July 2025 Book Count:

 Uncle John's Greatest Know on Earth Bathroom Reader: Curiosities, Rarities & Amazing Oddities By: Bathroom Readers' Institute

Non-fiction: History, Pop Culture, Short Story, 408 pages

Cthulhu Cat By: Pandania et al

Fiction: Graphic Novel, Classic, Sci-Fi, 136 pages

Tombs: Junji Ito Story Collection By: Junji Ito

Fiction: Graphic Novel, Horror, Paranormal, Short Story, 344 pages

The Middle Ages: A Graphic History By: Eleanor Janega, Ill By: Neil Max Emmanuel

Non-fiction: History, 176 pages

The Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum By: Kirsten Weiss

Fiction: Mystery, Paranormal, E-book

Disney Manga: Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas - Mirror Moon by: Mallory Reaves et al

Fiction: Graphic novel, Pop Culture, YA, Fantasy, 128 pages

Star Wars: C-3PO Does NOT Like Sand! by: Caitlin Kennedy ill by: Brian Kesinger

Fiction: Children, Sci-fi, Graphic Novel 64 pages

Pugs of the Frozen North by: Philip Reeve

Fiction: Children, Humor, Sci-fi, Fantasy, 224 pages

The Accursed Vampire by: Madeline McGrane

Fiction: Graphic Novel, Fantasy, Children, 176 pages

Over My Dead Body: Unearthing the Hidden History of America’s Cemeteries by: Greg Melville

Non-fiction: History, 272 pages

Monstress, Volume 1: Awakening By: Marjorie M. Liu Ill by: Sana Takeda

Fiction: Graphic Novel, Fantasy, Horror, 192 pages

Monstress, Volume 2: The Blood by: Marjorie M. Liu, ill by: Sana Takeda

Fiction: Graphic Novel, Fantasy, Horror, 152 pages

Scooby-Doo Team-Up Vol. 3 by: Various

Fiction: Pop Culture, Sci-fi, Graphic Novel, 128 pages

Month of Halloween Part:1

 Some of these books were picked out before Halloween or are not topical. (The trivia books with will appear in this and the next posting are for a possible spot on a trivia podcast.) 

The Living Flame of Love by: Juan de la Cruz (St. John of the Cross)

Non-Fiction: Religion, Classic, Poetry, E-book

Part of this book is his poetry as well as an explanation of it's meaning.  And part of it is letters that he sent to various people.  

Brick Greek Myths: The Stories of Heracles, Athena, Pandora, Poseidon, and Other Ancient Heroes of Mount Olympus by: John D. McCann, Monica Sweeney, Becky Thomas

Fiction: Classic, Pop Culture, E-book

A retelling of the major Greek myths told in Lego.  

The Romanovs: A Captivating Guide to the Last Imperial Dynasty to Rule Russia and the Impact the Romanov Family Had on Russian History by: Captivating History

Non-fiction: History, E-book

A short history of the Romanov dynasty in Russia.  It highlights the major people and events including of course the end of the Tsars in Russia.

Opium and Absinthe by: Lydia Kang

Fiction: History, Mystery, E-book

This book takes place in NYC shortly after the book "Dracula" came out. Tillie is the younger daughter in one of the wealthy, society families.  She has a riding accident and is given opium for the pain.  Soon after the accident her older sister is murdered.  From the way she was killed it looks like it was a vampire.  Besides the bite marks the major possible clue to what happened was an absinthe bottle found next to her.  Tillie is determined to solve her sister's murder, and gets help from unexpected places while also dealing with her growing use of the opium.

The Best Bar Trivia Book Ever: All You Need for Pub Quiz Domination by: Michael O'Neill

Non-Fiction: History, Science, Art, Sports 265 pages

Mostly a good collection of the trivia likely to show up in things like bar trivia games.

The Professor & the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity & the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by: Simon Winchester

Non-fiction: History, Biography, E-book

The story of the main creator of the Oxford English Dictionary and the American, who was found criminally insane, who was the biggest outside contributor to it. 

The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down by: Colin Woodard

Non-fiction: History, 405 pages

This book tells the story of the heyday of Pirates in the Caribbean and who and what ended much of it.

