Did you hear the one about LOLITA’s pedophiliac Humbert Humbert being confronted by DATELINE’s “To Catch a Predator” segment? If not, consult THE MCSWEENEY’S JOKE BOOK OF BOOK JOKES pronto. This slim but satisfying anthology pokes a number of holes into the often-inflated world of self-important literature and writing with dozens of brief biting bits.

From the start – namely, the introduction by John Hodgman – you can tell you’re in for a good time. “It is hilarious that Herman Melville wrote MOBY-DICK,” he writes. “It is hilarious that it has a tattooed cannibal in it named ‘Queequeg’ and also a guy with a peg leg, and what’s more, it’s GODDAMNED TITLE IS MOBY-DICK. Priceless. I know, as we all do, that MOBY-DICK is hilarious, and I HAVEN’T EVEN READ IT.”

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Because time isn’t always kind: economic reviews in a world full of waste!

About all I remember from the 1983 miniseries V of my childhood: 1) Faye Grant looked hot, 2) Freddy Krueger was in it, and 3) that lizard baby. V’s writer/director Kenneth Johnson revisits the loose ends of the resulting 1984 weekly series with the novel V: THE SECOND GENERATION. The reptilian alien “Visitors” have wrestled control of Earth by tricking its residents, except for the small splinter group of resistance fighters. Your enjoyment will help tremendously if you’ve revisited V on DVD, as several characters and storylines either are referenced or still in play. Everyone else may be working at a disadvantage, and may be better suited to awaiting the eventual screen adaptation, even if Johnson’s ever-thriving imagination is still in full force.

For THE FORTUNE COOKIE CHRONICLES: ADVENTURES IN THE WORLD OF CHINESE FOOD, Jennifer 8. Lee traveled the globe to find the very best Chinese restaurant. I won’t spoil the surprising winner for you, but the real charm of the book comes in the other chapters, in which she laments the dangers of being a Chinese food deliveryman, explores the origins of chop suey, visits the manufacturers of those white takeout boxes (a wholly American thing, by the way) and recounts a 2005 Powerball mishap when there were more payouts than usual because a fortune cookie string of lucky numbers actually was. Lee writes so friendly, you want to take her out for a bowl of hot-and-sour soup. This engaging buffet of travel, history and popular culture will put a smile on your face and a pang in your stomach. And no MSG!

Gonzo cruciverbalist Ben Tausig attempts to hook kids into pencil games instead of video games with MAD TAUSIG VS THE INTERPLANETARY PUZZLING PEACE PATROL. You’re supposed to stop madman Mad Tausig by doing crosswords, cracking codes, unscrambling words and tackling a variety of logic, word and other puzzles. The quasi-mystery is a lot of fun, with something to do on every page, and the cartoony illustrations by Goopymart – an alias, I’m assuming – help make the book irresistible. Buy one for your kids … and one for yourself. It’s not the most fiendishly clever puzzle book out there – that’d be Lemony Snicket’s THE PUZZLING PUZZLES – but it’s darn close.

The whole of our country’s cinema criticism is chronicled in AMERICAN MOVIE CRITICS: AN ANTHOLOGY FROM THE SILENTS UNTIL NOW – EXPANDED EDITION, edited by Phillip Lopate. Among its earliest entries are poet Carl Sandburg’s awkwardly phrased reviews (”Then it is for you this Caligari and his cabinet”) and Cecilia Ager’s take on KING KONG, which focuses solely on Fay Wray. Film criticism got better as the decades progressed, as Jonas Mekas’ all-question review of Andy Warhol’s SLEEP shows, or the rightfully praised works of Andrew Sarris, Pauline Kael and Vincent Canby. More recent pieces of note include J. Hoberman’s bad movies essay/tribute and screenwriter Paul Rudnick’s take on DANCES WITH WOLVES, albeit under the satricial guise of Libby Gelman-Waxner, the über-yuppie columnist from the late Premiere magazine. At more than 750 pages, there’s a wealth of material here for serious film enthusiasts.

THIS MAY HELP YOU UNDERSTAND THE WORLD, goes Lawrence Potter’s slim little volume, which serves as an FAQ for this current crazed earth of ours. It seeks to tackle – through both commentary and good ol’ hard facts – many of the trickiest hot-button issues of today, including “Is Bush actually stupid?,” “Is it possible that global warming is not taking place?” and “What is Iran up to?” (The short answers, respectively: His IQ equals John F. Kennedy’s, not likely, it ain’t pleasant.) Chapters are divided amongst topics like China, Darfur and Russia. That Potter offers concise, easy-to-follow explanations justifies the book’s title; unfortunately, those in most need of knowing the answers may not even care.

