Category Archives: Reading

Happy Take Your Child to the Library Day 2023!

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Like the header says, today is Take Your Child to the Library Day. Founded in 2011 by librarians Nadine Lipman and Caitlin Augusta, the event is held the first Saturday in February and encourages librarians to reach out to their communities and show folks just how wonderful reading can be.

Before the Internet, libraries were the source for information and reading, and these days they can use our support. So head out tomorrow, introduce your children to that big brick building with all the free books to borrow, update the library card that’s been stuck in the back of your wallet for all these years, and renew your acquaintance with a vital partner in the ongoing literacy campaign.

For more information, including the list of participating libraries, visit the TYCLD website.

Happy Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day 2022!

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Hey, book lovers! Today marks the twelfth annual Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day! 

Founded in 2010 by author Jessica Milchman, the event, held on the first Saturday in December, “is about instilling a love of bookstores in children so that they will value and support this most precious of resources as they go on to enter and create communities of their own” (according to its website).

Kids + reading + brick-and-mortar bookstores? Always a great combination!

For more information, including a map of the bookstores that are celebrating with events of their own, visit the TYCBD site.

It’s Banned Books Week 2022

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Got a favorite book? Well, odds are good there’s someone out there in the United States who’d liked to see it censored. According to a recent Publishers Weekly article, the American Library Association “reported 681 documented attempts to ban or restrict library resources in schools, universities, and public libraries through the first eight months of 2022, on pace to shatter the 729 challenges ALA tracked in 2021.”

That’s where Banned Books Week comes in—an annual celebration of literacy in which the spotlight is shone on the problem of censorship in U.S. libraries and bookstores. To quote the Banned Books Week website:

Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries…. Banned Books Week brings together the entire book community in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular.

This year’s theme is “Books Unite Us, Censorship Divides Us,” and with local politicians across the United States challenging the existence of certain books, seeking to ban them outright in libraries and bookstores, and, in a few cases, expressing a desire to burn them, the issue of censorship in the U.S. hasn’t been this threatening in decades.

Banned Books Week 2022 is happening right now, September 18–24, so visit the BBW website for more information, including a list of the Top Ten Most Challenged Books of 2021 that they’re celebrating this year.

Bonus: If you live in Queens, New York (home borough of Pan and her publisher, StarWarp Concepts), head on over to the Queens Public Library site and read all about “QPL’s 100 Most Popular Banned Books,” all available to check out in book, ebook, and audiobook formats.

The Summer Reading Days Are Dwindling…

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Here in the United States, the start of Labor Day Weekend—the unofficial end of the summer season—arrives on September 2nd, which means the days of summer beach reading are just two weeks away from shifting into the pumpkin-spiced world of fall (you might have already noticed the presence of its familiar scent wafting through your favorite coffee and donut shops).

So if you’re seeking an exciting book or two (or more) to read as summer comes to an close, you might want to take a look at the StarWarp Spotlight blog-post series at Pan’s publisher, StarWarp Concepts, in which they shine a spotlight on each of their numerous horror, dark urban fantasy, fantasy adventure, and nonfiction books, not to mention comic books and graphic novels. 

From the young-adult thrills of the Pandora Zwieback vampire-war novels and writers/gamers reference book Terra Incognito: A Guide to Building the Worlds of Your Imagination and the comic-book history From the Stars…a Vampiress: An Unauthorized Guide to Vampirella’s Classic Horror Adventures to the Illustrated Classics Carmilla (perfect for fans of vampire fiction!) and the sci-fi adventure A Princess of Mars, StarWarp Concepts has a book that makes every day perfect for reading during the final days of summer—and beyond!

(Long Island City sunset photo © 2022 Steven A. Roman.)

Celebrating World Book Days and Nights in 2022

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Photo by blende12, courtesy of Pixabay

Happy World Book Day in the United States! Run by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), World Book Day (aka World Book and Copyright Day, and the International Day of the Book) is, to quote their website:

“World Book Day is a celebration! It’s a celebration of authors, illustrators, books and (most importantly) it’s a celebration of reading. In fact, it’s the biggest celebration of its kind, designated by UNESCO as a worldwide celebration of books and reading, and marked in over 100 countries all over the world.”

