Good news all around for books this month. My own personal triumph? I now have a plastic bin at the library with my name on it for my holds, an honor only 5 other people have. Sweet. The murder mystery con. Boucheron was in town. Since I didn’t care to drop a few hundred bucks for a ticket, I passed. However, there was a free authors’ panel discussion at Barnes and Noble the celebrate the 80th anniversary of Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd . Visiting authors included Carolyn Hart, MC Beaton, Donna Andrews and Agatha Christie’s grandson. I had a grand time listening to Christie’s sweet and slightly befuddled grandson talk about his grandmother in his lovely Welsh accent. He eagerly showed how his grandma based one of her character’s quirks on his step-father’s habit of twirling his hair when he thought -spending the rest of the panel with a little corkscrew of hair sticking off the top of his head. Another highlight - an audience member asked MC Beaton her thoughts on the BBC production of her Hamish MacBeth Series. "Infanticide!," she shouted in her heavy Scottish accent, "No, MURDER!" Guess I’ll be skipping that one. One more piece of good news. The one and only Neil Gaiman is slated to appear at the Orpheum in October for the Wisconsin Book Festival. Woohoo!

High Fidelity - Nick Hornby

You know what is really funny? Dogs, with socks on running. You know what else is funny? I actually read this book years ago and had no memory of it until I got about 7/8 of they way through. Then I realized "Oh, this is that book about a loser with a shop and a nice girlfriend who gets his act together." And it was, too. Hornby’s characters are instantly recognizable. I have run into numerous Robs of various stripes; nice people who landed in a job and/or relationship and just aren’t quite sure what they are doing there. These are middle of the road folks who are doing ok, but vaguely displeased with life. However, things never seem dire enough to spend the effort needed to truly make a change. What makes this novel so interesting is that Rob changes his life vastly without truly changing his life. Same job, same girlfriend, same apartment, just a different perspective making the mundane into the enjoyable. A good, low-key yet quietly uplifting book. (Note: nope, never saw the movie. Is it any good - anyone?)

The City of Falling Angels - John Berendt

In Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, the reader has a strong feeling of time. The story covers years and you can clearly feel Capote’s desire to tell the story to the end, but at the same time strongly fearing and wishing for a conclusion. In Berendt's books, time is immaterial. As in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil , the story spans years. Yet the reader is given the feeling that Berendt is constantly assailed with exciting events and wonderfully weird people. While he does see the story through to the end, the trip is as important as the destination.

City of Falling Angels covers the arson of the 200 year old Venetian Opera House, the Fenice. Once a world super-power, later a crumbling backwater, Venice is now to many only thought as a prime tourist spot. Unlike other tourist destinations, Venice is very much a living, working city full of fascinating locals. Berendt picks up the story of the fire a few days after the event, as he coincidently arrived for a vacation. Interviewing natives - from local grocers to the ultra-wealthy palace owners -he covers not just the story of the Fenice, but the story of Venice and its inhabitants. The Venetian mindset is truly unique. While at once considering themselves a step-above, as though their art and architecture add a certain cache to everyone on the island ("Europe would still be an island if they hadn’t built a bridge from Venice") Venetians will also freely admit that their beloved city has gone through some disastrous times. While Napoleon sacked and looted a great deal of city, leaving it to rot, ironically much of the grime and long-disinterest has helped to preserve the building and art that was left.

Berendt wanders from rich British expats, the Guggenheim, internal wars in philanthropic groups attempting to save Venice, Ezra Pound’s mistress, a world-famous rat-catcher, an infamous gay poet and, of course, the trial itself. Brilliant, rich , fascinating and every bit as good as Midnight.

Paint it Black: A Guide to Gothic Homemaking - Voltaire

The Glue Gun: If you have never used a glue gun before, then I am honored to introduce to you a tool that is going to make you Gother than you could ever imagine. Why, you ask? Well, I have been using glue guns for nearly twenty years now and I have never met a glue-gun user (including myself) who hasn’t at some point squirted a heaping dollop of blazing, molten glue into the palm of his or her hand. And let me tell you that as Goth as you think you are, you have never known the unfathomable depths of excruciating anguish and despair than will be revealed when you’ve done this… Suffice to say, nothing else you’ve experienced in your wretched life will be as shite-poem inspiring as this hellish experience.

Want to be Gother than thou on a minimal budget? Voltaire has it all - gothing out your home with paint, fabric, electrical tape and a glue gun. As with his fantastic music (Ex-Lover’s Lover, When You’re Evil), comic books (O My Goth!) and other books (What is Goth - featuring the gothic poem generator) the book is dark dark, darkity-dark while also being ridiculously, totally over the top silly and fun. Not planning to paint it black? Read it anyway, just for Voltaire’s commentary.