‘Tis easy to see why they call New York “the city that never sleeps”: Because when you have a thousand-plus-page book like WRITING NEW YORK: A LITERARY ANTHOLOGY, you’d better be planning on some long nights. Edited by Phillip Lopate, the book originally was published in 1998, but this 10th-anniversary edition from Library of America is much more relevant with the inclusion of post-9/11 material, like a chilling excerpt from Don DeLillo’s FALLING MAN novel. A wealth of classic writers are here – F. Scott Fitzgerald, William S. Burroughs, Henry Miller, Edgar Allan Poe, Tom Wolfe, O. Henry – paying tribute to (and sometimes knocking) the Big Apple. If you’re a fan of the metropolis, or a New Yorker subscriber, this belongs on your bedside table. –Rod Lott

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In a world where the Goldman family is now making money (and taking writing credit for) O.J. Simpson’s tasteless IF I DID IT book, and where the Kindle and the iPhone have made the media act like giddy schoolgirls, we at least have the solidity of BOOKGASM, presenting good (and bad) books for us to read on a daily basis. So let’s take a look back through 2007 and pick out the best of the titles you may want to pick up with all the gift cards you got this season.

Best Books I Reviewed in 2007
So what piqued my interest in 2007? We’ll start with the fabulous debut of Lisa Unger in BEAUTIFUL LIES. Truly remarkable were her entirely believable characters, who actually behaved like normal folk when dealing with the police instead of the intensely idiotic morons we are normally used to reading about. It was also highly evocative of New York City – not just using the city as a crutch, but really writing about it.

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One reason I started BOOKGASM was to keep a record of everything I read, because when you consume more than 100 books a year, one can no longer rely on memory alone. But if I didn’t have BOOKGASM, I would utilize something like READ, REMEMBER, RECOMMEND, created by Rachelle Rogers Knight.

This spiral-bound reading journal would make a perfect gift for any hardcore bibliophile on your list, with nearly 250 pages of section to help keep reading material straight, separated with handy, full-color, recipe-tabbed section breaks.

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Michael Dirda is a book critic after my own heart. In his one-hair-shy-of-joyous tour of lit CLASSICS FOR PLEASURE, he sympathizes with the commonly held view that classics are “difficult, esoteric, and a little boring. … Really, after a hard day’s work, who wants to settle down with more … work?”

Exactly. But some classics aren’t work. Some can be enjoyed as much as a speedily paced thriller. Heck, some could be classified as speedily paced thrillers, at least comparatively for their time. And it’s these enduring books that Dirda revisits, hoping to introduce old-tome-shy readers to new-for-them stories, like BEOWULF, Jules Verne’s TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA and Philip K. Dick’s THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE.

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Because time isn’t always kind: economic reviews in a world full of waste!

Michael Chabon is an excellent writer. I loved THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY so much that it immediately landed on my all-time top five, only to be rewarded with a well-deserved Pulitzer Prize not long after. But I’m sorry to say that his latest, GENTLEMEN OF THE ROAD, is a disappointment. Like Chabon’s recent Sherlock Holmes pastiche THE FINAL SOLUTION, it’s a slim stab at genre dabbling – the swashbuckler, in this case. And while he may capture the scenery and sorts of ne’er-do-wells who populate that realm of fiction, it commits the unforgivable sin of being boring. The title characters in this “tale of adventure” are Zelikman, as lanky as a scarecrow, and his pal/partner Amram, a Nubian horse thief. There’s swordplay, there are elephants, there’s even a hint of romance, but the sum is considerably less than its parts.

Let the DANGEROUS BOOK FOR BOYS parodies begin! Among the first is THE DANGEROUS BOOK FOR DOGS, written by “Rex & Sparky” (in actuality, five humans, many from The Onion). The book is cute, but not necessarily clever, covering all the canine how-tos like chasing cats, eating poop and playing fetch. Like the tome it spoofs, it’s written in a wry tone and illustrated with catchy little cartoons. It reminded me an old humor book about raising neurotic dogs that I retrieved from my parents’ shelf to read endless times as a kid. Back then, we owned a dog. Today, I don’t, nor do I have the desire to; I think that accounts for my lackadaisical interest.

DC Comics’ INFINITE HALLOWEEN SPECIAL #1 offers “13 tales of terror” in 72 pages, which means some installments are a little too truncated. The wraparound story has Joker, the Penguin and other inmates of Arkham Asylum sharing spooky stories. The better ones feature comely sorceress Zatanna, Robin vs. werewolves (written by actor David Arquette!?), an underwater fable with Aquaman, Superman fighting zombies (courtesy of Steve Niles), a Smallville-set manticore mystery, a ghost story with The Flash and a giant pumpkin attack with The Blue Devil. Deadman shows up, too. Other creative types include Paul Dini, Dan Abnett, Mark Waid and Ryan Sook, but the one-shot could’ve been more if it had just offered fewer stories.

With a bold cartooning style, San Francisco-based artist MariNaomi chronicles her past relationships with boys – mostly sexual – in the self-published ESTRUS COMICS. The current fifth issue opens with a remembrance of a “I’ll show you mine if…” incident with a male babysitter; when she sees his penis, rainbows and butterflies swirl about the room. Later, she plays “marriage” with boys on her street, gets disgusted administering her first blowjob (”What are those things under his balls?! Dingleberries! Can’t he reach that far when he wipes?!”), loses her virginity and gives in to butt sex. It all sounds prurient, but it’s not pornographic, and MariNaomi is too smart to not slather a layer of knowing humor on top.