To explain this event further, let’s turn to Wikipedia for its origin story: 

“The original idea was of the Valencian writer Vicente Clavel Andrés as a way to honour the author Miguel de Cervantes [author of Don Quixote], first on October 7, his birth date, then on April 23, his death date. In 1995 UNESCO decided that the World Book and Copyright Day would be celebrated on 23 April, as the date is also the anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare and [16th-century Spanish author] Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, as well as that of the birth or death of several other prominent authors.”

So then it’s really World Book Death Day? Hey, as long as it gets people to read…

Around the world (except for Ireland and the United Kingdom), World Book Day is held every April 23—so for more information, visit the World Book and Copyright Day site for all the latest news and events listings.

But the celebration doesn’t end at sundown, because April 23 is also World Book Night in the United Kingdom! Run by The Reading Agency, this annual gathering of book lovers is, to quote their website:

“World Book Night is a national celebration of reading and books which takes place on 23 April every year. Books are given out across the UK with a focus on reaching those who don’t regularly read, and are gifted through organisations including prisons, libraries, colleges, hospitals, care homes and homeless shelters, as well as by passionate individuals who give out their own books within their communities.”

For more information, visit the World Book Night site.

A whole day and night dedicated to reading? Well, that should actually be every day, shouldn’t it? Of course! Anyway, start celebrating and get to reading!

It’s National Library Week 2022!

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Hey, book lovers! National Library Week is once again upon us, and you know us: any reason to read is a good cause for celebration! 

According to the American Library Association (ALA), the organization that runs the event:

“First sponsored in 1958, National Library Week is a national observance sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) and libraries across the country each April. It is a time to celebrate the contributions of our nation’s libraries and librarians and to promote library use and support. All types of libraries—school, public, academic and special—participate.”

This year’s theme is “Connect With Your Library” and promotes “the idea that libraries are places to get connected to technology by using broadband, computers, and other resources. Libraries also offer opportunities to connect with media, programs, ideas, and classes—in addition to books. But most importantly, libraries also connect communities to each other.”

National Library Week runs April 3–9, so check your local library for any special events they might have planned for the celebration.

Tomorrow Is Take Your Child to the Library Day 2022!

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Like the header says, tomorrow is Take Your Child to the Library Day, celebrating its 11th anniversary. Founded in 2011 by librarians Nadine Lipman and Caitlin Augusta, the event is held the first Saturday in February and encourages librarians to reach out to their communities and show folks just how wonderful reading can be.

Before the Internet, libraries were the source for information and reading, and can always use our support. So now that the world is in some form of pandemic-related normalcy (not counting the actions of ignorant US school boards that are currently caught up in banning books to “protect” children), head out tomorrow, introduce your child to that big building with all the free books to borrow, update the library card that’s been stuck in the back of your wallet for all these years, and renew your acquaintance with a vital partner in the ongoing literacy campaign—vital even more so these days.

For more information, including the list of participating libraries, visit the TYCLD website.

(Header image from Ghostbusters © Sony Pictures)

Pirouette #1: A Review

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Pirouette01As I mentioned a couple of weeks back, in my post on the zombie apocalypse series Afterlife with Archie, I’ve become a comic book reviewer for the news site Comics for Sinners. And occasionally I come across a horror series that I think might interest you Panatics, so I decided to now and then reproduce my C4S reviews here at Zwieback Central. (And yes, it helps to update this blog.) So this time around I look at the first issue of Black Mask Studios’ Pirouette. Read on to find out more…

Confession time: I’ll admit I experienced some trepidation when I was asked to review this title from Black Mask Studios, but that was entirely due to confusing writer Mark L. Miller with Kick-Ass shock-and-awe hypemeister Mark Millar. Not being a fan of Millar’s work, I couldn’t imagine what Hollywood pitch this latest work would turn out to be. But then I took a second look, and realized a completely different writer was involved (an unfortunate circumstance that I’m sure Miller is sick of by now), so I started reading.

Pirouette-Sample1I’m glad I took that second look.

