CBR Book#42: Blood Lite edited by Kevin J. Anderson

I picked this collection of short stories up while browsing the library. I was looking for something that would keep my attention, which has been all ADHD lately. I blame...something besides myself. Anyway, this was a collection of horror stories that are humorous instead of scary. Stories were included from Charlaine Harris, Kelley Armstrong, and Jim Butcher, as well as others. (Also, I apologize for the spottiness of this review. I returned the book to the library before I wrote this review, which is not what I usually do. My bad.)

Freak Out! or Why I Haven't Had A New Book Review

I have been laboring, and yes, that is the correct word, to finish what would be my 42nd book for the Cannonball Read. I'm so very picky about what I'll read and I'm very bad at choosing books at random from the library. So, I picked up a book that I've been avoiding since it was released in 2002: Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper Case Closed by Patricia Cornwell. Why was I avoiding it? Well, Cornwell is a writer of the fictional Dr. Kay Scarpetta novels, former journalist, and former tech writer and computer analyst for a medical examiner's office. She does not have a degree in forensics, law, or anything else related to law enforcement and/or forensic investigations. Yet, she claims that she alone has been able to uncover and follow clues that once and for all tell us the identity of Jack the Ripper. (I would just like to mention that I accidentally wrote 'Jack' as 'Hack'. Sort of telling, eh?)

Cornwell has decided that famous artist Walter Richard Sickert was Jack the Ripper. She bases this on his paintings, which depict scenes of women in precarious situations. One such painting is called Ennui. In it, a bored looking man and woman are in a room. The woman is looking forlornly at something on a table, possibly birds or something under glass, and the man is sitting in a chair with a surly expression. On their wall is a painting of a woman, possibly a diva. There is a white smudge just over one of her shoulders, standing out in the darkness. Cornwell has decided that this white smudge is a man and that the man is about to murder the woman. I wish I were making this up.

Further damning this book in my opinion is the way that Cornwell relays information that is circumstantial at best but then begins to incorporate it as if it is fact. At one point she tells us about the "ha ha ha" used in some of the Ripper letters. Cornwell then alerts us that Sickert would have used this because he was an apprentice to a famous American artist that laughed like that. Then there is the use of the word 'fools' in the Ripper letters which, she tells us, was a favorite word of Sickert and his father. As if there is no one else that used the word fools? As if there is no one else that would write out "ha" in the late 1800s?

I can't finish this book. It travels in circles unrelated to Sickert and then comes back to the starting point, which is that Cornwell had become obsessed with the artist and wanted him to be the murderer. Maybe he is, maybe not. Probably not. Most telling of all is this quote from the book and Cornwell herself: "But when one works hard and begins to know what to look for, the unusual turns up...". Yes. If you look for something hard enough, you are bound to find it. Whether it is really there or not.

CBR Book#41: Creepers by David Morrell

I picked up this book after seeing the author's name on the back cover of another book I was considering borrowing. The title Creepers sounded promising and the cover looked decent enough. The synopsis sounded intriguing as well. A group of "urban explorers", aka creepers, aka "people that go into abandoned buildings and look at stuff" decide to enter the Paragon Hotel in Asbury Park. The long abandoned hotel was built by an agoraphobic hemophiliac (I KNOW) named Morgan Carlisle in 1901. The hotel was very specifically built to resemble a pyramid and had furnishings of the Victorian era throughout its rooms. The creepers consist of Professor Robert Conklin and his former students, married couple Cora and Rick Magill, and Vincent Vanelli. They are joined by reporter Frank Balenger, who wishes to write a story about the unusual hobby of creepers. The creepers enter the hotel and find that they are not alone.

CBR Book#40: Practical Demonkeeping by Christopher Moore

Travis is a demonkeeper. Catch is his demon. Well, not really his demon, but Travis does have control over Catch. Well, not really control, as in all of the time. Sometimes. When Travis is trying. And sometimes not. Anyway, Travis and Catch have been together for seventy years. That's a lot of time spent trying to keep the demon from eating people.

CBR Book#39: The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

Sometimes when I'm reading, I can feel an invisible wall between myself and the end of the book. I push against it with the words that I read and the pages that I turn, only to feel it become tiring in a way that makes me want to exert myself even more. The ending is so sought after that I have difficulty reading. I want to see the threads joined together. I want to know that I've read what I think I've read. I want to know that I've seen what I should have seen. The Blind Assassin is a book that pushed me in this way.

CBR Book#38: Fragile Things:Short Fictions and Wonders by Neil Gaiman

As I've said before, I've resisted Gaiman because he comes highly recommended and praised, and I'm usually disappointed by the build-up and high expectations of others. In Gaiman's case, the praise is actually deserving and I'm glad that I've begun to read his works. My first brush with him was the short story "Bitter Grounds" in the short story collection The Living Dead. The story intrigued me, but left me a little confused but satisfied. That same story in included in this collection and allowed me to read it apart from so many other 'zombie' stories, making me see it more clearly and appreciate it more. It works beautifully on its own and added even more to the collection than I could have discerned before.

CBR Book#37: Horns by Joe Hill

(Just a note to say that I didn't give up on the CBR. I just tried to be like gp and read outside of my comfort zone. It was a complete failure. So I went back to what I like.)

Ignatius "Ig" Perrish has been in love with Merrin Williams since he was 15 years old. They met in church when Merrin used her cross necklace to flash light in Ig's eyes. That was also the first time that Ig ever saw his future best friend Lee Tourneau. Both boys are smitten with the flame-haired Merrin, but it is Ig that she wants.