Night of the Living Dead Christian:

Night of the Living Dead Christian: One Man's Ferociously Funny Quest to Discover What It Means to Be Truly Transformed by Matt Mikalatos
Fiction: Religion, Humor,Paranormal, E-book

Like the author's other book that we read,  (link to review here,)  this book has the author as one of the main characters in this book.  In this book he is not the main character of the story, but a helper and guide to the main character.  (Who is named Luther Ann Martin, a Lutheran that insists that he is not a Christian, and is a werewolf.) Besides the werewolf, there are a large collection of unusual characters including: a mad scientist, an android, a former vampire, a whole church of zombies, and  a monster hunter complete with an Eastern European accent. As you could can guess from the title and the genres of the book, the story is ultimately on the transformative power of Christ, but along the way they have tons of humorist mishaps including: trying to make silver bullets on a home stove, going to therapy to stop being a werewolf, getting advice from a robot Jesus, and accidentally setting a church on fire.  At the end there is also a set of questions about the book for people that want to use it to reflect on the ideas of the book or as a part of a book group, as well as alternate titles and subtitles, and a self-diagnosis guide to finding out what type of monster you might be.

Relish:

Relish: My Life in the Kitchen By: Lucy Knisley
Non-fiction: Memoir, Food, Graphic novel 173 pages
Book Count: 67

A story of a person's life told with comics and food.  The chapters end with a recipe also told with comics.

Good Advice From Bad People:

Good Advice From Bad People Selected Wisdom from Murderers, Stock Swindlers, and Lance Armstrong
Non-Fiction: Biography, 192 pages
Book Count: 66

After our last book of people that started out bad and turned good, we thought we would read this book of good advice that the creator of didn't follow.  This book is filled with a quote from some one and then a short 1-2 page biography of them that points out how they did the exact opposite of their advice.  It includes info on self help book writers that: went bankrupt, got divorced, ended up in jail or otherwise were the last person you would want to take advice from on a subject if they did what they said to do.  There are also entries on politicians,  sport stars, and televangelists. In short a who's who of people who said, "Do what I say, not what I do."

Saints Behaving Badly:

Saints Behaving Badly: The Cutthroats, Crooks, Trollops, Con Men, and Devil Worshippers Who Became Saints By: Thomas J. Craughwell
Non-Fiction: Religion, Biography 186 pages
Book Count: 65

This book is a collection of short biographies of saints, blessed, and venerable men and women, who at some point in their lives were anything but saintly.  The book is arraigned in chronological order and each chapter is the name of the saint and their sin.  With some of the earlier saints there are notes on how the rules for how people officially became saints has changed, as some of the conversions were not as extreme as others.  With all the stories the author tries to note what things in their life there is reliable proof of and what things are stories that can not be proven, but were popular stories about the saint.

Old Year's Resolutions:

With about a week and a half left in the year and dozen or so holiday parties to attend, we are giving up on making 2014's reading new year's resolution.  And have decided to work on making up 2015's goals.


2015 ish Goals:

1. Keep off the weight loss of 2014 (not a reading related goal, but this year I'm writing all my goals down to remember them, and so my friends can keep me on task.)
2. Edit story I finished this year. (screaming about how there is nothing useful and deleting everything is editing, right?)
3. Add 12 books to the list of books on the FB page for our church's chapter of the Council of Catholic Women, before the new 3rd vice-president takes over. (this will happen in spring 2016, so the ish on the goals. Also I picked 12 books as that will bring the number of books up to 52, or enough to read one a week.) These books must follow the current rules that I use for putting books on the list: they must rate at least 4 out of 5 stars, and be something reasonable to appear on a church group's FB page. (Not that I might throw one or two odder books on this list, just because.  But still within the criteria. So sorry friends "Lamb" will not be added to the list.[side note who here thinks it's for not being a 4 star book and who for it being not appropriate?])
4. Win Nanowrimo in November. (Maybe do a camp too.)
5.  Write down story ideas and crazy real life things that with a few changes could be useful in stories. (I'm not adding a note about them here because you wouldn't believe me anyway. . . )

Wheat Belly Total Health:

Wheat Belly Total Health By: William Davis, MD
Non-fiction: Food, Science 349 pages
Book Count: 64

This book adds to the author's earlier work "Wheat Belly" by getting into the reasons that all modern grains are problematic for human consumption, and not just wheat.  It also gets into how to transition into a grain free diet and things that one can do to help undo damage caused by eating grains, and/or modern diets and lifestyles.  (For example, many people need more vitamin D, due to living indoors and covering up when they go outside more then from any issues from diet.) It also deals a lot with how to have beneficial gut flora, and eating lower carbs to prevent spikes in insulin.

Libriomancer:

Libriomancer (Magic Ex Libris: Book One) By: Jim C. Hines
Fiction: Mystery, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, NYR, 305 pages
Book Count: 63

One more book down, only 6 more to read. . .
Isaac Vainio is a librarian in a small town in Northern Michigan, who also works to catalog items that might have magical importance for an organization of Libriomancers,  people who can pull objects out of books.  He use to work as a field agent for them but after a mess up involving zombie horses, he is strictly research only.  That is until a group of sparkly vampires show up (having been created from a recent popular book series) and his fire spider, Smudge, almost burns down the library.  He destroys the vamps with help from a dryad, Lena Greenwood, who shows up just at the right time.  He then learns that vampires are being killed and blame the Porters (the Libriomancer organization Die Zwelf Portenaere) and Johannes Gutenberg is missing. (Who is the head of the Porters and immortal after pulling the Holy Grail from a book, before locking the magic to stop everyone from doing that.)  Also Gutenberg's dozen killer robots are also gone, and no one seams to know what is really going on.  

My Drunk Kitchen:

My Drunk Kitchen: a Guide to Eating, Drinking & Going with Your Gut By: Hannah Hart
Non-Fiction: Cooking, Humor 217 pages
Book Count: 62

You might have seen the web show "My Drunk Kitchen", this book is by the same person and is a lot like the show.  It includes cooking tips (with special notes on drunk cooking tips), some actual recipes, drinks to have with each thing, life lessons and more.  Although there are some recipes in this book, calling it a cook book is a stretch, as it is more about being creative with food.

Undead and Unemployed:

Undead and Unemployed (Queen Betsy Book #2) by: Mary Janice Davidson
Fiction: Mystery, Paranormal, Audio Book

This is book two in the series.  In this book Betsy is more use to her unique vampire abilities, but there is still bills to pay, so after failing to get unemployment do to the never ending bureaucracy of government programs, she ends up getting her dream job of selling shoes at Macy's.  Which only infuriates Sinclair, as the job is below a queen, but that is only the least of her problems.  There is a group out killing vampires, there are vampires that resent her being queen, there are vampires that don't think she is queen, there are termites in her house so Jessica rents out a mansion for them, and there is a little girl that is always hiding in her bedroom.  Also, working around shoes puts a serious dent in her paycheck.

NYR: Update

For those of you that have been keeping track of my NYR (new year's resolution) count you might see that I have read 7 of 12 books that I physically own.  Meaning that I only need to read 5 books this month, as well as the 3 library books that I have checked out, and the 1 book that I have just borrowed from a friend.  I have started 4 of the 5 books; however, I don't know if I shall ever get around to finishing 1 of them leaving 2 whole books to read and 3 partial.  So a completely doable amount of reading: if there wasn't a major holiday this month (with its 4 family get togethers, friend/organizational get togethers, shopping, gift wrapping, baking, decorating, etc.), as well as a cookie walk (that I think I might have been drafted into), normal meetings, classes and events, and the fact that the next time Pat asks when you are free to do something, I really need to point out that I can help out on some of the dates, not every last time I don't have something else making it impossible for me to help out.