 Death & Co: Modern Classic Cocktails, with More than 500 Recipes by: David Kaplan, Nick Fauchald, Alex Day

Non-fiction: Food, 320 pages

A collection of cocktail recipes as well as information on how to bartend/make good drinks, the bar and people connected to the bar.

They Lost Their Heads!: What Happened to Washington's Teeth, Einstein's Brain, and Other Famous Body Parts:

They Lost Their Heads!: What Happened to Washington's Teeth, Einstein's Brain, and Other Famous Body Parts by: Carlyn Beccia
Non-fiction: Children's, History, Biography, 208 pages

This book is a collection of short sections on what happened to the body parts of various famous people.   It also includes information in related scientific fields.

How to Speak Brit:

How to Speak Brit: The Quintessential Guide to the King's English, Cockney Slang, and Other Flummoxing British Phrases By: Christopher J. Moore
Non-Fiction:  116 pages
Book Count: 59

I requested this from the library when looking to see what books they have by a similar named author. (see a couple of days below.) Anyway it looked interesting, and it was OK, but the title greatly over promised. The book was a small selection of words and phrases that are British, with a short entry of the word/phrases origin and how it is used in England, sometimes also where in England the word it from.  The majority of the words are known in America but not necessary the history of the word, or that it was British.

A Turkey By Any Other Name. . .

Turkeys have many odd names from around the world, showing that no one had any idea what this American bird was. Here are what some of them translate into in English.

- Roman Rooster
- Ethiopian Bird
- Egypt
- Greek Bird
- French Chicken
- Peru
- Dutch Chicken
- Indian Bird
- Calicut (India)
- Chicken from India
- Rooster of India
- Native Fowl
- Western Chicken
- Elephant Chicken
- Big Chicken
- Cough up a Brocade Chicken
- Cough up a Ribbon Chicken
- Fire Chicken
- Peafowl
- The Great Duck
- Big Bird
- Seven-faced Bird
In short the turkey is a large chicken from some country (possibly India) that you should stay away from if it is coughing.

A Holiday Book in Review: My Life as a White Trash Zombie

My Life as a White Trash Zombie By: Diana Rowland
Fiction: Fantasy, mystery 310 pages
Book Count: 85

I read this book after a friend recommended it, so here is a link to her review of it.

This is a fun book. It is a zombie story as told by the zombie, but not a zombie like you think about zombies as, it's more like with modern vampire tales. She needs brains to live, but otherwise she is mostly a normal person.

Angel was a 21 year old high school drop out who lived with her alcoholic father in a trashy trailer. Then one day she wakes up in the hospital after she ODed on pills, but she remembers being in a car crash. When she leaves she is given a bag with a change of clothes, some odd looking bottles of goo, and a note explaining to drink a bottle ever other day and that she has a job driving the van for the Coroner's Office. And as you can guess she was now a zombie, but didn't know it. Making a job at a morgue both a great way to get brains and a horrible temptation to eat all the brains. Also as no one told her she was a zombie she has to learn for herself what to do and try to solve the mystery of who turned her.

A Moment in African American History

Currently about 13.5% of the American population consider themselves African American.

Thanksgiving Fact:

Although Ben Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national bird, no major league sports team in America has ever had the turkey as a mascot.

Today is All Soul's Day

Also called: Defuncts' Day, Day of the Dead, Commemoration of the Faithful Departed and the Feast of All Souls.

Halloween Facts

In Ireland a traditional food for Halloween is barnbrack, a fruitcake with small items in it used for fortune telling.

Today in History: October 6th

- In 1582 this day did not exist in 4 counties.
- In 1889 Edison shows the first movie.
- In 1945 the curse of the Billy goat is started when it is removed from Wrigley Field during game 4 of the World Series.
- Before this day in 1966 LSD wasn’t illegal in the USA.
- In 1979 Pope John Paul II becomes the 1st Pope to visit the White House.
- In 1995 51 Pegasi was found to also have a planet orbiting it.

Halloween Facts

- "Dracula" was not translated into Romanian until 1992.

