Married with zombies

Married with zombies - by Jesse Petersen Let me just say this rates a definite 4 severed heads Sarah and David are having marital problems – Sarah is the breadwinner in the family while David is an unemployed schlub who stays home and plays video games all day. After five years of marriage they are almost through with one another but have been seeing a marriage counselor as a last ditch effort. You can tell how bad the marriage has gotten as they bicker over the music selections in the CD changer on their way to see their marriage counselor. They are so busy fighting with one another it takes them awhile to notice that traffic in Seattle is suspiciously light. Their garage attendant is absent from his post as is the receptionist for their counselor. We, as the reader, knows something’s up but Sarah and David are so absorbed in their grievances they have no idea of what they are about to walk into. They barge in on their counselor chowing down on the perfect couple who normally has the appointment before them. It’s only after the counselor turns on Sarah and she and David then have to fight her off that they begin to have an inkling that something is, indeed horribly wrong. David, who Sarah has felt has been pretty useless, is the first to cotton on to the fact that people are turning into zombies. The bulk of the story then revolves around their trying to leave Seattle to get to David’s sister. Along the way they meet some characters who are even scarier than the zombies. The story breaks no new real ground in terms of zombie lore partially due to the fact that Sarah and David utilize all their zombie knowledge from the books/movies/video games they’ve consumed. Rather it is a fun snarky read told from Sarah’s point of view and some of her observations are priceless, I defy you to not laugh at the vision of zombies still pulling handles on the slot machines. Since the two main characters ring true it’s entertaining to sit in their backseat as it were and watch they learn to not only fight zombies effectively but also learn how to get along. Learning to work as a team killing zombies is so much more effective than those trust exercises counselors are always trying to use. Anyone who has ever blown a gasket over finding the toilet seat up or the toothpaste cap off can relate to these two. A hoot – recommended even for you non zombie lovers as long as you don’t mind what my grandmother used to call salty language.

Furry fisherman

The terror, aka Marguerite, has learned to fish. I had recently left the silverware drawer open and this is also where we keep rubber bands which Marguerite loves. She proceeded to fish around in the drawer with her paw into she was able to scoop one up. Sadly she would not permit her picture to be taken at that time so we did a "staged" picture with her toy. Then this evening I had set the laundry basket down on the footstool in preparation for folding.. There was a small piece of paper under the basket and just enough space for a little paw to shoot under and, once again, fish for it. The curmudgeon has accused her of stealing one of her tricks being as it is that paper play is her baliwick.

Weeding the shelves July 23rd

I've accomplished removing four books from my pile. I cheated a bit by returning two books unread but the goal is to diminish the pile so I figure it counts. One of the books has been around quite awhile in the pile and I wish I had picked it up sooner. A dead man out of mind/Kate Charles explores a series of deaths in a "high catholic" Church of England church. Suspects abound and the reasons why the suspects might commit murder are valid and keep the reader guessing. I enjoyed entering the world of the Church of England as well as meeting our sleuths Lucy Kingsley and David Middletown-Brown. Since the book is older and, as an American, I tend to think of the C of E as very similar to the Episcopal church so some of the issues seemed a little dated to me including the opposition to women priests; a subplot of a man who is probably hiding his homosexuality by being married to a woman; and a 14 yr old who is disturbed by her aunt living with a man. I also felt that I would have understood the characters of Lucy and David better if I had started at the beginning of the series. David had had an affair with someone in the church and I was unsure as to why he stopped seeing this man and started seeing Lucy. This kept pulling me out of the current story. Overall the I did enjoy the mystery and when I can resume hitting the library stacks I intend to check out some of the other titles in the series.

The Crime Writer - a review

As promised my first review of my read or weed em pile The opening scene of The Crime Writer by Greg Hurwitz opens with a bang. Drew Danner wakes up in a hospital bed to “a haze of face, too close for casual”. Two policemen are waiting for him to become conscious. Turns out these officers think he killed his ex-girlfriend as they found his unconscious body slumped over hers. There is only one problem, Danner had a tumor which caused him to black out so he has no memory of whether he really killed his ex or not. He is convicted of her murder but is released due to insanity of the time of the murder (that pesky tumor). He returns home only to find odd things happening - the first night he is home he awakens to find his patio sliding glass door open and bloody footprints which turn out to be his as he has cut his toe, or so he assumes, with the same type of knife used to kill his girlfriend. Since he is not sure whether he is sane or not he decides to look into the murder as if he were writing one of his own thrillers. He doesn't get very far along before another woman is found murdered in a manner very similar to the first murder and he is again arrested. However, due to his previous nocturnal activities he had filmed himself sleeping and the police must release him from custody.Drew determines to investigate this new murder as well. What I liked about this book is that Drew does think he might have killed his ex girlfriend and is terrified by this knowledge. I also liked the conceit of "writing" his own murder mystery and got a kick out of the pages marked up by his editor. His descriptions of Los Angeles and the types of people who live there are also fabulous. Here is just one example as Drew is waiting to see an actor friend in a club “they gain position in the scrum by working in concert, like raptors, with the friends they’ll only be too eager to drop once they book their first pilot.” Drew has a lot of people help him in his investigation, including his editor, a cop and forensic specialist, his AA sponsor and a young Latino kid. The AA sponsor, who is African American and the Latino kid sometimes veer awfully close into stereotype sidekick territory and I would have liked to see their characters fleshed out more. I was willing to overlook this problem though and just go along for the ride as Drew tries to solve his own mystery. Recommended with the caveat that this is more of a mystery than a thriller.

Weeding the shelves

As with most people in the book profession I tend to accumulate books. Some I collect with a view towards permanence, for example, I have a small collection of children’s books, first editions, quilting books etc. and these types of books I’ll never part with. I also have a large number of books for casual reading – which have made unmanageable by pursuing other people’s reading blogs. Quite a few blogs have a mailbox Monday, waiting on Wednesday day type of feature wherein they are looking forward to new books and thus adding to my reading piles. However, I’ve come to the realization that I have more books than I'll ever get to and I really need to weed some of my books so I’ve set myself a challenge. So I’m going to do a similar type of thing but call it weeding the shelves. Hopefully once a week I’ll report on what I’ve cleared from my shelves and perhaps even write a book review or two. My initial goal is to work with the 35 books that have wandered into my living room. I’ve decided that I must read 15 of them by the end of Sept. If I haven’t read 15 then I must get rid of an equivalent number to make it 15. I must read the remainder of the books by the end of December or get rid of the rest of the pile. Then it is onwards and upwards – I’ll continue winnowing by setting deadlines and to help with the reading part I’m not going to the public library. So far I’ve finished one so I better pick up the pace!

Peace at last?

Detente has been reached! Tilly and Marguerite have reached an agreement. If a common enemy approaches the back door such as the baby possum that visits nightly they will ignore one another and sit side by side, ever vigilant that a new enemy is not allowed in. Tilly has also decided not to expend too much energy in hissing unless the terror ventures really, really close now. The spouse even tells me that there has been an occasional touching of noses, this I’ll believe when I see it. I believe that peace will continue to reign as long as tiny one is not allowed into the main bedroom. Should she come between Tilly and her beloved at night – well then all bets are off.

Stealth moves

The little one has pulled out the best weapon in her arsenal in her attempts to ingratiate herself to the human half of the curmudgeon duo – uber cute play moves. Last night she took her feather toy, carried it over to Mark’s shoe, stuffed it in and then proceeded to insert half her body into said shoe to recapture her prey. Pretty good move! Though Tilly remains impervious