Home » Posts tagged "Weightless Books"

Holiday Gifts for Horror Readers

December is zooming along. If you haven’t already started shopping for the horror readers in your life, now is a great time to start.

So, what to give? Well, you could start out by setting the scene. The perfect Christmas here involves Christmas carols playing,  a nice cup of hot chocolate,  a fire in the fireplace, and a big fuzzy blanket to curl up in while watching Christmas specials and reading.

 

Metal X-Mas (2CD Special Edition). Okay, maybe this isn’t the most relaxing recording of Christmas music ever, and I have to admit that I have not listened to every song, but it’s totally worth it just to hear Alice Cooper sing a Christmas carol.

 

McSteven’s Haunted! Spiced Hot Chocolate. This would make a perfect stocking stuffer. McSteven’s sells their hot chocolate in little tins and has different ones for various special occasions. They also have a Halloweenville gift set with three kinds of holiday hot chocolate and a Vampire’s Brew that comes in a coffin shaped container. Haunted hot chocolate is good enough for me, though, especially if it’s got a bit of a kick.

Nightmare Before Christmas Blanket with Sleeves – Fleece Comfy Throw. There are a million different fleece blankets out there and you certainly don’t have to choose this particular one. I saw a purple one with zebra stripes that looked fun. But running with the theme of Christmas and horror it’s hard to find a better fit. I like the ones with sleeves because they keep your arms warm and I get really cold very easily. You’ll have to come up with a pillow on your own.

 

 

Christmas Classics  DVD Gift Set, with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town.

Grown-up horror lovers may think they’ve grown out of the Rankin-Bass Christmas specials, but the Abominable Snowman in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the Winter Warlock in Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town are scary enough that my kids ran out of the room when they first saw them. They really are scary, and they take you back to that time when it didn’t take Black Christmas to give you a scare. Also, no holiday season is really complete without them. Admit it. I don’t think I would give this just on its own to a horror lover, but if you’re putting together a holiday package, I think it would make a nice addition to the mix, and it’s family friendly.

Weightless Books

(e)Books That Don’t Weigh You Down
There are all kinds of horror readers. Some are collectors, some love their ratty paperback copies. Some devour ebooks, and some are horrified by them. Luckily, there are all kinds of books and magazines out there to read as well. I’m going to assume that ravenous ebook readers already have their e-readers, and just say that, while I love my Kindle Touch (which apparently isn’t available from Amazon anymore), if you know the one you love does more than read novels and is seeking a new one,  the Kindle Fire HD looks pretty awesome, and has gotten good reviews.I am, however, philosophically opposed to the imposition of DRM on my ebooks. If I buy it, then it ought to be mine, to take where I please, not “licensed” to me by Amazon or a publisher. So I am a fan of sites that offer DRM free ebooks, and my favorite is Weightless Books, owned by Kelly Link and Gavin Grant. They will sell you a DRM-free ebook that you can then download to whatever devices you have in whatever format you need it, with only the request that you not share it out with your friends but rather encourage them to purchase the books (or magazine subscriptions) that you have purchased from them.  They offer a lot of speculative fiction from independent presses and subscriptions to Apex, Nightmare, Weird Tales, and Innsmouth Magazine, which are delivered directly to your e-reader in your requested format. I love getting to support an independent store, and so I suggest that a gift certificate to Weightless Books would be a great gift for a reader interested in exploring new and interesting ways of looking at things (mostly through fiction). 

Cemetery Dance Publications   

 

Or, you can purchase directly from a small press. There are some fantastic titles out there that are not available anywhere else.  One of the better known independent presses is Cemetery Dance. Cemetery Dance publishes a magazine with horror fiction, art, and author interviews, but it’s best known for its quality limited editions. These are expensive, but often the material isn’t available anywhere else, and the books are usually completely gorgeous. If you really want to show your love, you could sign someone up for the Cemetery Dance Book Club. Dark Regions Press also publishes quality dark fiction in limited editions, as well as a variety of other formats. Dark Regions just had a kickstarter to fund publication for the second title in a new imprint, Black Labyrinth, which will be a series of novellas that sound like they will be gorgeously illustrated. You can find links to these presses and other small presses in the links over to the right, if you scroll down.

I hope that helps you with your shopping, if you aren’t done already (and I am a last minute shopper, myself). Have a great time picking out just the right gift for the horror lover in your life, and may you have happy holidays this year!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kelly Link, Small Beer Press, and Weightless Books

Kelly Link is one of the most original writers I have come across in many many years of reading all kinds of things. She started out writing for small press, and in the past few years had a collection of short stories for teens, called Pretty Monsters, published by Penguin, and reviewed here. I first discovered her work when I was looking for books published by Shaun Tan (I had just experienced his graphic tale, The Arrival) and once I started reading, I couldn’t stop with just one story. I told everyone who would listen to me about the book, and was very excited to have the opportunity to interview her last summer when the paperback edition of Pretty Monsters came out.

Pretty Monsters was not her first book. Stranger Things Happen, her first full length collection, was published in the small press, by Small Beer Press, in 2001. This is the book Karen Russell described and read from on NPR recently (here’s a  link to Karen Russell’s introduction. If you’d like to listen to her read from the book, you can do that from this page too). Karen claimed that Kelly’s work transcends a librarian’s ability to catalog it. Which is nonsense. To quote one of my favorite essays “Librarians can catalog anything… They can even catalog you.” Even though we can (and do) catalog Kelly’s work, though, she is an amazing, boundary-defying writer. In addition to writing, she also is a college professor, and runs both a zine (Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet) and Small Beer Press, with her husband, Gavin J. Grant.

When I learned about the story on NPR, I was inspired to revisit Kelly’s website, where I learned that Kelly and Gavin had published an ebook called Sea, Ship, Mountain, Sky. A new book I could try… I had to find it. A link sent me to Weightless Books, which I had never heard of. But it’s a pretty neat place! It’s a small, independent online bookstore, and it provides an opportunity for writers to publish things that don’t fall into established categories, for small presses to make their works available, and for readers to acquire DRM-free ebooks that can be downloaded in a variety of formats to a variety of devices. Weightless Books does appear to be selective about the authors and publishers they will accept, but also appears to be slowly expanding its offerings, and many of their titles fall into genres such as science fiction, fantasy, speculative fiction and, yes, horror. It’s an interesting place to explore, and I encourage you to check it out. I think Sea, Ship, Mountain, Sky is a fantastic story,  and I like the philosophy behind the site. Amazon.com is well-known, and library wholesalers capture a significant chunk of the library market. Places like Weightless Books will make it possible to fill in gaps for audiences who want to read interesting authors and books from interesting presses, that aren’t available easily in any other way.

Once again, Kelly, and Gavin J. Grant (who runs the site) rock.