 Today on Typical Books we're going to talk about some of the books that I've picked up on my trip to my favorite bookstore on the planet, Apport Books in M.A.S. Pennsylvania, and what I've been reading lately. I've got a couple books on the go, as you may have seen on my Instagram. I took a photo of my reread of 666 by Jay Anson. If only he'd stuck around to write a few more books for us. I really enjoyed this. And I reread it because there was a comment on my previous review for 666 about some of the characters. And I was like, you know what? I vaguely recall those characters. So I'll reread it so that I can answer the question about these two kind of devil worshipers that are in this book. So that was a really fun reread. And I'm currently reading Elliot Gish's Grey Dog. I was going to read Withered First, even though this was touted as a cozy read. And I thought that I'd want to read Withered First, but this comes out really soon. So yeah, I'm really enjoying this. And cozy is what I needed because we got some snow here in Canada and we're not done with the cozy fireside reads just yet, obviously. I've got a few things on the go. I'm reading Dysolven Classroom because I want to start some Genji Edo. So I'll revisit Dysolven Classroom and then dig in to my husband's books, of which there is one in this giant pile beside me that you can't quite see yet. And Iron Hollow by Tim McGregor is coming up really soon. But yeah, I went out shopping because it is the end of my book buying ban. And I've bought one or two things since then, mostly things that were on my list. I am also in the middle of reading. I don't have it down here because I think it's still in the car. I'm reading People of the Abyss by Jack London, which was one of the first books I pounced on Amazon to order. It's in the public domain, so there's all kinds of like crummy or not so crummy versions of it. So I picked up a pretty cheap copy that has the photographs he took while visiting London about 10 years after Jack the Ripper terrorized Whitechapel. And it's really cool. It's a great book actually, and it was an interview on the last podcast on the left with Harold Schechter that turned me on to that. And it leads me to another book in this pile. But we were at Second and Charles, and he'll notice things on our way out the door that I'm like, I have to buy that. The Playboy Book of Horror and the Supernatural, 28 of the best horror and supernatural stories of the time. And it's in mint condition. I don't know. It's being read. It's a little cracked, but it's being restored to a certain degree where it's being ironed out and it's all nice and flat and crisp again. So we've got John Collier, Ray Bradbury, Ray Russell. I'm just skipping a few here. Robert Block, David Eli, Garen Wilson, William F. Nolan, just some greats. And there's a few duplicate stories from different people. Richard Matheson, Calvin Tomkins, Robert Block, Ray Bradbury, Ray Russell. Just a really cool thing. An index of the authors. So it may serve as a snapshot of who is all around still and at what point they were in their career when this book came out. And it's just absolutely gorgeous. A Playboy Press book. And as you know, a lot of horror authors did get their publishing in men's magazines. So it's not uncommon. Copyright 1967. Well, so this might have been the sort of book that would have been on a young Stephen King's shelf and would have turned him on to writing. This is something that turned me on to writing. And it's kind of cute because it's a graphic guide, a little like pictorial, little almost like a graphic novel guide to Noam Chomsky. And I think that's great because I love listening to the man talk. I've heard I've read a little bit of Noam Chomsky in my time. But I think that this is just a really good compendium, a little summary, a little course on Noam Chomsky, if you will. And it goes hand in hand with some more Naomi Klein. No is not enough. This is a very anti Trumpa book. And it's written before her more recent book doppelganger. So I'm very interested in reading this. I don't think it'll be as interesting to me as doppelganger was. But I think that this will help me kind of get a better taste of where her mindset was right before the pandemic. And because we are a horror show, it's a non horror book by Stephen King. I mean, hello, we'll get into the horror. We had a little horror there with the Playboy book, but later a new novel from Stephen King. Of his hard case crime, I've read Funland or Joyland, I believe it's called. I haven't read The Colorado Kid. And this is getting a lot of really good reviews. So I thought I'd pick it up. Then I'd only have one more of these and have a little set of hard case crime. Hopefully he does some more because I just love the look of these. And it'll get me maybe into reading other hard case crime books. Not that I dislike the genre because it is