A Book in Review: The Book of General Ignorance

The Book of General Ignorance By: John Lloyd & John Mitchinson
Non-fiction: trivia 252 pages
Book Count: 52

This book was written by a writer for the British show QI and a friend of his that is a producer of other hit British shows. It is written much like QI, which for those that don't know it is a show in which a panel of 4 celebrities answer trivia questions where everyone thinks they know the answer but are wrong. Questions like "who was the first person to circumnavigate the globe?" Most people would say Magellan, but he was killed before finishing the trip. As it is about unusual answers that goes against popular ideas, when one thing is wrong then I question everything else, as they are things one cannot easily look up, how can I say other things aren't wrong. And this book had multiple times when I knew for a fact they were wrong. For example, they stated that since 1887 the groundhog that predicts the weather on Groundhog Day, Punxsutawney Phil, has never been wrong. Although, the official site for Phil says that, outside sources list his accuracy as low as 40%. Also, it says that Henry VIII had either 2 or 4 wives depending on if your following Henry's or the Pope's count. They said this as both annulled a different number of the marriages and "Legally, it (an annulment) means the marriage never took place." However, a religious annulment, which the ones from the Pope would be, and the ones from Henry also mostly seem to be, do not mean that. If you get a religious annulment you still were legally married, just not sacramental married. You can't tell the IRS that you need to refile your taxes as you weren't really married, and it doesn't soddenly make your kids bastards. One of the marriages would qualify for a civil annulment, which I can understand legally meaning it didn't happen, as Anne of Cleves apparently never consummated the marriage and legally wasn't free to marry at the time. Also, on a side bar it doesn't point out the stupidity of Henry's reason for annulling his 1st marriage, which was that a man couldn't marry his brother's widow, due to the Old Testament law. There is a Old Testament Law on marring your ex-sister-in-law, Deuteronomy 25:5 states that if a man dies before leaving an heir it's his brothers duty to marry her and try to have a child together to be considered an heir for the deceased. So, in effect the exact opposite as what he was saying the law was.

Update:

In case you didn't guess it, yesterday's "Odd Laws on Undead Manatee Mating Rituals" was compleatly made up. It was only for April Fool's Day. We hope you enjoyed the joke.

NaBloPoMo blogging

As some of you know NaBloPoMo is a group that is into getting people to post blogs every day during the month. I decided to sign up to be on the list of daily bloggers for this month. I'm not posting on the suggested topic and I don't know if I will be able to do it, but if I'm going to be as bad as I have been at working on my other writngs, I mind as well be doing something. ;P

Shopping High!

Today I did my grocery shopping for this week. On Sunday I bought a paper to see if the coupons in the Sunday paper make it worth the cost of the paper. ($2). Anyway the store was doing double coupons $.50 and under (which I learned in the paper) and was doing a mix and match 10 for $10 plus the 11th free. So I bought the sale items in groups of 11 (to max. sale) and bought a tube of toothpaste that was part of the sale and that I had a $.50 coupon for. So it was $1 and I got $1 off its price. Free toothpaste!!!!!!! And it wasn't even the 11th item. Over all I saved $7 in the paper's coupons as well as $9 from the store it self's coupons. With a total savings on the receipt of over $60, although, it would really be more as it doesn't count if meat's on sale for $.99 a pound when it's normally $1.99 a pound or if a bakery or deli item is repriced at 40% off because it's a day old or expires soon. Yahhhh!!!!! Shopping High!!!!!!! I love saving money on things!!!

Groundhog Fact:

Groundhogs naturally wake at around 7 a.m. even when waking from hibernation, deep below any area with sunshine to wake them.

Note:

We at W.N.B.N.I. are not trying to over inflate our number of books by having saved a bunch of short, simple to read books for the end of the year. All of the books we have read after book 100 have been Christmas gifts.

WE DID IT!!!!!!!

We (i.e. I) have read 100 book this year!!! Yahh!!! We made it!!!!!

Thanksgiving Factoid: History

President FDR tried to move Thanksgiving up a week to the second to the last Thursday in November to increase Christmas shopping because at the time it was considered inappropriate for stores to advertise Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving.