Kelly's Big Score: Leaning Tower o' Paperbacks Edition

So today was the annual L.A. Vintage Paperback Show. I had a blast and came home with:

The Scarf - Robert Bloch
The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World and No Doors, No Windows - Harlan Ellison
Swamp Sister - Robert Edmond Alter
Seconds - David Ely
The Screaming Mimi - Frederic Brown
Nero, Butcher of Rome - Ernst Eckstein
The Drowner - John D. MacDonald
Lilith - George MacDonald
The Light at the End - John Skipp and Craig Spector
The Magic Christian - Terry Southern
The Butterfly - James M. Cain
Fireworks - Jim Thompson
The Terrorizers, The Annihilators, The Threateners, The Demolishers - Donald Hamilton (only three more books and I'll have the entire Matt Helm series!)

And lastly, a bunch of gothics, all featuring covers with illustrations of women in their nighties fleeing creepy old houses, with titles like The Rose Window and The House on Rainbow Leap.

Kelly's Big Score: Christmas Can't Be Far Away Edition

Well, this weekend was time for our annual jaunt up to Solvang for the Julefest parade and a whole lot of shopping and eating. Didn't go too crazy at The Book Loft this year, but did come home with:

• A Scot Ties the Knot - Tessa Dare
• Perchance to Dream: Short Stories - Charles Beaumont

Some of you may be unfamiliar with the name Charles Beaumont, but you should recognize his work - he was a writer for The Twilight Zone, for which he adapted a number of his short stories.

Book recommendation: If I Go by Diane Molberg

If you enjoy coming-of-age novels with well-written characters, may I recommend If I Go by Diane Molberg?

Here's my review from the book's Amazon page:

Diane Molberg's debut novel is an excellent coming-of-age story, reminiscent of Larry McMurtry's The Last Picture Show. Young Buck Malone wants to be a writer, an ambition his friends don't understand and his family doesn't support. One night, in the local drugstore, he sees a woman who's been beaten; she is Pauline, and soon she and Buck enter into a relationship that will change both of their lives, and the lives of Buck's friends Lorrie and Ray.

Molberg has a deep understanding of her characters, who are always engaging and sympathetic even when they flounder looking for direction in their lives; she has a deft way with location as well, taking the reader from a small Colorado town that's airy yet stifling to the fog-shrouded hills and smoky jazz clubs of San Francisco.

Highly recommended!

If I Go is available in both print and ebook.

Kelly's Big Score: V is for Vintage Edition

Well, today I went to the Los Angeles Vintage Paperback Collectors Show, and I may have bought a few too many books. I know you're all shocked at this turn of events.

I found some excellent treasures as well as some interesting oddities. Probably my biggest coup was finding ten (count 'em, TEN) more books in Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm series. This excellent spy series is out of print and books can be fairly difficult to find, so I'm particularly pleased.

The total haul consists of:

Donald Hamilton - The Terminators, The Detanators, The Menacers, The Intriguers, The Betrayers, The Poisoners, The Shadowers, The Devastators, The Ravagers, The Ambushers, Assassins Have Starry Eyes, Murder Twice Told, Line of Fire

Fredric Brown - The Screaming Mimi

Harlan Ellison - Paingod, Ellison Wonderland

Jeffrey Konvitz - The Sentinel

William Goldman - The Temple of Gold, No Way to Treat a Lady

Cornel Woolrich - The Bride Wore Black

Hugh Zachary - Gwen In Green

Gimone Hall - Witch's Suckling

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro - Dead and Buried

Kelly's Big Score: Hot Fun in the Summertime Edition

Roadtripped up to (you guessed it) Solvang the other day and visited, among other places, The Book Loft and Martin's Used Books. I came home with:

• The Scandalous Adventures of the Sister of the Bride by Victoria Alexander
• The Hero by Robyn Carr
• My Sweet Audrina by V. C. Andrews
• Blood and Beauty by Sarah Dunant
• The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith
• The Fault In Our Stars by John Green (I know, I'm the last person to get around to reading this)

Full bookshelves are happy bookshelves!

In praise of vintage paperbacks

I'm currently reading Murderers' Row by Donald Hamilton, book 5 in his Matt Helm series. The series is, sadly, long out of print, and my copy is a vintage paperback from 1962, complete with cheesy illustrated cover and a retail price of 40 cents.

One of the great joys I experience when I go to a used bookstore is pawing through the vintage paperbacks. Depending on the store, the vintage ones are mixed in with the ordinary used books, but at the store where I bought Murderers' Row, most of the vintage paperbacks were tucked off in a little hallway (the bookstore, Bart's Books in Ojai, is converted from an old house).

I'm used to the sideways head-tilt needed to scan the shelves, but these books were at the end of a hallway so narrow and dim that I had to pull the books off the shelf to get a look at them. The protective plastic they were wrapped in made a quick scan of titles impossible, and some shelves were so high that I had to ask a bookstore employee for a stepladder. Then came the task of going through all the paperbacks, looking for hidden treasure. Had to take it one by one, my hands getting dustier and dustier, because the order of the books was only somewhat alphabetical.