really close to horror. I know horror is kind of like part of the speculative literature genre alongside fantasy and science fiction. And fantasy and sci-fi do have things in common with horror, of course, the speculative nature of it all and the fictional nature of it all. But I really feel horror really leans closer into crime. And that's where it is shelved in a lot of places in crime fiction. So because it is, it's a crime. It's a horrible crime against humanity for the most part, a lot of horror. So I can see that leaning closer into that than say sci-fi or fantasy. For me, I think sci-fi would be the closest thing. I'm not a big fantasy fan. But speaking of crime, this was also on my list. Thank you, Harold Schecter, mentioning this on the last podcast on the left when you were on it. Did you hear what Eddie Geen done? It's a graphic novel covering, of course, the crimes of Eddie Geen. And I'm just absolutely enamored with the minimalist cover of this. That desolate farmhouse is what the world saw of Ed Geen and that aww shucks look on his face. A very typical farm man kind of look. That sort of like German settler look to him. Just that's all we knew of him when this first hit the news, I'm sure. So that weird kind of obtuse tilted look to this illustration fits the story so perfectly. Harold Schecter and Eric Powell have done an amazing job with this. It's black and white, which is some of my favorite style of kind of minimalist, realistic looking graphic novel. If I'm going to pick up a graphic novel, this is the sort I liked. And I really have enjoyed the other two graphic novels about serial killers that I've picked up. The very famous Jeffrey Dahmer, one my friend Dahmer, and the one about the Green River Killer, which I think is probably called just Green River Killer. I'm not really sure, I forget. But it was really good. So that was it for Second and Charles. If you're not in tune, Second and Charles is a used bookstore. They have new books as well, but it's mostly used consignment goods and geek stuff. So you've got like your Funko Pops and video game stuff and movies and musical or like it's a very big store. It reminds me quite a bit of like a thrift store here, but it's all geek stuff, not apparel, right? So yeah, I love going in there because you can always get a really good special. And I was shocked that I found this because they arrange everything by letter, but it's not alphabetical. So the S portion just was a mixed match of S's. You find this at the very end of the S section, even though it starts with SC. So like really annoying. The fiction is a big mess of all the genres. There's not a dedicated horror section, which drove me absolutely bonkers. This true crime stuff was all mixed in with biography. Absolutely ridiculous. And I guess they're forcing you to browse and shop for longer. And I don't like that. I hate it actually. I literally hate it, but I do love the price on this. I think I got it for $15. I don't know what that would translate into Canadian, but 15 bucks for a book that was probably $30 or $40 here in Canada when it was new. I am sold. Before I move on to the amazing stack of books that I got at Apport. One of them was actually pre-order, but yeah. New Rue Morgue. Sort of hot off the press. I just took this out of the mail before we went on holiday, so I didn't read it. Attack of the Arachnids featuring Sebastian Varanex Vermin and Kea Roche Turner's Sting. A brief history of Arachnid cinema. It has a special on stop motion and horror movies turned paperbacks. So very interested in that because they did, they do have a really good section on horror fiction in here always. But yeah, that stop motion movie has caught my eye. As I'm sure it has for most horror fans. Speaking of zines, there was a zine at Apport Books. A free little zine called The Observer. And it just struck me as something like almost like an almanac. A little almanac of oddities. So very interested in checking this out. Some of the topics they talk about from Roswell to Rich's Rare UFO books. An interview on The Devil in a Flying Saucer. Panic like it's 1899, which I will. And contactees for kids. So a lot of alien stuff. I just love the looks of this. Very interested. While I was there, Ben Roylands, the owner and proprietor of the store, Apport Books, also has a small book of strange poetry out, a talking skull, three poems, Ben Roylands, and I am very excited to read this. Not just only in support of the author and the store itself, I do like some offbeat poetry. Normal poetry, not a fan. Adgal and Poe, huge fan. Susan Musgraves poetry. Very weird stuff. Love the heck out of that. So I'm really looking forward to this. Symbols public and private mixed in a cartoon grail tucked behind the stump were stood the opposite, the Tree of Life. There's a human mouse with bloody grin and once white gloves. A forest stroll. The control of the