Pirouette is the eponymous star of the comic, an extremely sad, 16-year-old clown who dreams of running away from the circus because of the abuse—both physical and psychological—that she suffers at the hands of her fellow carnies, as well as her parents; to say she’s the resident punching bag would be an understatement. And yet there’s a spark of hope in Pirouette that a better life exists for her, somewhere beyond her nightmarish existence. And if what one of the other clowns has told her is true, there may be a chance for that spark to blossom into a flame…

The first impression one gets from Miller’s tale is that he’s wearing his Ray Bradbury influence on his sleeve—Samwell’s Circus of Curios and Wonders seems straight out of Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show in Bradbury’s classic novel, Something Wicked This Way Comes. And that’s not a bad thing—given the extremes of hyperkinetic art layouts and ultraslow, “write for the trade” padded scripting that dominate comics these days, Miller has found an easy balance between the two, with a story that moves at its own pace without being derivative of Bradbury’s work.

Although billed as a horror miniseries, there’s nothing supernatural in evidence in this first issue; the horror solely comes from watching Pirouette’s mistreatment from a cast of characters you’d like to see run over by the train that transports the circus through its 1930s’ Midwest America setting. From all I know there may be no supernatural elements to the story, and that would be fine—Pirouette works just as well as a character-driven tale.

Pirouette-Sample2

The art by Miller’s creative partner, Carlos Granda, is breathtaking. There’s a hint of Angel Medina (Spawn), a hint of Bernie Wrightson (Swamp Thing), and a touch of old-school EC comics to his style, and it all combines for top-notch storytelling pages that range from wide-screen double-splashes to intimate close-ups.

Bottom line? With its winning combination of Bradbury-esque influences and incredible art, Pirouette is a miniseries definitely worth a look for horror fans and comic fans.

Pirouette #1
Written by Mark L. Miller
Art and cover by Carlos Granda
Publisher: Black Mask Studios
32 pages • full color
$3.99 U.S.
On sale now

Afterlife With Archie #6: A Review

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afterlife06Just in time for Halloween, here’s something different for this site: Me recommending a project I had nothing to do with. Okay, maybe not all that different—after all, I’ve posted summer reading lists in which I recommend other authors’ works. If anything, it’s different in that it involves a comic book series, the latest issue of which I reviewed for the news site Comics for Sinners. It’s the most unexpected—and most popular—Archie Andrews comic ever: the zombie apocalypse series Afterlife with Archie. And I think it’s something you Panatics might be interested in…

It started as a joke: a Halloween drawing by artist Francesco Francavilla (The Black Beetle), of a comic-book cover for a nonexistent horror series called Afterlife with Archie (a parody of the long-running Life with Archie); in it, America’s favorite teenager was being stalked in a cemetery by his best friend, Jughead—who’d become a zombie. The image went viral and comic fans laughed about it…but at Archie Comics, someone took a look at it and thought, Archie and his pals in a zombie apocalypse—what a great idea!

And thus was born Afterlife with Archie, the series, with Francavilla as artist, joined by writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (Stephen King’s The Stand). Together, they’ve made AwA one of the most talked-about series currently being published, and one of the company’s top titles, by treating it as a straight-up horror series not intended for younger readers used to Archie’s more comedic antics. The setup is: Jughead’s dog, Hot Dog, is hit and killed by a car; Jughead brings him to Sabrina the Teenaged Witch and begs her to revive him; Sabrina uses The Necronomicon to do so (well, there’s a bad idea). In a Stephen King’s Pet Sematary–style twist, Hot Dog comes back as a very bad dog—a zombie dog, in fact, that puts the bite on Jughead…who then quickly spreads the infection to the rest of Riverdale. And suddenly Archie Andrews knows what it’s like to be Rick Grimes in The Walking Dead…

With the first story arc completed in AwA #5, Afterlife with Archie #6 shows us what’s become of Sabrina after her two witchy aunts punished her for accidentally unleashing hell on Earth—the last we’d seen of her was in the first issue, when they’d banished her to the “Nether-Realm.” Now we find out things haven’t improved much for her…

“Witch in the Dream House” uses the trope of the lead character who insists that their “hallucinations” and imagined life are reality while everyone tries to convince the character they’re insane. For Sabrina, it’s her certainty that she’s a witch, surrounded by monster in group therapy at a mental institution—run by two doctors named Lovecraft and Machen. If you recognize the names H. P. Lovecraft and Arthur Machen, two of the horror genre’s greatest writers, you can see where this is going, can’t you?

