 Today on Typical Books it is a little tiny unhaul and just a little hello. I'm not going to be doing like one of those big unhauls. I like all the books that I own and when I went to research like doing an unhaul booktube video because I'd never done one before really, it's a lot of like 100 books. 150 books, 50 books, even 25 books. So to have like under 10 books is a really meager unhaul and I almost thought why even bother doing one but you know it ties into the read what you own challenge. I'm trying to read 25 books off myself so I haven't been book buying. I have a book buying ban right now. It's going well. You know I think I have under 10 books to go now which is nice and I'm gonna be doing another related video that is not a haul. It's like an anti-haul. It's a wish list like books that I want to buy, books that I've wanted to buy and wish listed and I just cannot wait to go book shopping for. And there's not a heck of a lot of those either so it'll be a little a little video, a little catch-up aside from what I'm reading right now. And that is Virgin by James Patterson. It is the raddiest, tattiest, ugliest version of a book I've ever read. It is so beat up. It is almost as beat up as my copy of Hell House which you may know has fallen in half because it is so raddy and over read. The spine on this is nicely cracked. It's cracked but it's really flexible. So of course like it says Adele or it's a Putnam book yet not even it's a Bantam book but Bantam is like a great pocket books of course. So this is probably gonna last another 30 years. It is from 1980 so it's super old Patterson. I haven't read a lot of James Patterson. I've seen some movies adapted from books. I've read a couple and I took his master class and I just heard Regina St. Clair talking on her the writing podcast that she has with her friend James. Really great podcast by the way I'll leave a link down below. And they had both taken his master class. I've taken his master class. He's a wonderful writer of course and he knows how to write even back here in 1980. If you can hear that bookmark clicking around sorry about that but yeah it is interestingly written and I'm reading this. It caught my eye because of the film immaculate that's coming out soon and I like religious horror and it looks terrifying and it sort of sort of ties into this with these divine conceptions. So I am doing this about halfway through. It's written interestingly. It's slow. I mean it's not it's not working for me as far as tension building. I find it's just slow. It's an interesting story. So far it's not very horrific but I guess in reading something like The Howl House or The Omen it's not like jump off the page horrific make you doubt your very sanity horrific or anything like that. It's that typical 1980s quasi-literary pulp horror where I say quasi-literary because it is well written and it has a little more high concept plot to it right. But yeah so I'm enjoying Virgin by James Patterson. I think that'll set me at nine books left to go and I've got a little stack that I'll talk about in another video. On that little pile is All These Steps Lead Down by Nelson Piles. This is not the final cover. Nelson W. Piles' uncorrected proof it says. He handed this to me at Stoker Con and this is up next in my list and happy release day Nelson. He is a friend of mine, a fellow author, he's edited my work, he's performed my work live on podcasts all around excellent writer. Last I had read it was Horror Western type stuff so I'm very very curious to see where all these steps lead to. Down. I know it's really down but I'm still curious. This comes from Cold War Radio Press and is available now. So in unhaul I've got what one two three four five six books or so here in this little pile that some of them were reading copies, ARCs sent to me. Some of them were review copies sent to me after publication. Some of them were books I've picked up and just never got around to and that's what this first book is. Circus of the Damned by Laurel Kaye Hamilton. This has been in unhaul piles a couple times and I keep wanting to read it. I've never even picked it up. I have no idea what it's about. I mean I'll read the back and let's see if I keep it which I don't. Featuring Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, the novel's number one New York Times best-selling Laurel Kaye Hamilton, blah blah blah blah blah. Supernatural pleasure and pain. I had to go in the sooner I left the sooner I could come home. Only I believe that Jean Claude would make things that simple. Nothing was ever simple where he was concerned. I mean it's not really telling me much stuff except that it's bloody and sexy and I guess that's part of like maybe I picked it up because I'm like oh I want to read some sort of vampire fiction I don't normally pick up. I've never read anything by Laurel Kaye Hamilton and I really want to. Maybe this is just not the book. So yeah I mean it's got critical acclaim from more of the thriller side of the coin so maybe that's part of why I keep not picking it up. There's other books to read obviously. I'm doing the 25 book read what you can challenge. I could be doing the 101 quite honestly. So Laurel Kaye Hamilton Circus of the Damned is going. I probably will bring it to a little library or I take a book leave a book at my work because it is kind of mainstream-ish. A few that I will be taking to a local bookstore, Black Squirrel Books probably because there are like-minded readers that will enjoy the heck out of this. Richard Thomas's spontaneous human combustion. I love the cover. I liked this but it's not something I'm gonna ever reread and I can't immediately think of anyone that I would like to lend it to or need to. I think that it will really find an audience. Quickly it'll get snapped up at the bookstore that I plan to bring it to. So yes spontaneous human combustion. I did like a few stories and there's quite a lot but not to the point of something like Holy Father, Holy Rabbit or whatever that one is called by Stephen Graham Jones. That short story I read in passing and I could not shake it. I've read it probably 12 times since. That sort of short story is the sort of thing I want to hang on to close and tight forever in multiple formats but this I'd love to see someone else read it and get the sort of joy that I did upon first passing. That was a uncorrected proof, a pre-release copy from Keylight Books, not from the author himself which would have been really cool. Richard Thomas is a really cool guy but yeah it came from the publisher so I'm not too sore about seeing it go. This next one I am kind of sad to see it go just because I think it's so cool when a new to me author reaches out and this did come from the publisher but I think that the other author had handpicked some people to send it to. The Haunting of Canaver House which I really did like. It's just not something that I am going to reread. Now this is a story of a musician who goes out to this house to get some work done on his solo stuff. He's had like a hard break up and just life is not treating him well. He goes to refresh and he takes a job as a caretaker for Canaver House