mind. Suspicions trapped forever in the stone walls of the gates to the world beyond the world. A trilogy of paranoia from 2019 to 2020's America. So very excited looking forward to that. An oddball and oddity. It was it was not too expensive. If I recall it was like six dollars or something like that. Four dollars, even better. John Ferris, the ax man cometh. And I just love the look of this book. It's in almost pristine condition. Again a little bit straightened out because it does have one little tiny spine crack, but hey we'll take care of that. And Stephen King says, America's premier novelist of terror. Once she cowered in the darkened room while the ax man murdered her family, waited trembling to meet death and somehow lived. Yeah, really wonderful looking cover. I don't usually go in for pulp that I am not intimately acquainted with on one way or another, but John Ferris is someone who I've not read and always wanted to. And here's a good entry I believe. Charles L. Grant's For Fear of the Night. Something that I've wanted to do is pick up more Charles L. Grant. I am a fan of quiet horror. I've not read The Master of the Genre. And I like this sort of like wolf pack idea of 80s horror writers. And I want to read a little bit more of all of them. And Charles L. Grant is one that I haven't read enough of. I do talk to his wife, Kathy Tachik, who is the writer under another name, Les is something, who wrote Gila. And I just, I need to pick up more of both of their work quite honestly. So I'm going to pick up a little more Charles L. Grant who got some of Kathy's work on the shelf. And I'm looking forward to the reprint reissue of Gila, which is coming out very soon. I just had to look up her pen name. It was Les Simons. I totally forgot and I kept forgetting while I was looking for this book over at my holidays as well. So I'm going to have to tattoo that on my hand or something. So I remember when I go looking for vintage copies of Gila, it's by Les Simons. And Kathy has a reissue coming out from Centipede Press. And it looks amazing. There were two older paperbacks that I don't always go for. Like I said, unless it's something I'm really intimately acquainted with, but I could not pass this up. It's Frank Belknap Long's The Night of the Wolf from Frankenstein Horror Series. And it's just got such a cool cover. It was not too expensive. So I'm excited to take it out of its plastic and let it breathe once more. And yeah, so I'll be reading this over the summer. I think this is the perfect sort of summer read. Another thing I like to read over the summer is a little Ray Bradbury is more sci-fi stuff, but Guy N. Smith or is it Gee? Guy N. Smith's Cannibals. Get a load of this cover. Another that I'm very excited to take out of the plastic and let it breathe a little bit. I didn't pay too, too, too much for these. This one's a little bent. It's being well loved, but I could care less. I will love it all over again too. Every time I see a Guy N. Smith novel with its classic covers, I think of the Krabs series and I want to buy it for my husband really badly. This particular book may not be horror necessarily, but I had pre-ordered it. I saw it on the Appart Books Instagram and I wanted it set aside. I bought it right there, so to speak, and went and picked it up instead of having it shipped. The Wonders of the Avisible World, The Trials of the Witches by Cotton Mather. Aside from the Malice Malifah Karim, and there's another witchcraft book that I have of all the older stories, like they have the Nuns at Lords and other possession tales and witchcraft trials in there. Hunt the Witch Down covers some of the stories that I believe will be in here, but in a more digestible sense, because Hunt the Witch Down is a scholastic book, nevertheless. The Wonders of the Invisible World, The Trials of the Witches from the Man Himself, Cotton Mather. One thing I did not know about Cotton Mather is that his father was the president of Harvard, and thus his subsequent education at Harvard. So yeah, really interesting compendium, a snapshot, if you will, of somewhere, I guess 1690s that this was written in, which wouldn't make it if it was an original, the oldest book I own. But it is a really, really great addition of the original. I really want to visit Salem someday, and I haven't. I know my friend Amy has gone a couple times, my friend Sean has gone several times. I, people from Rumor go, and I wish I could go and hear them speak at Salem at the horror fest they have there, and I figure what it's called. But yeah, I would just like to go there any old time, let alone Halloween, when the population probably swells to 700 times its normal size. On the other extreme of witchcraft propaganda, we got propaganda and holy writ of the process church of the final judgment. Farrell House had put out reissues of the really, really graphically heavy magazines from the