I know Richard Lederer means well with THE REVENGE OF ANGUISHED ENGLISH: MORE ACCIDENTAL ASSAULTS UPON OUR LANGUAGE, but truth is, if you have e-mail, you’ve probably already read this book. It’s filled with all the kinds of “funny” things people like your dad and mine love to forward to everyone in their address book: silly signs on businesses, crazy warning labels, wacky translations, etc. If lines like “The patient states that diarrhea tends to run in his family” has you in stitches, by all means, get your REVENGE.

It’s no KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL, but Phoebe Damrosch’s SERVICE INCLUDED: FOUR-STAR SECRETS OF AN EAVESDROPPING WAITER may find favor with the foodie crowd nonetheless. It’s an inoffensive memoir about her tour of duty waiting on the hoity-toity at Per Se restaurant. The behind-the-scenes look is welcome, especially when dishing on asshole customers, but don’t look for tawdriness. One chapter opens with the author being asked by a relative, “Aren’t restaurants pretty much about cocaine and sex?” but never gets into such details. Instead, descriptions of food are the porn here. Those who perk up at phrases like “pickled pearl onions” and “shaved white truffles” are the target here.

No surprise, but chalk up another beaut anything from National Geographic with the release of PLANET OCEAN: VOYAGE TO THE HEART OF THE MARINE REALM. Written by Laurent Ballesta and Pierre Descamp, this hefty coffee-table book takes you under the sea for some truly amazing and gorgeous photographs of ocean life. Some are so detailed and in-your-face that you wonder, “How’d they get that shot?” Let’s just say I wouldn’t want to be so close to a 5-foot sea snake. Sharks, turtles, crabs, unrecognizable creatures – they’re all here, in remarkably vibrant color.

Alex Boese’s ELEPHANTS ON ACID AND OTHER BIZARRE EXPERIMENTS certainly lives up to its title, summarizing some of the craziest, most outlandish tests ever conducted in the name of science. The title comes from a 1960s incident at the Oklahoma City Zoo when researchers gave Tusko the elephant a dose of LSD to see what would happen. (He emptied his bowels and died.) Other notable undertakings include the doctor who drank vomit to prove yellow fever wasn’t contagious, counting post-coital pubic hair and a man who could bring himself to multiple orgasms (he had six before he gave up due to overheating, damn him). Boese’s obviously done his homework to find such gems, each presented in bite-sized capsules for easy digestion. You’ll laugh, you’ll cringe, you’ll wish you could have six orgasms. –Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Christian Jungersen’s THE EXCEPTION is one of those European left-wing Social Democratic novels where all the characters revel in the welfare state, the atmosphere is thick with their own self-regard, and if someone is individualistic enough to drive a nice car, they’re labeled a fraud. In other words: completely insufferable. I almost threw it away halfway through, but persevered in order to serve this site’s readers. Well, now you all owe me one.

Everything about this book is remarkably unpleasant: the deeply unlikable characters, the crazy-ass plot with its thumpingly obvious symbolism, the mind-deadening interludes of stodgily written articles on genocide, the wildly unrealistic behaviors, the psychological pseudobabble – it just makes me breathless thinking that not only is this a supposed European bestseller, but that someone would think it worthy of translation. Feh.

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Because time isn’t always kind: economic reviews in a world full of waste!

Thomas Ligotti is not the name-brand horror author he probably deserves to be, but hopefully THE NIGHTMARE FACTORY will help change that, introducing him to a whole new audience. This Fox Atomic anthology adapts four of his stories – all heavily influenced by H.P. Lovecraft – into comics. Results are 75 percent solid. THE SANDMAN’s Colleen Doran provides art for the first and best story, the WICKER MAN-ish folk tale “The Last Feast of Harlequin,” about an unusual town’s unusual tradition. 30 DAYS OF NIGHT’s Ben Templesmith illustrates “Dream of a Mannekin” (puppets = creepy), while Ted McKeever visits “Dr. Locrian’s Asylum.” Only “Teatro Grottesco” fails to excite, though no fault of artist Michael Gaydos.

Recently my wife read a novel in which a woman dumped her dead hubby’s ashes into a deep-fat fryer at a restaurant. “Isn’t that the sickest thing you’ve ever heard?” she asked. Having just read Chuck Palahniuk’s HAUNTED, I responded, “Not by a long shot.” After all, this quasi-novel kicks off with a short story about a kid whose guts get sucked out his butt during an ill-fated masturbation session in the swimming pool. It’s just one of many twisted tales provided by a motley crew who assemble for a unique writers’ retreat – unique in that they’re trapped against their will. As they grow increasingly insane, so do their stories. The one about a sex doll is particularly good ‘n’ gross. The poems, I could do without. This is a polarizing work; I happened to love it, even if it wears out its welcome. Its glow-in-the-dark cover, however, never will.

