Received this gorgeous ARC on my birthday. The illustrations are absolutely stunning. One I will treasure. 

Many, many thanks to Henry Cole!

I finally received my signed, numbered limited edition hardcover of Adam Cesare's novella, Zero Lives Remaining, from Shock Totem Publications. Let me tell you, this sucker is freaking beautiful!

The book is designed to look like a VHS tape, and comes in its own clamshell case, which is designed to look like a 1980s horror flick. I remember seeing many a tapes like this in my local video store way back when (King Video in Allen Park, MI; now out of business or close to it from what I hear, thanks to a dispute with the building's owner... It's a shame, as the store had managed to keep up with the time and was one of the first video stores I can recall not only renting and buying VHS tapes from, but actually being able to find DVDs even when that technology was still in its infancy.), so this is a wonderful dose of nostalgia.

In addition to the wonderful kitsch value, there's even some trading cards and a fold-out insert interview. Obviously a lot of thought, time, and talent went into producing this title. I'm not by any means a serious collector of signed/limited hardcovers, but stuff like this (and IDW's upcoming NOS4A2/The Wraith collector's edition) is really hard to pass up. Particularly when it's so unique and well-crafted. This thing's got some serious production value!

I received #17 out of 100 print copies, and from what I hear these books are selling fast. You may want to hurry up get yours now!

http://shocktotem.bigcartel.com/product/zero-lives-remaining-hardcover

And check out the special movie trailer that was created for the book, directed by Mike Lombardo. https://youtu.be/ccHnjiKkEG4

UPS just dropped this off. Yay! I love the blurb, hope the book delivers!

Max and I reading were reading Doctor Who: The Silent Stars Go By.  Later we agreed that is it neither Dan Abnett's best work nor a particularly good Doctor Who novel.  We disagreed on whether or not the TV remote belonged in his mouth, however. 

The Teen Librarian came up with this fun event for teens this summer.  She called it "A Taste of Books" and basically everyone she co-opted came up with a theme and a snack to base a table of recommendation around.  It was quite a bit of fun and, definitely, food is both a good way to entice people to check out (both ways!) books and to connect them more strongly.  It's good to get all those sense involved, yeah?  Some people even provided recipes to go with bookmarks and books.

A sampling of the tables includes:

Mediterranean reads with hummus, za'atar, olive oil, and bread

Emotional reads with chocolate and peanut butter decadence

"Sinful" reads (ie. Challenged books in the U.S.) with red velvet cupcakes

The shrine to John Green with mint (and other green) M&Ms

Post-apocalyptic reads with jerky

Steampunk reads with scones

Mine?

Well, I was asked to do mysteries, thrillers, or horror...  I decided to combine it all, so I did "Chillers" with popsicles and sorbet.  I added some of the books from my table to this post.