 Hello all. It is March 31, 2017. That means it's time for me to do my regular monthly reads wrap up. Where do I start? A lot happened. I spent the first week of this month in Portland, Oregon, where I've never been before. I visited a number of interesting places and I made videos which I'm going to edit and post on the 50th Street channel as part of the ongoing 50th Street Tour. It'll be the 50th Street Tour Portland edition. So go look for that at 50th Street. And meanwhile, here on the ThinkBolt channel at 30 Seconds I Fire, I have passed 700 subscribers. And if you'll remember last month I gained my fourth patron. His name is Kyle Gertz and I would like to officially welcome him. I now am making a whopping $30 a month. Thank you. Remember my sci-fi book bag deal is still a thing. If you become a patron at $20 a month, I will send you a science fiction book in the mail every month. It's still a thing. You can go do that. Sign up at 30secondsci-fi.50th.st. That's 50th Street. There's the link here and in the description below. Go do it, please. Okay, now I bought books this month. I bought books. I told myself when I was going to Portland that I wasn't going to buy a lot of books. I visited Powell's bookstore in the downtown Portland which calls itself the world's largest independent bookstore. And it's large, but I told myself I wasn't going to buy a lot of books, but I bought books. Before I left, though, I visited the gift shop at the local library. And in addition to that little mermaid VHS I showed you last time, I bought two books. Haunted by Chuck Palaniuk and Dorothy Must Die, which I know nothing about. It was a dollar, so I got it. But this book right here, I had it on the table when I was making my video last month. And when I turned off the lights here, I walked past the table and I did a double take because the book was doing this. Pretty cool. Chuck Palaniuk, by the way, is the guy who wrote Fight Club. And this is a collection of short horror stories, which I'm really looking forward to reading because I hear that he's a good writer. And short stories are the best way to introduce yourself to a writer you haven't read before without committing to a novel. Okay, so there's a lot to cover just looking at the books that I bought in Portland, so let's go straight to that. Okay, first of all, let's get this out of the way. How about this old Superman storybook LP for 50 cents? And while driving to Seattle, I stopped at a little truck stop near Mount St. Helens and found these CD audiobooks. I've never read much Dean Koontz, but this was cheap, so I picked it up. But here's the thing that really caught my eye. Ambrose beers, audiobook stories at a truck stop? Hell yeah. Unfortunately, there's only the two stories on here. But man, are they good. I've never heard horsemen in the sky before. Wow, what a great writer. Well, let's start here. I bought this from Jackie Ray Naiman when I recorded an upcoming episode of Talk to the Hand. This is her autobiographical account of being in the worst movie ever made. I'm looking forward to this. Some stuff I bought on my first visit to Powell's. There was this Novels of Science, Donald A. Walheim, one of my favorite anthology editors, and it's got HD Wells, HP Lovecraft, Olaf Stapledon. This is the third printing from 1950. Beautiful book. These anthologies are always a safe bet to go with. So here's some more. And these. Voices one edited by George R. R. Martin. New Amazons edited by Margaret Weiss. Never in this world. Compiled by Idella Stone. And then there are these. Some new stuff. 21st century anthology edited by David G. Hartwell, who I just talked about last week. And Robo-Pocalypse. The reason I picked this up is because they had a sign on the shelf next to it saying, science fiction by a Native American. And I was like, really? That's exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for. I also picked up this. This is nonfiction, the story of Henrietta Lacks. If you've not heard of Henrietta Lacks, you should go look her up on Wikipedia right now. I've read about her before and seen documentaries about her. And I've been wanting to read this book for some time. There's a movie coming out sometime soon. One of the other things I picked up at Powell's was this. Volume one of Dr. Solar, Man of the Atom. The old Charlton comic from the early 1960s. These books were known for their beautiful art. And their fully painted covers. Look at this stuff. I'd never actually read these comics before, but I admired the look of them for some time. The writing in these books is terrible. The scripts are really bad. I took a quick drive up to Seattle that week. I stopped at the Half Price bookstore up there. Half Price Books is a chain that I'm familiar with. There's a big Half Price bookstore in Houston that I used to go to all the time. This is a very small Half Price bookstore. But they still had some great stuff. The Killer Thing by Kate Wilhelm. Flex by someone named Ferret Steinmetz. Never heard of it. Never heard of the author. But it looked interesting. Aleph the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson. G. Willow Wilson has become notable for writing the new Ms. Marvel comics. And I did not know that she wrote novels. So we'll see. And Nebula Awards 2007. Edited by Mike Resnick. He's an author I've never talked about and I should someday. Also while in Seattle I visited this bookstore called Ada's Technical Books and Cafe. A tiny little place but easily the most interesting bookstore I've ever seen. Easily. And I picked up these two. Howl's Moving Castle and something called I Am Princess X. Howl's Moving Castle I've certainly heard of. But this I had not. There is a video coming up about Ada's Technical Books on the 50th Street channel. Look for that. And one last thing I got at Howl's. This monstrosity. Giant book. The complete works of Fletcher Hanks. If you've not seen Fletcher Hanks comics work before. Good Lord. Look him up. He had a brief but spectacular career during the golden age of comics. And Fletcher Hanks was a pseudonym. But look at these ridiculous comics. Terrible art. Terrible stories. But hilarious. Hilarious stuff. This is his most famous character these days. The Super Wizard Stardust. You've been seeing him on the shelf behind me all this time. Take a look. There he is. And Phantoma is his other famous creation. Take a look. All right. That's it for this month. Thank you everybody for watching. Thank you for the 700 subscribers. Another welcome to my new patron. Book review number 199 is coming up and then number 200. Look for them. Please remember to press that like button. It helps my videos get seen. And then subscribe so you can come back next time. 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