process church or the final judgment process, and process magazine looked fantastic, and they reprinted them here with a little extra stuff in an interview with one of the founders of the process church, or creators of the magazine. It is just an astounding journey through what they could do with graphic design and type setting for magazines in the 60s, in the 70s. And as a graphic design student, this is just eye candy to me, as someone who's been fascinated by end times cults. Very interesting to read some of the, I don't know, indoctrination right from the horse's mouth in the form of their weird ass magazine. That was a book really bought from my husband. He saw it on the shelf, and I pounced on it. I know we'll both enjoy it. I've already gone through it once, but it's going to join all of his very, very cool books. I don't usually talk about it on the show because it's not really horror. And neither is this Food of the Gods, Terence McKenna. After reading Altered States, and I've read other Terence McKenna before, I picked up Terence McKenna the last time I visited airport books. And yet there was another Terence McKenna just kicking around there. And Terence McKenna is mentioned in the processians. I believe they interviewed him, but they were on a lot of drugs too at that time. They really were a bit of psychonauts before psychonaut was a word. But he's the original psychonaut, and it's just very interesting reading to me. So I'm looking forward to this. We watched the film, and I picked up a copy of the film Altered States while we were in Pennsylvania. And it was just really neat to read. Little tiny mentions of Terence McKenna just peppered in through things to this day. So yeah, really cool find. The search for the original Tree of Knowledge, a radical history of plants, drugs, and human evolution. Really pristine copy too, I feel really lucky. And the final thing is also a pristine copy, also something I feel really lucky. I'm not sure if it was there last time I was there, it might have been, but I didn't remember. It's like my heart just fell out of my stomach when I saw it, and I wanted it. I didn't care how much it was, and it was not inexpensive, I will say. Offseason by Jack Ketchum. And this is a Dark Region's Press Special Edition. It's a numbered edition. So it probably retailed for, I don't know, 80 bucks, 90 bucks, or something like that. But they're scarce now, and I'm going to see what number I've got. 237 out of 500 of this gorgeous hardcover. I don't know if I will take it out of its slipcase. I do have a reading copy of Offseason on my shelf, so I can always read Offseason anytime I want. But I don't have any signed Jack Ketchum, so this is a real find for me. Jack Ketchum's debut novel Offseason made a huge impact on the horror scene with its initial publication in 1980. It became so controversial that the original publisher withdrew their support of the novel. Now award winning specialty publisher Dark Region's Press has brought Jack Ketchum's debut novel back in its best form yet. The 35th anniversary edition of Offseason includes the author's originally intended version of the novel, a new short story based in the offseason universe, a new afterward from the author, the novelette Winter Child, five full page interior illustrations by Tomaslav Dekulin, and stunning full wrap-around Dustjacket artwork by David Spacas. And it is quite stunning. I was stopped dead in my tracks and had to own it no matter what the cost, and I'm very pleased. I really like this not only because it's offseason and because it's a special edition, an anniversary edition, and it's numbered and it's signed. It has in the author description Jack Ketchum is, not Jack Ketchum was. And I just love that. I love seeing something that was in from the time that he may have touched with his own hands. It definitely did touch with his own hands and something that he oversaw and probably cherished as much as readers and fans of his will. So yeah, I was really lucky to find this. If you ever owned number 237, let me know. So that is it for today. We talked about one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, probably seventeen books, not all that I picked up in PA on the road trip of the year. Half of these are for the collection, so to speak, but some of them I'll be talking about on the show soon. I'll be doing a rereading of Jack Ketchum's offseason, but very soon I'll have a talk about Grey Dog, which I'm enjoying immensely. It's an epistolary novel. It takes place in the 1800s. It's gotten creepy cozy, and from what I understand, it will get full on weird any minute now. So I'll be talking about that soon and somewhere around there, poisonous books as well, because books that are green from 1860s thereabouts could be poisonous, and I think I have one on my shelf, so we'll find out. Thank you so much for watching and have an oogie spooky day.