Free Comic Book Day!

Yesterday was Free Comic Book Day (1st Saturday in May), and to celebrate the occasion I went to Flying Colors Comics in Concord, CA (2980 Treat Blvd) (flyingcolorscomics.com). Besides being one of the best comic book stores in the Bay Area, it is also where Free Comic Book Day originated!

Here were my prizes for waiting in line for an hour:

Free pink lemonade by a Trader Joe's employee dressed as Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter


A photo of a guy in a pretty impressive Darth Vader costume (my oldest son now thinks I know the actual Darth Vader)


A free assortment of homemade cookies

An hour long conversation with few 5 star comic book readers. (*FYI- Unless you are at least a 3 star comic book reader, these conversations should be avoided.) Luckily, the conversation eventual shifted to the topic of Chinese urbanization. Though I did get some great recommendations on titles I should explore.

Autographs by several writers and authors that everyone in line seemed impressed with but I was clueless about. The one writer/artist I looked up that is pretty impressive is Gene Luen Yang (twitter @geneluenyang). He is the author of American Born Chinese (currently #31 on goodreads.com best graphic novels list http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/210.Best_Graphic_Novels#118944)

Additionally, he is the author of the Avatar: Last Airbender comic series and the graphic novels Boxers and Saints.


Finally, the comics. There were about 30 to choose from. We were allowed to pick 3. With my 3 picks and the 2 author signings I left with 5 in all. Some for me, some for my little ones.

Had to share this

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter the Movie

I went to the 9:45am (yes, am) showing of Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter in 3D and here are some notes I came away with.

Pros
- There were actually 5 other people in the audience
- Not the Godfather, but it was fun, lots of gore, big teeth, and presidential kung fu axe play
- The actor who plays Lincoln looks like a young Liam Neeson. That's more of an observation than a pro or con, but I like Liam Neeson, so I put it in this category

Cons
-Not surprising, but very different from the book
-Lots of new characters
-Left out the whole motivation of the Vampires for moving to America and seeking out a country of their own
-You do not need to see it in 3D.No special 3D scenes
-My favorite part about the book was that (besides the Vampire stuff) the book was historically accurate. There were just Vampire explanations to actual historical events. Definitely not the case in the movie.
-The ending is different!Another very cool thing I liked about the book was the end. There was no need to change it. Why they did, we may never know.
-There is no after-the-credits scene. Not a horrible thing, it was just annoying to sit through the credits.

My final recommendation, while the movie will probably win EVERY Razzie Award for 2012, it was still fun and worth seeing.

May Book of the Month: A Night of Horrors by John C. Berry

via goodreads.com A thriller about the 24 hours leading up to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. This tightly plotted novel captures the single day when John Booth and his conspirators plot to kill President, VP, and Secretary of State; the Cabinet plans a post-war US; and the Lincolns dream about their future. It builds to the simultaneous and brutal attacks that left lives shattered and a nation paralyzed. By the way, this is our first exclusively Kindle book. Hope that's a not the same as a "straight to video" movie. To be determined.

Hell Yes!

WMc's Summer Book List

Reposted from McMadness.com

I just finished a very disappointing book that was released last month--Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan.  It was touted by an author I generally enjoy as the "perfect summer read" on her blog.  I am a sucker for perfect summer reads, and I even pre-ordered the book and dug right in as soon as it arrived on my Kindle. It took me nearly a week to finish this book and I was left disappointed.  I found the characters mostly lacking positive attributes and I am still wondering about all of the loose ends the author failed to tie up.  I am annoyed that a week of summer reading was sacrificed to something so falsely advertised when I could have been spending my precious reading time with something better.

To counter my bitterness, I am posting my own summer reading list, with books that I would classify as "perfect summer reads."

Mammoth Cheese by Sheri Holoman.  Exactly what it sounds like.  Small town makes giant cheese for a cheese contest and has to transport it to be judged.  Well-written and hefty.  You will get lost in another world.  That is, unless you are a small town dairy-farmer, then it might hit a bit too close to home.

The Dirty Parts of the Bible by Sam Torode.  No, this is not Bible porn.  It's a whitty adventure story set in 1936 when 19-year-old Tobias is sent from Michigan to Texas to find a bag of money his father, a newly ousted baptist-pastor, hid many years ago as a teenager himself.  The characters are complex and fantastic in a way that cannot really be described.  I liked this book so much that I emailed the author after reading it. Bonus, it is only $2.99 for the Kindle Edition, although I would gladly pay more for it.

Angry Housewives Eating Bon-Bons by Lorna Landvick.  Women's literature at its finest.  This book completely enraptures you in its characters while touching on serious issues, spanning generations and having moments of all-out hilariousness.

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith.  Voted best book of the year for 2010 by my book club, which is saying a lot because it had a lot to compete with in 2010, including the book below.  Historically accurate with some vampire, it is a great balance of intellect and straight up fluff.  And I generally dislike vampire books.

The Hunger Games series by Susan Collins.  If you have not already jumped on the bandwagon, please do. You will not regret it.  And no, it is nothing like the Twilight series which I could never understand the hype behind.  See comment above regarding my general feelings on vampire books.

Books on my summer reading list include (note, the large amount of Young Adult science fiction/adventure is due in large part to the current obsession of the genre by many of my coworkers, whom I get a lot of my book recommendations from.  Lawyers reading teenager books en masse.  We all get our brain breaks somehow.):

• Switched and the next two books in the Trylle trilogy by Amanda Hocking
• Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winslow  
• The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown
• Matched by Allie Condie
• Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner (available July 12, 2011)
• Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok

Book of the Year Award 2010

After a very close vote...the winner of the 2010 Pleasant Hill Book Club Best Book of the Year Award goes to...

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter!



The winner for Worst Book of the Year was Watership Down. Kind of sad that it has to be placed in such bad company, but it just goes to show how good a book year it was for the club for a book like Watership Down to be the worst.

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith

Never have I been so excited to read a book and never has a book so fulfilled my expectations. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is quite possibly the most unique, interesting and inspiring books ever written. Author Seth Grahame-Smith (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) has written a book for the ages. Surely this book will make the next “100 Best Books” list.

Abraham Lincoln:Vampire Hunter is so fiercely and unapologetically absurd it is beautiful. Logic may say that surely our 16th president was not a vampire hunter but this book will never let on. The book opens with a list of “facts” you should know before reading. Fact 2; “Abraham Lincoln was one of the gifted vampire hunters of his day.” There are other great statements of “fact” in the book. For example the book mentions how there is no evidence that Stephen Davis knew of the vampires’ master plan only that he was associates with their conspirators. The book also includes historical photographs and pictures documenting Lincoln’s history of vampire hunting.

In addition to these historical “facts”, the story is quite cleverly entwined with Lincoln’s and our nation’s real history. This includes his term in the House of Representatives, his presidency, the Civil War, and his assassination. In fact if you ignore all of the vampire stuff, the book is a pretty decent biography of Lincoln’s life.

Probably the best part about reading this book is the reaction you get from others when they see you with it. If you read on BART, don’t be surprised if you start finding open seats around you. Conversely, do not be surprised if you have to start carrying around a pen and paper to keep track of all the people who you want to borrow the book after you’ve read it (personally, my list is up to seven). And if you read this around middle school or high school aged children, be prepared for some of the most confused looks you will ever see in your life.

I cannot say enough about this book. This is the most fun you’ll have reading since...ever. Nothing I have read compares.