For horror fans, there are Easter eggs galore, with shout-outs to the authors’ works, most notably Lovecraft’s C’thulu Mythos—two of Sabrina’s fellow patients are Erich Zann (“The Music of Erich Zann”) and Richard Pickman (“Pickman’s Model”)—as well as Robert W. Chambers’s fabled city of Carcosa (most notably referenced in the first season of HBO’s acclaimed series True Detective) and the cult classic film The Wicker Man (the original with Edward Woodward and Christopher Lee, not the crappy remake with Nicholas Cage). And as for the ending…well, you’ll just have to see it for yourself.

As a bonus, instead of AwA’s usual backup stories—reprinted from Archie’s Red Circle–imprint series Chilling Tales of Sorcery, with stories and art by some of comics’ legendary creators—this issue features a sneak peek of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina #1, Aguirre-Sacasa’s not-quite-an-AwA-spinoff-series that’s currently on sale. Set in the 1960s, with art by Robert Hack, it seems to take its cues from Rosemary’s Baby and other occult thrillers of the sixties and early seventies. Definitely another series to check out.

Bottom line? If you’re already reading Afterlife with Archie, or are a fan of the works of Lovecraft, Machen, and Chambers, then definitely pick up this issue. If you’re a horror fan in general, you need to be reading this series. AwA is one of the smartest, creepiest comics out there right now, with a minimal amount of gore shown during its most violent scenes, but a lot of oppressive mood. Archie + zombies + the C’thulu Mythos = a can’t-miss series.

Afterlife with Archie #6

“Witch in the Dream House”

Written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa

Art by Francesco Francavilla

Publisher: Archie Comics

32 pages • full-color

$2.99 U.S.

On sale now

Son of Summer Reading Suggestions

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A couple of years ago I made a few suggestions for books that Panatics might be interested in checking out: Stephen King’s ’Salem’s Lot, Cycle of the Werewolf, and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon; Charles Portis’s True Grit; Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes; Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange; and Giorman Berchard’s The Second Greatest Story Ever Told. You can read my mini-reviews here.

Well, with summer 2014 officially starting tomorrow, what better time for a new list of books you might want to consider? This one’s a little shorter, but they’re still good choices (in my humble opinion).

Day-of-the-TriffidsThe Day of the Triffids, by John Wyndham: First published in 1951, it’s a fast-paced, enjoyable science fiction adventure that would seem to have been an influence on the quasi-zombie apocalypse film 28 Days Later (a patient in a hospital wakes up to find himself apparently the only unaffected person in a ravaged London). Except instead of zombies, you have carnivorous plants hunting a human population that’s been mostly stricken blind by the light of a passing comet. But as the lead characters quickly learn, it’s not the Triffids that pose the greatest threat, but the other unaffected humans…

rosemarys_babyRosemary’s Baby, by Ira Levin: The 1968 Mia Farrow–starring film adaptation is a horror masterpiece, and Zoe (Guardians of the Galaxy) Saldana starred in a 2014 television miniseries remake that was well received, but Ira Levin’s 1967 source novel is a brisk, entertaining masterpiece of its own. Rosemary and Guy Woodward move into an NYC apartment building with a long history of witchcraft and devil worship—and the current residents have plans for Rosemary… Apart from cultural references that firmly set the story in 1960s New York, the story remains as enjoyably horrific and humorously macabre as it did almost fifty years ago.

king_in_yellowThe King in Yellow, by Robert W. Chambers: This 1895 short story collection influenced not only writers like H. P. Lovecraft, Grant Morrison, and Stephen King, but also served as a major plot point in the first season of HBO’s acclaimed series True Detective, starring Matthew McConaghey and Woody Harrelson. The conceit is that The King in Yellow, a fictitious two-act play, drives people mad when they read the second act (which is never reproduced in the book). The first four stories in the collection are linked to the play. Download The King in Yellow e-book for free from ManyBooks.net.

And of course…

blood_feudBlood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1: What, I shouldn’t plug my first Pan novel—on the very site dedicated to the series it’s part of? 😉 With its sequel, Blood Reign, soon to make its long-awaited appearance, this is the perfect time to catch up on the start of Pan’s debut adventure (if you or your book-loving friends haven’t already read it, that is). Warring vampire clans! Fallen angels! Monster hunters! Romance! Danger! Pick up a copy and find out why HorrorNews.net called Blood Feud “far and away one of the best young adult supernatural fantasy novels released in the last few years.”

So get to reading—and have a great summer!