(Not to be a book snob, but I think was a"men from the boys" level of effort.)

You find all sorts of oddities in vintage paperbacks. Everything from delightfully (and probably deservedly) obscure trash to classics marketed in strange ways. I was on a quest specifically for Matt Helm books, as I adore the series (do not be misled by the Dean Martin movie adaptations; the books are gritty, grim secret agent fare), and the books are not easy to find.

Perseverance paid off. I was dusty and filthy-handed, and had a copy of Murderers' Row. Yes, I could  have gotten it online, for less effort and possibly less money. But there's something about the vintage paperback treasure hunt that's so sweet.

Kelly's Really Big Score: Take It Out In Trade edition

Road-tripped up to Ojai and to Bart's Books. I must say that it was the perfect day for such a trip. Sunny day, mid-seventies, and the hills of Ojai were still spring-green and the wild mustard was in bloom.

I took a bunch of books in to trade, and with the store credit I was able to get:

• Louis Bayard - The Black Tower
• Kate Atkinson - Case Histories
• Leo Tolstoy - Anna Karenina
• Bruce Felton and Mark Fowler - The Best, Worst, and Most Unusual
• Colleen McCullough - The First Man in Rome
• T. C. Boyle - The Road to Wellville
• Marilyn French - The Women's Room
• Tim O'Brien - The Things They Carried
• Alexandra LaPierre - Artemisia
• Christina Stead - The Man Who Loved Children
• Joe R. Lansdale - Lost Echoes
• Jose Saramago - Blindness
• Thomas Tryon - The Other
• Clive Barker - Cabal
• Robert Stone - Dog Soldiers
• Donald Hamilton - Murderers' Row
• William Howard - "Gore Vidal's Caligula"

I am particularly happy with the Best, Worst, and Most Unusual and the Murderers' Row finds. The former is a trivia book that's from the late 1970s, and I still remember checking it out of the local library when I was a kid and learning about everything from how awful a durian is to some examples of really off-the-wall architecture. The latter is from Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm series, which are long out of print but which are great reading, and a heavy influence on my Ashes series.

I make no apologies for the last book on the list - it's a novelization of the terrible movie made from Gore Vidal's screenplay for Caligula. I'm sure it's no good but I must have it on my shelf and it was only $2. So there.

Kelly's Big Score: More Gelato, Please Edition

As if the L.A. Times Festival of Books wasn't awesome enough on its own, now they've added food trucks! The gelato truck was a particular favorite.

I also attended a romance novel panel that featured Tessa Dare, author of A Week to be Wicked and Any Duchess Will Do, both very enjoyable reads.

And of course I did a bit of book shopping. Had to limit myself as I'm on a budget, but came home with:

The Chaperone - Laura Moriarty

The Hunger and the Howling of Killian Lone - Will Storr

Zero Hour and other stories - Illustrated by Jack Kamen

Hope everyone who goes to the festival has a good time!

Kelly's Big Score: Pancakes and Wine Edition

Made a dash up to Solvang this past weekend, and in between wine tasting and pancake consumption I found time to buy some books from The Book Loft and Martin's Used Books. Came home with:

Wayne of Gotham - Tracy Hickman

The Painted Girls - Cathy Marie Buchanan

Freedomland - Richard Price

Twice Loved - LaVyrle Spencer

Petals on the Wind - V. C. Andrews

OK, that last one is a little iffy but the The Complete V. C. Andrews Blog-o-Rama's recent recap of Petals got me interested in re-reading it. I somehow suspect it won't hold up well…

Kelly's Big Score: I'm All Out of Candy Canes Edition

Between presents and gift cards, I have now acquired the following books:

Doctor Sleep - Stephen King

Feet of Clay - Terry Pratchett

Deadly Heat - Richard Castle

A Lady by Midnight - Tessa Dare

Williams-Sonoma Essentials of Italian

Kelly's Big Score: O Tannenbaum Edition

Made our annual Christmas trip to Solvang this past weekend, and of course I had to visit my favorite indie bookstore, The Book Loft. I came home with:

• The Unfaithful Queen - Carolly Erickson
• San Miguel - TC Boyle
• A Dark Dividing - Sarah Rayne

Looks like some good reading ahead!

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Kelly's big score: Book Ziggurat Edition

I've acquired quite a pile of books in the last few weeks. Some were purchased at The Book Loft in Solvang, some were a gift from my buddy A. J., and some were a prize in a Twitter contest held by Alfred A. Knopf publishers.

