30th October

Guests this week are Brian Lowen & Barbara Simpson. Brian is reviewing Val McDermid and Lee child. Barbara is discussing another of her books 'The Handyman'.

Would you believe it, I saw a book out today (everybody gets a book out in readiness for xmas) but in light of recent events at the BBC with this author & Russell Brand he couldn't’t have known how this book would be so relevant (or maybe he did…how long ago did the phone calls happen???)called: Why Do I Say These Things by Jonathan Ross
Featuring stories that range from 'discovering B-movies to fashion, from diets to childhood sweetshops, favourite presents and from sex to pets (and back to sex), this book explores everyday life'. You couldn't make it up could ya?.....

Anyway next week and next few weeks we will be looking at books that are around for that Christmas stockingfiller but today (as it is the night of mischief tomorrow) I have been looking at the books which have to do with Halloween /horror & ghosties, ooooohh.
So join us in a few minutes if you dare…ooooooooooh!

Babs you are going to review a book which you wrote called the Handyman. I was amazed when I heard that you had written other books as we only ever talked about your ‘Blue Cloak’ book. I heard about it when we all went on a ghost walk a few Sunday nights ago. So how, why, when, did you write/get the idea for this book? Oh by the way, Babs, you thought this book was unobtainable but I could have bought a copy of this online for £1, so if anyone is interested just get on the web, google & buy a copy.
Barbara, lived and worked in London in the 60's which gave her the idea for the book, after she had written The Blue Cloak. The book is set in London during the exceptionally cold winter of 1963/63. The main characters are a group of friends who travel on the train everyday to get to work. There is one person who links them all, the handyman, who knows all their secrets and is a continual lurking presence. Then something terrible happens which alters all their lives.
Halloween emerged from the Celtic festival of Samhain (summers end), elements of the Christian Hallowtide (All Saints Day and All Souls Day).
Some horror bestsellers:
More Horowitz Horror by Anthony Horowitz
It's a world where everything might seem pretty normal. But the weird, the surprising and the truly terrifying are lurking just out of sight. Like a hitchhiker who isn't quite all he seems, a spooky cottage with a grisly secret and a mobile phone that lets you contact the dead! Each story has a shocking sting in the tale...

Piper by Helen McCabe
Legend has it that in medieval times the children of Hamelin were led East into Transylvania...In bleak post Ceausescu Rumania, Dr Sacha Maritsa a psychiatric researcher absorbed with the high incidence of mental illness among the women of Alva, a remote mountain village near the border with Russia, gradually uncovers a horrific history of ritual child murder.

Or what about an audio book to listen to in the dark on halloween
Nation by Terry Pratchett (narrated by Tony Robinson)
Finding himself alone on a desert island when everything and everyone he knows and loved has been washed away in a huge storm, Mau is the last surviving member of his nation. He's also completely alone - or so he thinks until he finds the ghost girl. She has no toes and wears strange lacy trousers like the grandfather bird.

The Bram Stoker Award is a recognition presented by the Horror Writers Association (HWA) for "superior achievement" in horror writing. The awards have been presented annually since 1987, and the winners are selected by ballot of the Active members of the HWA. They are named after influential horror writer Bram Stoker, author of the novel Dracula, among others. There are 8 different awards but 2007 winners were:
Superior Achievement in a NOVEL: "The Missing" by Sarah Langan
Superior Achievement in a FIRST NOVEL: "Heart-shaped Box" by Joe Hill (writer)
Superior Achievement in LONG FICTION: “Afterward, There Will be a Hallway” by Gary A. Braunbeck
Superior Achievement in SHORT FICTION: “The Gentle Brush of Wings” by David Niall Wilson
Superior Achievement in an ANTHOLOGY: "Five Strokes to Midnight" by Gary A. Braunbeck and Hank Schwaeble
Superior Achievement in a COLLECTION (tie): "Proverbs for Monsters" by Michael A. Arnzen and 5 Stories by Peter Straub
Superior Achievement in NONFICTION: "The Cryptopedia" by Jonathan Maberry and David F. Kramer
Superior Achievement in POETRY (tie): ""Being Full of Light, Insubstantial" by Linda Addison and ""Vectors: A Week in the Death of a Planet" by Charlee Jacob and Marge Simon