Although the cover of Mary SanGiovanni’s debut novel THE HOLLOWER may look like another entry into the invisibility genre, it’s actually one in psychological horror, with nothing disappearing except the sanity of its various characters. These include a cute bartender, a recovering coke addict and a mentally retarded girl and her exasperated brother, all of whom keep spotting this strange man in a fedora and trenchcoat, who sometimes makes it rain bugs. He’s called The Hollower, and he screws with people’s minds. SanGiovanni’s story follows a rather circular route, with these characters taking turns getting messed with, over and over again. Finally, it goes somewhere, only to end with a sequel-ready hook (and part two recently was sold to the same publisher). It’s a second-base start for a writer I expect to see hit a triple next time.

H.P. Lovecraft meets CAPTAIN BLOOD in Elder Signs Press’ HIGH SEAS CTHULHU, an anthology edited by William Jones and consisting of 20 instances of “swashbuckling adventure” set in the Lovecraft mythos. You know what this means: lots of slimy, tentacled, underwater creatures. Most of the authors – among them, Alan Dean Foster, Michael McBride, Gerard Houarner, Tim Curran and John Shirley – take the period-piece narrative-diary route as Lovecraft himself often did … and therein lies the problem: The stories are too similar. It’s only when HIGH SEAS branches out – as Michael Penncavage does in a contemporary-day, corpse-aplenty tale – that the book flows your way. Mind you, these cookie-cutter stories aren’t bad at all – you can read any one and come away pleased – but they’re not different enough to make a cover-to-cover read smooth sailing.

Don’t recognize any of the authors in HORROR LIBRARY: VOLUME 2? That’s exactly the point: to introduce you to some fresh talent. Some highlights: Stephen Bacon’s “The Trauma Statement,” in which a man is constantly receiving phone calls forcing him to make difficult choices on a dime (inoperable tumor in your stomach or a child you don’t know gets hit by a motorcycle?), while in John Rector’s “A Season of Sleep,” a woman is forced to pull the trigger against a family member turned zombie. The protagonist of Sunil Sadanand’s “Trapped Light Medium” uses his future-predicting powers to tip off photographers for cash, while the narrator of Michael W. Lucas’ “Opening the Eye” describes a homemade trepidation with a drill he finds in a dumpster. Other stories try to get by on disturbance alone; shock still requires story to work effectively, and when at least three stories end with an abrupt gunshot, conceit has become cliché. Still, even with well-intentioned missteps – Cameron Pierce’s dreamlike “I Am Meat. I Am in Daycare” – there are plenty here to make this LIBRARY worth repeat visits.

Cinematic boogeyman Freddy Krueger goes graphic in A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET: BOOK ONE, WildStorm’s trade-paperback compilation of six issues of its recently launched comic. That means two completely story arcs are included, each not too terribly different from one another, but still not too terrible, either. The first, “Freddy’s War,” finds a new girl in town terrorized by Freddy in her dreams, only to confront him with the help of her well-armed Army dad. The second, “The Demon of Sleep,” finds several students terrorizes by Freddy in their dreams, only to confront him with the help of an ancient amulet and an attempt sacrifice. From writer Chuck Dixon and artist Kevin West, these tales don’t break new ground, but they’re enjoyable to read, more than competently drawn and better than a majority of the ELM STREET screen sequels.

FRIDAY THE 13TH: BOOK ONE is even better, which is to be expected since it’s scripted by JONAH HEXers Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray. Compiling the first six issues of the WildStorm title, it finds the infamous Camp Crystal Lake being reopened for potentially lucrative business to a morbidly curious public. A multiracial cast of young people has been hired to clean the place up. But there’s a kink – wait for it – Jason Voorhees is still hanging around! And as drawn by Adam Archer, he’s got a serious ax to grind. Er, make that a machete, which is planted in various body parts in gorier-than-usual detail. Sex, drugs and chopped-off skulls – what’s not to love?

There’s a lot to dislike about THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: BOOK ONE, the first half-dozen issues of the WildStorm comic book based on the glossy remake of the grimy film original. Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning’s story – dubbed “Americarnivore” – picks up after the events of such, with a slew of clueless cops descending upon the Hewitt home to investigate. Damn straight they meet up with Leatherface, Sheriff Hoyt and the rest of the dysfunctional family of freaks. Wesley Craig’s art makes it difficult to determine just who’s who among the good guys, and unfortunately, the entire thing is just as nihilistic as the movies. There’s a line where bad taste crosses over into just plain bad, and this leaps past that. –Rod Lott

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Recalling MEMENTO, Steven Hall’s THE RAW SHARK TEXTS opens with a young man named Eric Sanderson awaking with no memory of anything, including who he is. Luckily he finds letters to remind him, written by himself … well, not exactly himself, but his first self. See, this is Eric’s second life.

His therapist pleads with him not to trust – not even to read – these letters, because their contents could be damaging. Meanwhile, the pieces of correspondence warn him not to trust the doctor, who tells him his girlfriend died in an accident.

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Perversely and remarkably, I started thinking about Sarah Waters’ FINGERSMITH not 10 pages into reading this book. Perversely, because I could not help but compare Waters’ book – which was shortlisted for both the Orange and Man Booker prizes for fiction and has received nothing but fawning adoration from gullible reviewers – with this debut genre novel by a screenwriter who is unlikely to receive such love. And remarkably, because there are significant parallels between the two books.

