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Summer Reading Recommendations: Staff Picks

As promised, here are some recreational reading titles recommended by our staff reviewers. As always, make sure you know what you’re getting into. Not every book is a good fit for every reader. Just a note- Wrath James White is not for the weak of stomach.

Kirsten’s recommendations: Allison Hewitt Is Trapped by Madeleine Roux and Red Moon Rising by Peter Moore (YA), and the very funny Bad Kitty books by Nick Bruel (children’s)

Michele’s recommendations: The Snow Queen’s Shadow (Princess Novels, #4) by Jim Hines and Magic Slays (Kate Daniels, #5) by Ilona Andrews

Colleen’s recommendations: Blood & Gristle by Michael Louis Calvillo, Bone Marrow Stew by Tim Curran, and Skulls by Tim Marquitz (YA)

Brandi’s recommendations:  The Seance by John Harwood and The Crossroads by Chris Grabenstein (children’s)

Erik’s recommendations: The Templar Chronicles by Joseph Nassise, Wolf Hunt by Jeff Strand, and Resurrection by Tim Curran

Sheila’s recommendations: The Brain Eater’s Bible by J.D. McGhoul and Pat Kilbane (this has an iPad app as well), and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies– Dreadfully Ever After by Steve Hockensmith

David’s recommendations: Population Zero by Wrath James White and Fathers and Sons (Blackguard, #1) by Edward R. Morris (David also mentioned his own book, Hunting the Moon Tribe, which came out in April, but I’m sure there’s no self-interest there).

As always, not every book is appropriate for every reader.  We’ve reviewed some of these books here at MonsterLibrarian.com, but not all of them, so make sure you check to see that the book you are thinking of reading is really your cup of tea. Have a great summer reading, and check back later for more!

Summer Scares is here!

Perhaps you’ve used “I have no time” as your excuse for skipping over leisure reading this year. Well, it’s time for summer vacation (surely you have at least one day of leisure between now and Labor Day), so you can’t use that as an excuse now!

“But I’m out of touch,” you say. ” I don’t even know what’s out right now”! Lucky for you, MonsterLibrarian.com has teamed up with Spooky Reads, Horror World, Hellnotes, and the Horror Fiction Review to provide you with reviews of a whole bunch of possibilities as part of our Summer Scares project. Check it out, please- some awesome people put a lot of work into putting this project together.

So, find yourself a good book and do what our reviewer Sheila Shedd recommends. Find yourself an ocean view (or a mountain view), order a pizza, and kick back for some leisurely leisure reading.

Check back here later for some of our staff’s personal recommendations!

The Monster Mash(up)

Kudos to Booklist Onliine for including this article, Classic Monster Mash-ups as the topic of their May 15 Core Collection feature. (Core Collection, for those of you who are not librarians, means “you gotta have this one in your collection, NOW!)

Christine Meloni put together a nice introduction to the subgenre, with an annotated booklist of some of the better known books (she did note that some of them, like Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Slayer are not actually mash-ups. I was familiar with a lot of these but good Lord, someone out there really thinks Jane Austen and zombies are a rockin’ combination! I counted FIVE related books on Meloni’s list, and she didn’t even include the two sequels to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies!

My only quibble, and I mention this mainly because I’ve recently become sensitive to it, is that once again, these books are never described as horror fiction- they are “supernatural literary fiction”. You know, if a teenage boy picks up a book promising zombies and “ultraviolent mayhem”, it’s probably not because he cares about the literary value of the timeless romance between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. Outside of that, I really appreciated Meloni’s comments about monster mash-ups- that they can be fun and are worth reading. Thanks, Christine!