Recently in Book Reviews Category

The Gunslinger born is a graphic novel based on the Gunslinger series by Stephen King. I've been somewhat interested in picking up a copy of the comic for a couple of months now and I guess my parents know me pretty well. I received a copy for Christmas. Actually it was a birthday gift but since I haven't seen my parents since Thanksgiving my brother brought it out to me after they spent Christmas with my parents.

Just the thing for bathroom reading. It picks up the gunslinger story where one of the later books (whose title completely escapes me at the moment) goes into Roland's early years as a gunslinger, how me met Susan Delgado and got started on the road to the Dark Tower.

I am not a huge comic fan but there are a few that I really like and so far this is pretty good. The artistry is very dark and gothic and fits Stephen King's books very well.

I am about a third of the way through right now and had I more time away from work I might have finished already. That and the fact that whatever free time I am blogging :)

Want to win a $150 gift certificate? It won't be in time to buy a Christmas gift but it would be right on the money to get yourself something for being a good little boy or girl...

I would probably enter the contest myself but since it's my brother AND I already have a copy of the darned book there might be issues there :(

All you have to do to enter the contest is to buy a copy of Republic:

Buy yourself a copy of the book by December 23rd and email the receipt to Charles Sheehan-Miles (you can get his email address from the blog entry) and then go write a review of the book at Amazon. Simple, no? It's a damn good book and just the thing to stoke your big brother fears!

When you purchase the book and write a review that's worth one entry and when you buy a copy for someone else as a gift that's worth TWO!

He will do a video drawing on Christmas Eve and have it posted with the winner by midnight that night. If you are going to enter you had better buy the book early because most likely he will be at my house for the holidays and I don't want to be up filming at dark-thirty and then have to get back up...

The link?

Oh yeah, the link to his blog entry is here and the gift certificate is for either Amazon.com or iTunes, your choice.

I came across this book at work a couple of days ago and it looks fairly interesting. Inspector Morimoto and the Diamond Pendants is a couple of years old, but I had never seen it prior to one of my employees bringing it in (yes, some of them can actually read).

This is apparently the second Inspector Morimoto book and from what I understand he investigates like Hercule Poirot, one of my favorite detectives from the Agatha Christie books. Amazon has Inspector Morimoto and the Diamond Pendants in stock and I may just have to make it a Christmas present for myself and then review it here.

Back when I was a kid in the late sixties and early seventies (yeah, I am really that old) my mother had a couple of personalized storybooks printed for me. I just thought that they were the coolest things. They actually had my name in them as well as my parents and my cat. She sold Avon back then and I think that she must have ordered them through the company. I started reading extremely early but of course emotionally I was right where I should have been so for a four-year-old to see their name in print that is just the neatest thing.

I have done the same thing this year and ordered a couple of personalized books for my five-year-old for Christmas. A Personalized Christmas Story Book is something that my daughter will remember for a long time and hopefully treasure as much as I did as a child.

Identity Direct has something like over 500 personalized gifts for children such as this.



Their most popular gift is My Special Christmas Adventure and it's just perfect for this time of year since everyone including myself is starting to ramp up their Christmas shopping. I know I am going to try and get it all finished early for a change. I hate waiting until the last minute and with this new so-called manager that I just checked in to one of my stores it looks like I will be spending quite a bit of time at work and may not have the free time to do any shopping that's not online.