Blog – Page 38 – The Designer Monologues

February 24, 2018

30 Day Book Challenge, Day 24

Today’s challenge: A book you wish more people would read.

I’m taking this thread to recommend something less-mainstream that I enjoyed — and yeah, I considered cheating and suggesting something I published, but that would be cheesy. :)

I’m going to recommend a crime novel published in 2011, Money Shot by Christa Faust. From the phenomenal Glen Orbik retro-style cover, to the fact that it was published by Hard Case Crime, an outfit that does a lot of reprints and trunk novels from past masters, it would be easy to assume that this was a book from the heyday of the paperback crime novel. In my opinion, this book (and it’s sequel, Choke Hold), stands right up there with the Parker and Quarry novels.

As per the official description:

THEY THOUGHT SHE’D BE EASY. THEY THOUGHT WRONG.
It all began with the phone call asking former porn star Angel Dare to do one more movie. Before she knew it, she’d been shot and left for dead in the trunk of a car. But Angel is a survivor. And that means she’ll get to the bottom of what’s been done to her even if she has to leave a trail of bodies along the way.

This is a delightfully nasty slice of neo-noir, and I’m honestly surprised it hasn’t been turned into a film yet.

February 23, 2018

The Return of Friday Music

Hey kids.

As long-time readers know, I used to do a weekly feature on my blog, called Friday Music. I started it back in 2005, and ran it for quite a while. Every week or so, I’d post a “mixtape of the internet”, sharing stuff that had grabbed my attention, both new and old. But, like so many other things in my life, it kind of drifted off — I’ve tried, a few times, to resurrect it (most recently about a year ago), but not with any real sticking power.

As part of my goal in 2018 of getting back into the habit of blogging, I’m bringing Friday Music back, starting next week.

To that end, I need your help.

I’d like to know what format you’d like to see Friday Music take.

The old format was that I would find links to mp3 versions of the songs, and just link those. I could still do that. But the kids these days like the streaming services — and I have two memberships I could use. For Spotify, I could provide individual track links, or I could just link to a single, curated playlist for that week. I also have a Mixcloud account, so I could link to a weekly playlist there (this is the method I tried a year ago, when I last tried to get this up and running again). Or maybe you have another preference, which you can let me know about.

So I’m asking you to log your preference below. You special snowflakes who can’t decide can pick more than one option. Also, keep in mind that the method of song delivery will be in addition to written “liner notes” from me, where I talk a bit about the artist or the track, etc. You’ll be getting that no matter what.

So, fire away, please — your input is important to me.

[poll id=”2″]

February 23, 2018February 23, 2018

30 Day Book Challenge, Day 23

Today’s challenge: A book you’ve wanted to read for a long time, but haven’t.

Yeah, there’s a pretty long list. My “to be read” pile grows constantly.

I’m going to go with something a bit left-field.

In the 1970s, Donald F. Glut (probably best known for eventually doing the novelization of The Empire Strikes Back) cranked out a series of pulp paperbacks featuring Frankenstein’s Monster. A few years back, a friend of mine, Bill Cunningham, via his company (Pulp 2.0), signed a deal to reprint them. The first volume, collecting the first six novels in the series, came out in 2014.

I immediately put it on my Amazon Wish List. Classic horror movies and monsters was one of the earliest things I was a fan of, and I still eat this stuff up. Plus, published by a friend of mine. But, four years later, for various reasons (most related to being too busy with other things), I have yet to pick it up, and so it still sits on my list…now joined by Volume 2, which collects the last six books in Glut’s series, which Bill just released.

So, in a way, this entry is a reminder to myself to get on that, as soon as I feel I have the spare funds.