Our end-o’-week roundup of what you missed while working for The Man!

The frost is officially on the pumpkin here at BOOKGASM’s winter hideaway in the upper Midwest, and I for one couldn’t be happier. “It’s too cold out!” is my favorite excuse, and it works perfectly for everything from “Why don’t you go take the car to get an oil change” to “Get your ass out of bed and go grocery shopping.” With sloth thus ensured until the vernal equinox, it’s time to read up on the latest gems to enter the BOOKGASM library, order them from our wonderful friends at Amazon, and let the magic ensue.

MONDAY >> 9.25.06
Nancy Drew was always one of those literary figures that I never quite got into, despite my mother’s tireless efforts to press musty old books on me as a child. It might have been a generational thing, but where were the monsters and talking dogs? Pop-culture post-modernism aside, the point here is really that Rod Lott reviewed GIRL SLEUTH: NANCY DREW AND THE WOMEN WHO CREATED HER by Melanie Rehak on Monday, and it looks a damn sight more interesting than THE MYSTERY OF THE BRASS-BOUND TRUNK or even one of the Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys “super” mysteries.

If you haven’t read the BOOKGASM manifesto or any of our first-anniversary musings, I’ll forgive you for not knowing that Neil Gaiman is exactly the kind of writer that BOOKGASM is meant to celebrate. Poetry aside, Gaiman is awesomely great without much of the pretentious crap that seems to roll off many other great writers. He shows no sign of letting up, and his latest short story collection, FRAGILE THINGS, is perfect for people who want to find out what happened to Shadow from AMERICAN GODS but don’t ever want to buy an anthology with a David Eddings story in it. Plus it’s got Sherlock Holmes in a world ruled by Lovecraft’s Elder Gods. A must-buy, of course.

TUESDAY >> 9.26.06
I’m not sure if he ever did portraits of Charo or Uschi Digard nude, but Alberto Vargas definitely made his mark on the 20th century with his photorealistic paintings of hot chicks frolicking in apparently frigid weather. ALBERTO VARGAS: WORKS FROM THE MAX VARGAS COLLECTION by Reid Stewart Austin collects a bunch of this work in coffee-table-book form, and I can totally see it hitting the coffee tables of playboys everywhere.

Player: “Oh that? That’s a collection of Alberto Vargas works. You see, I appreciate the female form in a way that’s … well, it’s spiritual, really. A naked woman makes me appreciate the world we live in, despite the war and disease and fly-ridden children. In fact, sometimes I cry, it’s so touching.”
Seductee: *swoon*

Bruce Grossman never fails to amaze me with the themes for his weekly BULLETS, BROADS, BLACKMAIL & BOMBS column. This week it’s a celebration of acronomic excellence, as THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. gets the spotlight along with Remo Williams and a surprisingly good Sam Durell book. If you’ve never read this column, here’s a sampling of the awesomeness:
• ”The lei she is wearing kills her”
• “former Nazi doctor”
• “village of lepers”
• “hideaway packed with girls”
See? Awesome.

WEDNESDAY >> 9.27.06
A book about the history of chess on the surface seems about as interesting as a book about the history of watching paint dry. But you have to give it to chess fanatics: They’re fucking nutjobs. Seriously, THE IMMORTAL GAME: A HISTORY OF CHESS, OR HOW 32 CARVED PIECES ON A BOARD ILLUMINATED OUR UNDERSTANDING OF WAR, ART, SCIENCE, AND THE HUMAN BRAIN’s interestingness rises by about 1000 percent if you read it as CHESS TURNS PEOPLE INTO NUTJOBS, AND HERE’S A BUNCH OF THEM. People who find themselves strangely attracted to the tinfoil-beanie-wearing set have no excuse to ignore the hilarious tragedy that chess can wreak upon the human mind.

As good as spy fiction can be, there’s definitely a dark side of it: the “literary” (read: boring as hell) spy novel. I assume that these are perfect for the British, who don’t like to get to excited about something not soccer-related, but any dude worth his Alberto Vargas coffee table book needs a little more action to achieve satisfaction. Enter Robert Littell, who walks a fine line by producing entirely readable yet well-respected spy books. His most recent work, LEGENDS, is no exception, so check it out.

THURSDAY >> 9.28.06
Everyone’s jumping into the juvenile literature game now that there’s money in it again, and Marvelous Mark Rose is on the forefront of this trend with a look at THE ICE DRAGON, a repurposing of a 1980 work by George R.R. Martin. People go absolutely gaga over Martin’s books, and I expect this to be no exception. Also, Rose says the book’s actually good, too, so there you go.

Speaking of psychos, Bruce Grossman’s got it covered with his review of Margaret Millar’s AN AIR THAT KILLS / DO EVIL IN RETURN from Stark House Press. Much like I could totally pull off a brush pass or a dead drop from all the spy books I’ve read, I get the feeling Grossman is totally at home in an existential world with deep shadows, deeper secrets and duality of the self up the yin-yang. I got creeped out by the plot summary here, so buyer beware.

FRIDAY >> 9.29.06
There are an amazing amount of really disturbing photos of Charo out there. Putting aside the fact that she looks like the result of some fugitive Nazi doctor’s attempt to merge a human with one of those annoying little yippy dogs, people actually are looking for photos of Charo nude! Witness the September FUN WITH BOOKGASM. If James Frey ever made up a book about having a four-way with Charo, Uschi Digard and Evangeline Lilly, then we’d really be in business. Until then, we’ll just have to settle for “witch sex.”

NEWSGASM had plenty of items to cram into an already-full Friday, among them:
• A cool new Showtime crime show
• The spreading influence of BOOKGASM on popular culture (first the DEATH CLOUD incident and now Hard Case in Time?),
• Joseph Hayes’ passing
• An awesome chess giveaway
• Horror anthologies aplenty

For the past week, they’ve been everywhere: via voice-mail, intra-office memo and carrier pigeon, the masses have spoken, and they’re message is this: Don’t pick on Louis Fowler; he isn’t weird. I give in: My memory of him from 10 years ago is totally incorrect, and he’s much more un-weird than I give him credit for. In other news, LOUIS’ SERIOUS ISSUES tackles subjects as diverse as undead armies, undead spies and undead visits to truck stops.

Wrapping up the week is the triumphant return of Jason Light, who took some time off from writing actual books to contribute a review of THE DEVIL YOU KNOW by Poppy Z. Brite. He says it’s great, and the premise is great — short stories set in various pop-cultural creations — so that’s a double great, which is pretty tough to beat. To whittle down my “to-read” list, I make up various and sundry rules for myself, one of which is “No Poppy Z. Brite.” I don’t even know why, really, but that rule will probably fall by the wayside of my standards in short order, because THE DEVIL YOU KNOW’s got me intrigued.

Is the week over already? Amazing. What’s more amazing is the fact that a whole new batch of all-new, all-amazing BOOKGASM content is coming up tomorrow, including an awesome giveaway that’s sure not to “suck!” –Ryun Patterson

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