And without fail, Stef Penney’s THE TENDERNESS OF WOLVES comes out on top each and every time. This is the book that the literary reviewers should be cooing over – the one that is deserving of those heady rewards of money and fame.

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In Mary Shelley’s classic FRANKENSTEIN, there’s a scene in which Victor Frankenstein begins making a mate for his monster, before wising up and destroying it. But what, asks Hilary Bailey’s FRANKENSTEIN’S BRIDE, if he didn’t put a stop to his own experiment?

First published in the UK in 1995 and new to these shores from Sourcebooks, BRIDE is an unofficial sequel that finds Victor remarried and a father, following the tragic events of the original. As narrated by Jonathan Goodall – a young man of means whom Victor befriends – the story notes that Victor harbors an unnatural interest in a girl named Maria, even though he’s devoted to another.

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Because time isn’t always kind: economic reviews in a world full of waste!

GOD’S DEMON is by well-known artist Wayne Barlowe, of whom I am a huge fan. He’s a man of fantastic imagination, famous for his portrayals of alien life and landscapes. This time, he sets his sights on Hell and eternal damnation. The war for Heaven has just ended, the losers are banished to Hell, and what follows is a rather complex tale of treachery and – to a certain degree – redemption. I was skeptical at first, but hardcore fans can rest assured that Barlowe writes with the same imagination and passion as he illustrates. GOD’S DEMON is the closest thing we have to a modern-day version of Milton’s PARADISE LOST, which served as inspiration for Barlowe’s latest work of genius. But if you’re like me and fascinated by the man’s imaginative drawings, you also will want to hold out for an illustrated version. –Matt Adder

Don’t be fooled by the subtitle of Stephen Fried’s HUSBANDRY: SEX, LOVE & DIRTY LAUNDRY – INSIDE THE MINDS OF MARRIED MEN. This is no dirty, dishy book of filth; it’s a compilation of columns from Ladies’ Home Journal. Certainly that will hold appeal to many women the world over, but probably not the kind visiting this site. However, it’s not revolutionary by any means; for the most part and albeit with better-crafted sentences, Fried spews the same kind of stereotypes that standup comedians have hashed and rehashed tiredly for years: Men snore! Men like to control the remote! Men like to leave the seat up! (Cue Tim Allen gorilla grunt.) As a journalist, Fried has done some excellent, insightful work both in books and magazines, but this is not one of them.

On the opposite end, Vicki Vantoch’s THE THREESOME HANDBOOK: A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO SLEEPING WITH THREE is that dirty, dishy book of filth. It’s a how-to guide on landing a third person for your bedroom games. Happily monogamous and not much up for sharing, I can’t say I’m the target market for this one, but it’s nice to see Vantoch addresses the jealousy issues upfront before getting into the nitty gritty of illustrated sexual positions like “Puppy Pile” and “Greased Lightning,” each coded with bizarre combo initials that look like scientific formulas: “(B)F2M.” Pay attention to her safe-sex tips, and if you’re still interested by the end, Vantoch provides a list of Internet swing clubs to help get you started.

My junior-high years were traumatic enough that I never want to revisit them. So I can identify with the new anthology THE WORST YEARS OF YOUR LIFE: STORIES FOR THE GEEKED-OUT, ANGST-RIDDEN, LUST-ADDLED, AND DEEPLY MISUNDERSTOOD ADOLESCENT IN ALL OF US, even if I didn’t want to – or at least not something this literary. Edited by Mark Jude Poirier, the book contains short stories by 20 writers I don’t think I’ve heard of (not that that matters), centered on the most painful parts of growing up. In other words, expect a lot of bullies, nerds, self-worth issues and sexual humiliation. The latter issue provides the book’s best – albeit potentially most disturbing – bits, including a kid lusting for Barbie in A.M. Homes’ “A Real Doll” and a guy seducing a mentally handicapped girl – and more than once – in Kevin Canty’s “Pretty Judy.” A little more humor could have gone a long way in making the more pretentious efforts more accessible. –Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Once again, the hallowed halls of prestigious academia make for the best kind of instant literary ambience – even if the characters and situations are routinely miserable – in the UK college-set THE NIGHT CLIMBERS, a debut novel by Ivo Stourton.

In this latest higher-ed thriller, our narrator James Walker – wealthy, single, frequents high-dollar prostitutes – is forced to look back on his unique university experience, precipitated by the unexpected arrival on his doorstep of Jessica, a beautiful woman from his past.

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Doing a zine is hard work. I should know. But the hard work is worth it when it results in a book deal. But I wouldn’t know about that. Yet.

For married writers Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant, all that blood, sweat and Xerox bills pays off with the publication of THE BEST OF LADY CHURCHILL’S ROSEBUD WRISTLET, collecting the cream of the crop from their biannually published zine’s first decade. Certainly this is one of the strangest anthologies of the year, and at times, one of the most rewarding.

Although you’ll also find poetry, film reviews, fake advice columns, random lists and other miscellany within, WRISTLET is mostly about short fiction, and – no surprise for anyone familiar with the editors’ own work or that of their famous friends they’ve called upon to contribute – speculative fiction at that.

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Because time isn’t always kind: economic reviews in a world full of waste!

In Camille DeAngelis’ debut novel, the character of MARY MODERN is the carbon copy of Lucy’s grandmother from the 1920s, brought to life in modern times. The story really isn’t Mary’s at all, but Lucy’s – a 20something researcher who decides to impregnate herself using the DNA of her grandmother in the basement of the mansion where Mary once lived. When she gives birth to Gramma – albeit in the form of a 4-year-old toddler – you have solid proof that what you’re reading is certainly original. The book is part science fiction with soft suspense and the feel of a time-travel story, due to Mary trying to get used to all the technology and modern conveniences of today, such as the “upright coffin” we call a refrigerator. Initially, there are too many details and Lucy is not a likable character – purposely, I believe – but midway through, it picks up greatly and keeps you going with one great plot twist after another. The novel doesn’t given an answer as to whether cloning is good or evil, but it does hint at the problems it can create for love and the history of a family, a la FRANKENSTEIN. Prepare yourself for a big shock at the eerie but satisfying end. Comparisons to THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE are not out of the question. –Malena Lott

Six previously published short stories by Stephen King collected in an oversized hardcover with large print – so what’s the big deal? Well, quite a bit, actually. In Cemetery Dance’s THE SECRETARY OF DREAMS: VOLUME ONE, illustrator Glenn Chadbourne (BLOODSTAINED OZ) supplements King’s chilling text with gruesomely detailed, black-and-white ink drawings. Three of the six stories carry these generous spot illustrations, which wouldn’t be all that special … until you hit the full two-page spread of an astronaut in space disintegrating into maggots. But it’s the three other stories that make this SECRETARY worth the attention, as they’re rendered in comic-book form. Every. Single. Word. Chadbourne’s lettering leaves a lot to be desired, but his art is über-creepy, especially in “The Road Virus Heads North,” with the carnage in “Uncle Otto’s Truck” meriting a close second. The non-comic stories are such favorites as “The Reach,” the zombie-fied “Home Delivery” and the precursor to ‘SALEM’S LOT. With the slipcased packaging, this one is for collectors, and will be highly valued by such, impressive as it is.

I’ve now moved my bowels enough to finish THE AREAS OF MY EXPERTISE by “professional writer” John Hodgman, perhaps best known representing PC computers in that series of Mac ads. It’s a parody of an almanac that’s so tongue-in-cheek, the tongue has broken through. Separated into section dealing with the future, the past, the present and hoboes – each prefaced with a handy timetable for seasonal werewolf transformations – the book tackles such gripping topics as alternatives for asthmatic kids who can’t play in the snow like other children, terrible haircuts throughout history, and nine presidents who had hooks for hands. The list of 700 hobo names – yes, 700 – is much more digestible than you’d think, but the state-by-state section on America gets to be tiresome. Pick a page at random, and you’re bound to find a gag that makes you laugh out loud. With photos, charts and graphs that recalls a heavy Spy magazine influence, this book is best read in, um, short sittings.

Two or three times in my childhood, I started Ellen Raskin’s kid-lit novel THE WESTING GAME, only to never finish it. Since it recently was reissued in a Puffin Modern Classics edition, I thought I’d give it a final shot, nearly three decades later. I can see why I never stuck with it so long ago: too many characters, too-precious dialogue. The setup is intriguing enough: six floors’ worth of tenants in a new apartment building are named as beneficiaries in the will of a mysterious multimillionaire. But it’s not as simple as receiving a check: The deceased’s will claims he was murdered – by one of them, no less – and whoever figures out whodunit gets the entire take. He gives them each clues to help them out. I think it’d make an awesome mystery if only it were “written up” for adults. –Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Ten stories from Joyce Carol Oates equates to 10 opportunities for her to demonstrate yet again how she is literature’s living successor to Edgar Allan Poe. Coming straight off the heels of THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES is an even superior short-story collection tinged with knowing nerve: THE MUSEUM OF DR. MOSES: TALES OF MYSTERY AND SUSPENSE.

The title tale comes from THE MUSEUM OF HORRORS anthology from a few years back, and while perhaps the most conventional, it also proves to be one of the most compelling among these pages – a Southern Gothic that happens to take place up north.

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Because time isn’t always kind: economic reviews in a world full of waste!

For whatever reason, I have travel anxiety. The anthology SUMMER CHILLS: STRANGERS IN STRANGE LANDS offers 20 good reasons why my condition is justified. Edited by Stephen Jones, the horror collection follows people journeying to faraway places they’ll wish they hadn’t … assuming they stay alive, of course. Christopher Fowler’s greedy American couple runs up against Muslim tradition – and curses – in “The Threads,” while a vacationer in Michael Marshall Smith’s “Being Right” finds an invocation that allows him to know what his wife truly is thinking. The spookiest tale is Karl Edward Wagner’s “In the Pines,” set in a cabin in the mountains, which slowly turns a man insane as his affections drift away from his spouse and to a female ghost who visits him and tells him to do naughty things. Also included are Clive Barker, Harlan Ellison and Robert Silverberg, as well as two British writers whose work I continue to find impenetrable: Ramsey Campbell and Brian Lumley.

Having listened to and loved the music of John Wesley Harding a lot (as in, I wore out his 1989 debut album HERE COMES THE GROOM on tape and had to buy another), I shouldn’t be surprised that the man can write fiction as well. Under his real name of Wesley Stace, he’s written two novels, the latest of which is BY GEORGE. Like his music, it’s characterized by smart, sharp wordplay and clever turns of phrase. Its premise, however, spans way beyond a five-minute folk-rock number, following two characters named George over two different time periods: one is an English schoolboy in the ’70s, and the other is the boy’s grandfather’s ventriloquist dummy – who, even stranger, narrates. But don’t expect DEAD SILENCE-style horror; this is a serious – if seriously weird – novel filled with angst, nostalgia and a family of theatricality, in more ways than one. If Wes the singer finds influence from Dylan, Wes the writer draws from Dickens.

A Midsummer Night’s Press offers THE GOOD-NEIGHBOR POLICY by Hard Case Crime’s fearless leader Charles Ardai. Pegged as “a double-cross in double dactyls,” this thin – and I do mean thin – tale presents a murder mystery all in verse. The whodunit concerns a home invasion at the abode of Theo Gregg and his hot wife, Melanie. Gunfire is exchanged and Melanie is the only survivor. But does her story corroborate that of nosy neighbor Mr. Algernon, who – REAR WINDOW-style – spies on them with binoculars? All will be solved in the span of 21 pages. (See, I told you it was thin.) It’s a clever exercise that Ardai pulls off with expected wit, but the $6.95 price tag is hard to stomach for a 10-minute read, even if the tiny tome is well-designed.

Dear Stacey Grenrock Woods: I love you, but you’re going to hate me. I love your monthly sex column in Esquire, with its sharp answers, snarky sense of humor and that devilish postage-stamp pic of you shooting That Look. You’re a brainy sex goddess for the sophisticated men’s magazine world. but I dislike your book, starting with its unwieldy title: I, CALIFORNIA: THE OCCASIONAL HISTORY OF A CHILDHOOD ACTRESS/TAP DANCER/RECORD STORE CLERK/THAI WAITRESS/PLAYBOY REJECT/NIGHTCLUB BOOKER/DAILY SHOW CORRESPONDENT/SEX COLUMNIST/RECURRING CHARACTER/AND WHATEVER ELSE. Whereas your column is so tight and punchy, your memoir is a near stream-of-consciousness, shapeless, rambling thing. Plus, it reads like every other memoir: took some drugs, had an abortion, but lookitmenow! Adding in gratuitous Peter Frampton references just doesn’t cut it. When you’re back to penning orgasm jokes, I’m all yours. (But I’d love to see your rejected Playboy pic. Hey, I’m just sayin’…)

Even if you detest pigeons, I recommend flocking to PIGEONS: THE FASCINATING SAGA OF THE WORLD’S MOST REVERED AND REVILED BIRD by journalist Andrew D. Blechman. Despite having been pooped on by them, he happens to love the feathered fiends, and takes us on a witty, wondrous, you-are-there trip as he attends New York’s pigeon racing contest, visits Pennsylvania’s pigeon show, meets a pigeon doctor who removes tumors via the eye socket, frustratingly participates in a pigeon shoot, goes on a pigeon population-control mission with firm Bye Bye Birdie, finds a pigeon stud farm and tries to interview reputed pigeon lover Mike Tyson. In between these true-life adventures, Blechman deals the dish on the role of pigeons through history and explains why they like to fly into windows so much. This is the kind of non-fiction book I love best: one that takes an entirely bizarro subject matter, immerses itself into the world, and has a shitload of fun doing it. –Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THESE AUTHORS:
• THE BEST HORROR FROM FANTASY TALES edited by Stephen Jones and David Sutton
• THE BOOK OF SKULLS by Robert Silverberg
• CREEPSHOWS: THE ILLUSTRATED STEPHEN KING MOVIE GUIDE by Stephen Jones
• HORROR: ANOTHER 100 BEST BOOKS edited by Stephen Jones & Kim Newman
• H.P. LOVECRAFT’S BOOK OF THE SUPERNATURAL edited by Stephen Jones
• THE RETURN OF THE BLACK WIDOWERS by Isaac Asimov, edited by Charles Ardai
• SONGS OF INNOCENCE by Richard Aleas
• TEN SECOND STAIRCASE by Christopher Fowler
• THE WATER ROOM by Christopher Fowler
• WHITE CORRIDOR by Christopher Fowler

Because time isn’t always kind: economic reviews in a world full of waste!