So here's the total stack:

• The Silent Wife - A.S.A. Harrison
• The Inquisitor's Wife - Jeanne Kalogridis
• Cold Light - Jenn Ashworth
• The Night Country - Stewart O'Nan
• Bones of the Moon - Jonathan Carroll
• The Most of Nora Ephron
• The Wolves of Midwinter - Anne Rice
• Longbourn - Jo Baker
• The Lowland - Jhumpa Lahiri
• Levels of Life - Julian Barnes
• Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin - Jill Lepore

Talk about being spoiled for choice!

Kelly's Big Score: Back to the Beach edition

Road-tripped up to El Capitan State Beach yesterday (more on this soon) where I spent the day walking nature trails and lolling on the beach. About 3 p.m., when the breeze cooled things down and the marine layer started rolling in, I recalled that there is a used book store not far away in Ojai. It was on the way home with a small detour, so I went, and thank goodness I did.

Bart's Books is an outdoor store with labyrinthine shelves that have so many nooks and crannies you'd need all day to peruse the shelves thoroughly. I didn't have all day, but I was able to come home with:

• Control - William Goldman (got two copies, actually, one for me and one for my buddy A.J.)
• Shardik - Richard Adams
• The Mouse That Roared - Leonard Wibberley
• Damage - Josephine Hart
• Deliverance - James Dickey
• I the Jury/My Gun is Quick/Vengeance is Mine! - Mickey Spillane

I foresee another road trip soon to see the rest of what this store has to offer.

Books read in 2013: July

Sort of an odd month for reading. Had some trouble getting into books (I chalk it up to being distracted by Comic-Con), but here's the tally for July:

• Karen White - Sea Change
• Justin Cronin - The Passage
• Richard Castle - Frozen Heat
• John D. MacDonald - The Scarlet Ruse

Frozen Heat was a pleasant surprise - the Castle tie-ins are turning into real books. The Scarlet Ruse was also a bit surprising (refreshing to see a female character who is not swept off her feet by McGee).

Currently reading The Serpent and the Pearl by Kate Quinn (I've enjoyed all her Rome books so I'm looking forward to this). And I just received as a belated birthday present Amy Sedaris' I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence.

Kelly's Big Score: Comic-Con 2013 edition

Bought a bunch of books at Comic-Con this year, which made my suitcase really heavy to drag back. But it was worth it, as I brought home:

• Some of Your Blood - Theodore Sturgeon
• Psycho - Robert Bloch
• Volume 4 of Dark Horse's Crime Does Not Pay crime comics collection
• 50 Girls 50 and other stories illustrated by Al Williamson

I also got a novelization of the film All That Jazz and a graphic novel adaptation of Something Wicked This Way Comes, plus a HALO encyclopedia for my son.

I just want to give a shout-out to William Wu Books, from whom I got many of these books. It's a great source for collectible and hard-to-find SF, fantasy, and other kinds of books. Check out the wares and tell them I sent you.

Kelly's Big Score: Festival of Books 2013 edition

Now that was a splendid day at the Festival of Books. Went to a panel to see Margaret Atwood, who then signed my copy of Cat's Eye (hope she didn't notice that the book is falling to pieces, I've had it so long). Hung around with my friend Karen and many more of my book brethren, and had some yummy food truck eats.

And it wouldn't be a Festival without buying some books, now would it? Picked up:

Lost and Fondue - Avery Aames

A Spy in the House of Love - Anais Nin

The Light Between Oceans - M. L. Stedman

The Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones - Jack Wolf

T'aint The Meat, It's the Humanity (Jack Davis EC stories)

Also got some writer pins for the fangirl jacket (Ray Bradbury, Edgar Allan Poe, and Ernest Hemingway).

Kelly's Big Score: Blustery Day Edition

While on Spring Break in the cold, windswept Outer Banks (isn't Spring Break supposed to be warm?) I swung by Island Bookstore in Kitty Hawk and got:

Web of the City - Harlan Ellison (this is Harlan's book he wrote after going undercover in a Brooklyn street gang in the 1950s)

Blandings Castle - P. G. Wodehouse (I only have one more Jeeves novel left that I haven't read, and hope the Blandings books are as good)

Kelly's Big Score: A Little Business, A Little Pleasure Edition

Went up the coast to talk to a few bookstores about stocking my novel Ashes. While I was there I picked up:

Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn

The Madman's Daughter - Megan Sheperd

Sacre Bleu - Christopher Moore

Safe Haven - Nicholas Sparks

And a couple of vintage paperbacks - Splinter of the Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster and The Jaws Log by Carl Gottlieb.

I think I should have plenty to read for vacation later this month...

Passing the book love on

My brother-in-law always gets us books for Christmas - so this year I asked if he would get my son a set of Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain. This five-book series is a perfect introduction to the fantasy genre, or a good lateral move if your kid (like mine) has already gotten his feet wet with Tolkien.

Based heavily off Welsh mythology, the Prydain books are now in a nice new boxed edition. My son has started on the first book, titled The Book of Three, and is loving it so far. I try not to push books I liked as a child onto my kid, seeing as we're different people with different tastes. I do try to gently nudge, though, and this time the nudging paid off.