This Christmas I bought myself two books (my publisher Chicago Review Press offers authors a December discount) and received TEN books as gifts, which was just wonderful. Books are my favorite thing to get as a gift! So here’s what I got to read for early 2016:

1. The Whale Chaser, Tony Ardizzone (Academy Chicago), an imprint of my publisher’s, the description of the novel grabbed my interest, so I bought it.
2. Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen: Interviews and Encounters, edited by Jeff Burger (Chicago Review Press), Cohen is one of my fav singers and this is part of my publisher’s popular “Musician on Musician” series.
3. Edgar Allen Poe: Complete Tales and Poems (Castle Books), I’m organizing the Milwaukee Paranormal Conference, which will have a Poe themed Masquerade Ball after party. This hefty tome will help me get in the mindset.
4. The Good, The Bad, and The Mad: Some Weird People in American History, E. Randall Floyd (Fall River Press), Wendy found this book for me and it’s right up my alley.
5. Blue Men & River Monsters: Folklore of the North, John Zimm (Wisconsin Historical Society Press), looks like an interesting collection of Wisconsin folklore.
6. Final Jeopardy: The story of Watson, the computer that will transform our world, Stephen Baker (Mariner Books), research for a book I’m working on.
7. Lights Out, Ted Koppel (Random House), research for a book I’m working on.
8. Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon (Penguin Books), Milwaukee mourned the loss of Dave Monroe in 2015. I read somewhere that this was one of his favorite books, so I thought I’d try reading it.
9. UFOs Caught on Film: Amazing Evidence of Alien Visitors to Earth, BJ Booth (D & C), a gift from my sister, looks like an interesting collection.
10. How to Podcast 2015, Paul Colligan (colligan.com), I’m trying to get into podcasting a little bit in the future and thought I should start reading up.
11. Disco’s Out…Murder’s In! The true story of Frank the Shank and L.A.’s deadliest punk rock gang, Heath Mattioli and David Spacone (Feral House), I already zipped through reading this one. Interesting and disturbing look at 1980s Los Angeles area punk rock gangs.
12. Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint, R. Andrew Chesnut (Oxford University Press), I started reading this, an examination of Santa Muerte.