As George Davies – the narrator of Justin Evans’ A GOOD AND HAPPY CHILD – tells his therapist, he didn’t exactly have the happiest of childhoods. After all, he was a bullied fat kid. His father was dead. And one day in the shower, he saw a demon face staring back at him. Much of this novel is comprised of George’s journals of his early years as a child of the ’70s, growing up with an academic mother who refuses to see all the increasing signs that suggest her son is possessed by the devil. George, meanwhile, becomes obsessed with the theory that demons had something to do with his father’s premature death. Part EXORCIST and part POLTERGEIST, Evans’ work of literary horror toys with you purposely, raising multiple explanations – is he really under Satan’s influence or just mentally ill? – yet choosing not to show its hand until damn well near the final page. I enjoyed being strung along, having my psyche tweaked, and being unnerved as the tension escalates and at the actions that result. Even with such a strong start, CHILD just gets better as it goes along.

Combining my love for naked women, kitschy Atomic Age art and coffee-table books about naked women and kitschy Atomic Age art is the ne’er-more-aptly titled STACKED DECKS: THE ART AND HISTORY OF EROTIC PLAYING CARDS. Culled from the Rotenberg Collection – and what a collection! – the book is packed with full-color, full-size, full-figured reproductions of playing cards with photos and paintings of nude females, from early tame shots and more raw, war-era efforts to Playboy-style and the slightly more explicit sets of the 1970s. There are even R-rated cartoon ones and homemade amateur numbers. Like just about everything from Quirk Books, the design is eye-catchingly – and eye-poppingly – perfect. Hit me!

Don’t be fooled: The massive hardcover bearing the name STEPHEN KING: THE NON-FICTION is not – repeat , not – a collection of the horror master’s work. Rather, as assembled by Rocky Wood and Justin Brooks, it is a meticulously documented overview of such. If King wrote it and it wasn’t fiction, it’s covered here. High school newspaper articles? Check. Entertainment Weekly columns and reviews? Check. Two-sentence thank-you to Amazon customers who bought the electronic version of his short story “The Plant”? Check. From book-length works like the essential DANSE MACABRE to miscellanea so obscure, you didn’t even know it existed, this exhaustive – and exhausting, if you’re not careful – reference work has it all. Meant to be consulted rather than read cover to cover, the Cemetery Dance release takes its subject seriously, as the 150-ish pages of footnotes attest. Hardcore King fans will be delighted; casual ones, amused.

Based on the DC Comics series, Greg Cox’s novelization of 52 is every bit as ambitious, if a different experience. With Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman out of commission – along with a smattering of other top-tier heroes – who will step forward to save the day(s)? Whereas DC’s issue-a-week project packed in a number of subplots to keep the concept alive, Cox boils it down to a core few (later, Elongated Man; sayonara, Adam Strange) in order to compress the narrative down into a workable novel that doesn’t intimidate Leo Tolstoy. What’s left actually seems more cohesive and weaves all the threads tighter, but you still lose a lot of great stuff from the comics version, which does the storytelling so well visually and verbally. Cox has the benefit of only the latter, but he’s up to the challenge and makes the book an effective, exciting superhero epic bereft of the usual suspects. They’re meant to be different experiences, anyway.

LIFE AFTER BLACK: JOURNAL #45 looks like the work of a mentally ill patient in desperate need of stronger meds. That means lucidity is out the window, but interesting art is in plentiful supply. The work of renowned illustrator Barron Storey, these pages from his numerous journals are colorful nightmares: raw, disturbing and captioned – perhaps pretentiously – with excerpts from Shakespeare. Storey is a terrible speller, but rife with imagination, and his mind goes places I’m glad mine doesn’t have to. Intricate, complex, these drawings aren’t disposable doodles, but works that demand attention to reveal all their layers. Still, this handsome hardback falls squarely into “eye of the beholder” territory, as it will find an equal number of lovers as it will detractors. –Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THESE AUTHORS:
• GHOST RIDER by Greg Cox
• INFINITE CRISIS by Greg Cox

Someone with a name like Xeno Atlas is bound to be the kind of guy who becomes obsessed with a book lost for approximately 700 years. Namely, a book that – as detailed in Nicholas Christopher’s THE BESTIARY – is a comprehensive encyclopedia of all the mythologized animals who didn’t make the cut onto Noah’s ark: hydra, griffins, chimera, phoenix and the like.

Xeno spends years and travels the world trying the locate the lone copy, assuming such a tome still exists. But don’t mistake this for a breakneck, pulse-pounding thriller, because in THE BESTIARY, the primary search is not Xeno finding a book, but Xeno finding himself.

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As detailed in select non-fiction works like THE TURK – still one of the most enthralling, suspenseful books I’ve read – Wolfgang von Kempelen achieved fame throughout Europe in the late 1700s by inventing an automaton that could think and play chess. Thanks to the combined detective work of Edgar Allan Poe and others, it eventually was exposed as a hoax – that the “player” was operator by a person cleverly hidden in the cabinet.

But for a while, Kempelen had the world fooled. And it is this magnificent creation and subsequent deception that informs that Robert Löhr’s debut novel THE CHESS MACHINE, translated from his native German by Anthea Bell.

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