Category: Nerd in a Bar with a Book

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#nerdinabarwithabook

I’m one of those people who sometimes causes computers to malfunction just by walking into the room. It happens with other machines, too. Motorcycles, snowmobiles, wave runners. So I’m on the fence a little bit about technology being the nemesis of the manitou in The Manitou by Graham Masterton, a classic in the horror genre. (Also, I did not realize the book was the first in a series until I pulled it up on Amazon to share the link.) At the same time, it makes good sense, and is right in line with what I’ve learned from old fairytales and folklore—some of our friends from the other side of the veil do even less well with technology than I do.

That drink is a fancy cocktail enjoyed at Walker’s Bluff – Tasting Room. I can’t remember what was in it, but it the garnish was an edible flower. I ate a petal. Because of course I did. It was called a flower child. Pretty.

Used book stores are the bomb. I love to buy new books hot off the presses, help out a writer in the process. But finding gems at used book stores is such a dang thrill, isn’t it? I knew I was going to Owl Creek Winery. So it’s only natural to read a book by Owl Goingback! Darker Than Night was published in 1999, but it has all the very best features of a 1970s horror movie. I’m reading it and all but shouting “Tell him!” “Believe her!” “Why are you doing that?” Also, if you move into a house overloaded with kachina dolls… don’t.

The drink is a blueberry basil cider. Owl Creek makes some of my favorite summer wines, but when I go there, I always wind up seduced by the cider.

I always say I don’t want to start in a book in a series. It’s intimidating, picking up that first book and knowing there are six more to go. I mean, I got things to read, how can I commit to your series? And then I wind up captivated and reading the series. Countless times. This time, it’s the Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott mysteries by Robert Galbraith, aka JK Rowling. I read Career of Evil at Pheasant Hollow Winery with a Catawba wine. Catawba is a bit sweeter a wine than I typically drink, but it’s not an icky sweet—it’s got a nice earthiness to it, too. There are maybe three wineries I’ve been to that I really love the Catawba, and Pheasant Hollow is one!

Also, friends, please don’t worry. I have a backlog of these, I’m ok, really! 😉

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What I’m reading and where I’m reading it. And what I’m drinking for part of the time I’m reading it.

So, this first one is a book about a woman driving alone in the mountains on her way to a horror convention, and encountering the Mothman or something like it and assorted other baddies along the way. For reasons I’ll explain in mid-April, that one skeered me. Below by Laurel Hightower is genuinely scary but it’s also empowering.

I enjoyed that book at Ebb & Flow Fermentations in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Ebb & Flow has got just the best vibe. Inside it’s eclectic funky, and outside it’s herb garden magic. It’s February, so we’re inside. They have a series of beers named after goddesses and made by their women brewers. This one is Arduinna, which they describe as a dark saison ale with chocolate malt and roasted hickory bark. It was a perfect match.

Into the Forest and All the Way Through by Cynthia Pelayo is a collection of poems based on real life / true crime stories of murdered and missing American women and girls. It is heartbreaking. It’s one thing to read or write fiction that has murders — even if you are drawing from your own experience, you know the story itself is fiction. It’s another to write true crime — most of that is written in a clinical, research-forward way. Cina Pelayo goes into the heart and all the way through to your soul. I’ve not read anything quite like it.

So after all that seriousness, it seems almost stupid to talk about reading it in a bar during Valentine’s week. Johnson Bar in Paducah, Kentucky was all done up for the holiday, in reds and blacks and pinks and hearts and arrows and naughtiness and snarkiness and a nod to the heartbroken. The red lighting made the pictures kinda cool. That’s a Paloma I’m drinking — they do complex cocktails very well, but that night I was more traditional.

I am honored to call Meg Pokrass my friend. She has been my flash fiction mentor, a source of encouragement and inspiration, and a supporter when I needed a hug followed by a kick in the ass (all virtual). She lives now in Inverness, Scotland, the gateway to Loch Ness, and if Nessie is going to show herself to anyone, it’ll be Meg. They are two of a kind — mysterious, shy, beautiful and playful. Kissing the Monster Hunter is a series of flash fiction stories about a monster hunter. And love.

I was at Hill Prairie Winery upstate in Oakford, Illinois. They have historic pictures of horses on the wall — Morgans, a Percheron stallion, mules, work horses, all of them previously associated with the place in days of yore — so you know I loved it. The wine in this picture is Fireside Cran-Apple Spice, which tastes like a mulled wine.

Cheers!

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What I’m reading, and where I’m reading it.

I forgot to include this one in the last round.

Sour Candy, by Kealan Patrick Burke, a novella that had me cringing with every page. Not gross-out cringing, but “this is a nightmare and I want to wake up but also see what’s going to happen” dread cringe. In the very best way. Tragic, occasionally funny, always scary.

This picture is a little bit of a cheat because I’m not in a bar. I do occasionally read other places! This one is a lunchtime read at Harbaugh’s Cafe. Great cover, eh?

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu is—and I don’t say this lightly—the most important book to come out about pandemics during the Covid pandemic years. Though he started writing it well before most people in the world had ever heard of a coronavirus, this book, which begins with the discovery of a centuries-old little girl who was killed by a virus, which is soon unleashed on the modern world, is relevant in a way a book deliberately about the real pandemic probably could not be. It’s about grieving and living, about family and purpose, it’s sad, and funny, and mysterious, and philosophical. I’m blown away. Also, I get to interview the author for the SIU Alumni Magazine. Cuz he went to SIU. Where I work.

I’m at Shotgun Eddy’s in Eddyville. The outdoor stage—which, in January, is not where Tim played—features a tie-line for horses. Eddyville bills itself as the Trail Riding Capitol of Illinois, and I’m pretty sure they own that claim. And yeah, that’s a good ol’ Stag beer.

Stay tuned. I’m reading now about the Mothman.

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What I’m Reading. And Where I’m Reading It.

Since my husband is a gigging singer-songwriter, I get to bars and wineries and micro-brews a whole lot. And I’m the nerd who brings a book for the occasion. Here’s what I’ve started reading this new year.

Reading now: Ragman by JG Faherty. First off, what a great title for mummy horror! At The Liquor Hut, in McLeansboro.


And earlier this year, Road of Bones by Christopher Golden at 618 Taphouse drinking a hard cider brewed in St. Louis.

And the first book of the year was The Best Horror of the Year, vol. 14 edited by Ellen Datlow. Blue Sky Vineyard, Cabernet Franc.

I also read The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix. Barnes & Noble is hosting Grady Hendrix in a Zoom event tomorrow. Sign up. It’s free.