well, for that matter--both Joyland (which I read and enjoyed) and The Colorado Kid (which I haven't read yet) were published by Hard Case Crime.

For another, it's relatively short--only 264 pages--so even if it sucks, it won't suck for long.

This Week's Travel Reading, Martinis & Murder Edition

Confession: I've read Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man before. Or at least I think I have--since my heart attacks, my memory is a tangled mess I've given up trying to untangle.

Whatever the case, it's an easy read for my long commute to and from the job--as smooth as a vodka martini with at least two (and preferably three) olives for garnish.

And just in case you're wondering: The book and the first Thin Man movie with William Powell as Nick Charles and Myrna Loy (sigh...Myrna Loy) as Nora are very close on plot and dialogue. The other Thin Man movies? Not as much, but still considerable fun.

This Week's Travel Reading, Up Up & Away edition

Growing up as an avid comic book reader, Superman was never one of my favorites. He was just too powerful, in body and mind, to hold my attention for long.

I much preferred the flawed, brooding characters over at Marvel comics: Spider-man, who was always nursing bruises (both physical and psychic); the Hulk, the story of a man trapped in a body over which he exerted little to no control (hello, teenagers everywhere); the X-Men, outcasts one and all.

I still read Superman from time to time--whenever relatives gave me comic books as presents for Christmas or my birthday, the stack invariably included at least on issue featuring the Man of Steel--but I never sought out his adventures.

So why, then, am I reading a history of Superman, you might reasonably ask?

Because the history of Superman is the history of comic books. Without the runaway success of Superman in 1938, you wouldn't have had Batman stories a year later. Or Captain America comics a couple of years after that. Or Captain Marvel tales. Or...you get the idea.

Jerry Seigel and Joe Shuster (Superman's creators) paved the way for everything that was to come in the following years/decades. And author Larry Tye lays out the circumstances that created the mightiest man to ever walk the Earth (or, more likely, fly over it) in a clear, entertaining way.

This Week's Travel Reading (Yellow Brick Road Edition)

According to the ever-helpful Wikipedia, L. Frank Baum wrote 14 novels based around the magical land of Oz, where Scarecrows talk, Tin Woodsmen dance and Lions are cowardly, until they're not.

Pictured above is the first in the series, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. (The title has been cut short for this edition; apparently, "Wonderful" wasn't so, well, wonderful.) It's brisk, easy reading--something I need on my train trips these days.

This Week's Travel Reading

You probably knew that Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States; that he led our country through the Civil War and that he was assassinated in 1865.

But did you know he was also a vampire hunter? 

That's the crazy-ass premise of the book pictured above, brought to us by the author of the only-slightly-less-crazy Pride & Prejudice & Zombies.

The book takes the form of the journal of a man who finds (with a little help from a mysterious someone) another journal--one claiming that "Honest Abe" was also a prototypical vampire slayer (long before anyone named Buffy took up the mantel). 

So far, the book is, by turns, hilarious and horrifying. Which will win out? Only time and page-turning will tell. 

Either way, it's a nice way to warm up for Shocktober.

This Week's Travel Reading

A couple of weekends ago, I made my first sojourn back into Village Discount Outlet since the beginning of the pandemic. 

While I didn't find much to buy (and, in fact, had very little funding to spend), I did come out with the novel pictured above: A Star Trek: The Next Generation story written by popular comic book writer Peter David (who has worked on Hulk, Spider-Man and--surprise!--Star Trek, among many others) featuring as its main "villains" (if such a term applies to these two) not only the enigmatic Q (played with such relish on the series by John deLancie), but the equally powerful (and troublesome) Trulane, played with scenery-gnawing glee by William Campbell on the original Star Trek series. 

Q meets ProtoQ? And both facing off against the estimable Jean-Luc Picard? Color me there.

This Week's Travel Reading: Maybe(?) Shakespeare Edition

In 1728, a "new" play by William Shakespeare was published by one Lewis Theobald, entitled Double Falsehood, or the Distressed Lovers. It was based, in part, on Cervantes' Don Quixote (or, more specifically, the "Cardenio" section of that novel) and was allegedly co-written by Shakespeare's later writing partner, John Fletcher (who'd also co-authored The Two Noble Kinsmen and Henry the VIII). Theobald also claimed to have "adapted" the play for performance, adding yet another coat of rhetorical paint to Shakespeare's original work.

Most critics dismissed Theobald's claims as either theatrical ballyhoo (at best) or rank forgery and deception (at worst), especially when the warehouse where the alleged manuscripts were stored burned to the ground, taking the manuscripts with it to the ash bin.

Then, over 100 years later, something amazing happened: Evidence was found that there really had been a play called Cardenio, written by Shakespeare and Fletcher, performed in 1613.

So...was Theobald telling the truth? Was Double Falsehood really an adaptation of a lost Shakespeare/Fletcher collaboration?

Unless an actual manuscript turns up, we're not likely to know for sure. I read Double Falsehood back in college and thought, at the time, that there were Shakespearean aspects to the work. Now? I'm reading it again, nearly 40 years later, in a thoroughly annotated edition from Arden.

"The play's the thing..."

This Week's Travel Reading (Shocktober Edition)

This Week's Travel Reading (Shocktober Edition)

This Week's Travel Reading (Shocktober Edition)

I can't think of a better way to kick off the holiday month than with Stephen King's first novel: The story of Carrie White, a much-abused high school girl who, in addition to manifesting puberty, is also manifesting telekinetic powers. This? Will not end well. For anyone.

This Week's Travel Reading (Shocktober Edition)

It may seem odd for an adult to read a children's book on the train, but few books can get me in the mood for Halloween like Scary Godmother, a series of stories (both book-length and short) written and illustrated by Chicago's own Jill Thompson.

The first book, originally published in 1997, is the story of Hannah Marie, a little girl who's excited that she gets to dress up as a princess and head out for her first-ever night of trick-or-treating with the big kids. Less excited is her cousin, Jimmy, who'd much rather ditch Hannah and grab as much candy as his greedy little hands can hold.

Jimmy comes up with a nasty plan: Scare Hannah Marie so bad she'll run home early, leaving Jimmy and his friends plenty of time to hit every house in town. He takes her into an abandoned house and convinces the poor little girl that not only were the previous residents of the old house eaten by a monster in the basement, but that she will be as well unless she gives the monster candy.

Luckily for Hannah Marie, Scary Godmother and her friends--including a ghost cat, a skeleton, a very toothy, multi-eyed monster and several chatty bats--show the little girl that she has nothing to fear from Halloween. And Jimmy and his buddies? They don't fare as well: Not only do Scary Godmother and her friends deliver a solid fright to the naughty lads, but they wind up handing over just about all their candy to Hannah Marie!

Sure, these stories are fast reads, but it's a pleasure to go back and examine each illustration, just to catch all the funny, creepy details Thompson lovingly packs into each and every page of each and every story. Thompson clearly loves the holiday as much as I do--maybe more--and shares that love through her sweet, fun-loving witchy doppelganger.

This Week's Travel Reading (Shoctober Edition)

It wouldn't be a bad idea to read a novel from the Dresden Files series at any time, much less in Shocktober, since Harry Dresden, Chicago's resident wizard/private eye (think a cross between Harry Potter and Jim Rockford) is usually fighting monsters of one type or another. But since Cold Days mostly takes place on Halloween--which also happens Harry's birthday--it's especially appropriate.

Every Picture Tells a Story 1/31/14

Was It Rhymes with Lust the first graphic novel? There's a fair argument to be made for that claim. While other books before it had told their stories using just pictures, Lust spins its noirish narrative using much the same style as the crime comics of the late 1940s and aims its tale of power struggles, double crosses and plunging necklines squarely at adults.

It even uses Matt Baker, one of the first African-Americans to work in the comic book industry. He gained so much popularity and respect for his dynamic layouts and, particularly, his fine female figures that he was widely imitated, most especially by his employers at the Iger shop (making it difficult for nonexperts to discern which drawings are his and which belong to his more accomplished imitators). Lust is definitely Baker, though (with inks bay frequent partner Ray Osrin), and his style is well suited to the story of Rust Masson (whose name rhymes with...please go back and look at the title), who uses the occasion of her husband's death to grab his political machine and manipulate everyone around her.

The script, credited to Arnold Drake and Leslie Waller (under the pseudonym "Drake Waller"), aims for a tough, pulpy tone somewhere between James M. Cain and Raymond Chandler, but without Cain's depth of character or Chandler's snap of dialog. Still, it's a brisk read--and at least 20 years ahead of its time.

This Week's Travel Reading (Holidaze Edition)

This Week's Travel Reading (Shocktober Edition)

Ever since my friend Margo introduced me to The Dresden Files, Jim Butcher's supernatural mystery series set in my hometown, I've slowly but steadily chewed my way through the books and have now reached the seventh in the series, pictured above--which, appropriately enough, takes place right around Halloween.

And yes, that's an Elvira bookmark--don't judge me.

This Week's Travel Reading (Shocktober Edition)

While it's good to have a book devoted to Chicago's first official horror host, Mad Marvin (a.k.a. Terry Bennett), much of this territory was already covered in Chicago Horror Movie Shows: From Shock Theatre to Svengoolie by Ted Okuda and Mark Yurkiw.

Also, Don Glut includes a couple of huge factual errors--he claims the late Jerry G. Bishop "abandoned" his role as the original Svengoolie (if, by "abandoned," he means "was let go by WFLD and moved on to other things," then Glut is correct); and he claims the current Svengoolie, Rich Koz, has been at WFLD since 1979 (he was there for six-plus years, but was let go in 1986 and has been part of the WCIU family of stations since New Year's Eve 1994).

Still, Glut does bring a personal perspective to the topic. He saw the programs when they aired live in the late 1950s (no footage is known to exist) and met Terry Bennett and his wife, Joy. He also had access to various documents related to the show, so it's a somewhat more in-depth look than Chicago Horror Movie Shows provided.

This Week's Travel Reading

What better to read on a steamy, sticky summer morning than the story of hot and bothered doing things they know they really shouldn't do, but want to do anyway?