and it turns out that there is more to that job offer than first met the eye and Canaver House itself is a very interesting kind of ghost house as it is. It's a house that's really hard to find and people think it doesn't exist and it's perched up on the edge of a cliff and stuff like that. I really like the Gothic leanings but it's taken too much into the modern for me. There's some points that the storyline of the caretaker man himself just pulled me out of this and then we go into the past a lot but we stay there a little too deeply and a little too long. It's a good book and well-written a really good effort. I really do want to read more by Stephen McClossey but this book isn't one that I want to hang on to I don't think. It's hard for me to make this decision entirely and I think this would be really good at black squirrel books again. Someone will deeply enjoy that book. I know it because I did have fun with it. It's just not something I want to hang on to forever and this next book is quite the opposite of that. I mostly want to hang on to this book because the cover is so cool but it just wasn't for me and that's Red Acts by David Demchuk and I wanted this to be the book of the year for me so badly. I like the topic. I like a lot of the characters. I like where parts of the plot go. It just doesn't quite work for me and I left this book wanting more of it but written differently and I wanted what I had originally gone in looking for and I don't think that book exists. I had wanted a story about the men that are going missing in the village area of Toronto. It's a very GLBT friendly book so if you're into that stuff I highly recommend it. If you're terrified of serial killers stalking your friends I mean that's the sort of book that's what this is about but it just puts your foot around it and gets lost in the weeds in too many places. They had enough copies of Black Squirrel books last time I went so it didn't end up being taken there so I'm going to bring it to my work and put it at the take a book leave a book. I think if I decide that it's a little too racy or dark for that kind of public consumption then I may just put it in a local cafe that has a take a book leave a book that I know of that this would go over extremely well and there's probably people that have been dying to read it that frequent that coffee shop so yeah just not for me and one that I've tried to get rid of already. Man that sounds harsh that sounds harsh but I bought it with my own money so it's not like a review copy or anything no one gifted it to me I was really looking forward to this. I want to read more David Demchuk and I want to read more about this topic just this book wasn't it for whatever reason. This next book The Beloveds it was a long time ago was a review copy that I received and I've never gone to get rid of it because I like the cover I like the story I like the premise and this will go to my work because it is very thriller-esque a very safe very mainstream story nothing overtly horrific really happens. We deal with a almost unreliable narrator or maybe I just wish she was unreliable because she's so evil and just crazy she's absolutely obsessed and crazy and hate filled narcissists it's she's a really terrible person but I love her and she's written so well and you can relate to her craziness like you can relate to a small percentage of the feelings that she professes in this but yeah interesting book really good like a grown-up we've always lived in the castle for one because it's only her she's the crazy one everyone around her seems pretty normal and it's kind of painful once you really get the gist of everything going on but yeah it was an interesting book the Maureen Lindley book was sent to me by Sam and Schuster and I still deal with Simon and Schuster here in Canada for books of this nature so I got a lot of joy out of this and I hope to pass that on because it's a proof it will definitely be going to give away like a free book because it is not for resale this next final book is for resale I bought it with my own money but I bought it used and I'm glad I did because I just again was not for me and I've heard other people say it so I'm not alone in things like Grady Hendricks or Richard Thomas or of course Steve Graham Jones they are things that they write that blow your hair back and you love them and then there's things they write that are just not for you Joe Hill does this Stephen King of course all the great writers write books that are just not for you and last final girl was not for me now the last final girl reminds me of a screenplay in a rough it just did not flow off the page for me I couldn't picture the settings or the people in my mind like I could with something like the only good Indian or other books like Stephen Graham Jones and other short stories of Stephen Graham Jones and mapping the interior I can still picture that little boy I can still picture his father or the ghost of his father in his fancy dress I can picture all of that this could tell you what happened in it really did not really enjoy my time reading it and wanted to just get it over with but there are people that love this book and there's people that are new to Stephen Graham Jones and want to read more different books by him and this might be their next best thing so I don't know if I've taken this already to the used bookstore that I frequent I'll try there and if not it will go in a take a book leave a book or a little library or something like that I don't know if this really fits in the category of safe for 100% all public consumption if I shouldn't put it in a little library really honestly I think there are used bookstores that will take this and there is also a goodwill near me as well where there are people that would really enjoy this frequent there as well so maybe that's where it will end up but suffice it to say all these books will go to a good home and that home is not mine I really should unhaul more books but like I said I like all the books I have you can't even see right now some of the collector stuff and box set books I have that are wonderful you know really beautiful things I would never part with the you know paperbacks that I have I never want to part with so I've gone through my shelves a couple times there's usually about two or three books that I'm unhauling and to me this is a big stack it may not be 50 bucks but you know six bucks is a lot to me are any of these books that you've unhauled or that you've recently picked up and that you wish that you were at the little library right now the last final girl the loveds I don't know if anyone's ever read that red axe I know it was really popular and of good reason it's good book the haunting of kanabe house which I've never heard anyone else talk about and you know check it out spontaneous human combustion a lot of people really love this and I hope to pass that on and Laurel Kay Hamilton Circus of the Damned have you read Laurel Kay Hamilton or know somebody that does if you do share this video with them for sure let me know what you think in the comments down below thank you so much for watching and have an icky spooky day