The Olive Reader posted two more interviews by authors I enjoy. Larry Smith, editor of Not Quite What I Was Planning, and Scott Heim of Mysterious Skin and We Disappear fame.

I was tagged over at Stuck In A Book to post ten rules about reading for life or something similar to that effect. With that, I introduce you to my ten rules for reading:

1. Never dog ear the page, always use a bookmark.
2. When buying Used, hardcover is preferred only if it can pass as a New book.
3. In order for a book to be good, it must have an ending.
4. If by page 30 I have failed to realize that the main protagonist is a dinosaur, then I need to be paying closer attention.
5. When reading at home, it must be completely silent. When reading in a coffee shop, noise is perfectly fine.
6. Re-reading books is a waste of time when there are so many out there that I have not read once.
7. I hate classic literature.
8. Choose Your Own Adventure books are the best thing to happen to reading since sliced bread.
9. When I buy a book there is only a 33% chance that I will end up reading it.
10. I always judge a book by its cover.

Now it’s your turn. Create a list of ten rules. The topic of the rules has changed since this started, so go crazy and think up something that needs rules. I’ll tag the following people (picked because they most recently updated their blogs according to Google Reader):

Suzy over at let’s talk about writing
Amy over at My Friend Amy
Sherry over at Semicolon
The nameless Pirate over at The Knitting Pirate

Also, where are all the male bloggers?

As a little Book Pirate I was fond of the Goosebumps book series by R.L. Stine. In 1996 Escape from Horrorland was released as a PC game based off of the book One Day At Horrorland and picks up one year after the book ended. Naturally as I kid I NEEDED this game. Here’s the intro movie. As you can see, it’s low budget and cheesy. It was awesome.

Merry Happy Christmas Eve and whatnot.

To celebrate, why not curl up with a good book and wait out the snow. If you are lacking in the good book department, why not check these two interviews from two of my favorite authors, Lance Reynald and Josh Kilmer-Purcell, over at The Olive Reader.

Enjoy the holidays. Remember to keep warm.

So this is a regular thing I am going to try in an attempt to create a consistent posting schedule. Introducing, YouTubesday! Book or Pirate related clips from YouTube posted every Tuesday.

I’ll start things off with a clip of Hank Green singing about his desire for J.K. Rowling to continue the Harry Potter series with a Book 8. Personally, he has a convincing/catchy argument.

Hank Green posts regularly at Nerdfighters along with his brother John Green, author of Paper Towns (now in paperback).

Blurb for the back cover:
“It’s funny, wont take up much of your time, clever and etcetera.”

In The Pinball Theory of Apocalypse we are introduced to Isabel Raven an up and coming artists in the LA art scene. In her paintings she takes classic works of art and puts celebrities in them (American Gothic with Tom and Katie for example). Her would be agent/gallery owner keeps going behind her back to promote her in the art scene which would be cool if that didn’t mean posting naked photos of Isabel on her web site. Then there is Isabel’s boyfriend who has been hired to be the personal-chef for the “Latina Britney Spears” but in reality the two are sleeping together. And just as Isabel’s world slowly starts to fall apart, so does it for everyone else. Isabel’s dad has this theory, this Pinball Theory if you will, that the world is going to end. And you know what, he’s right.

This book was a pretty quick reading. Clocking in at just under 200 pages, I easily finished this book in under two days. The book had me intrigued and I had a hard time putting it down. I found it interesting that for a novel with “Apocalypse” in the title it has very little to do with the Apocalypse. Instead it’s Isabel struggling to keep her life together while the world slowly sinks in to tar around her. Really what this book about is watching Isabel getting her life together when everyone else is trying to screw her over. This could be considered a coming-of-age story of sorts, I guess.

I recommended it. It’s funny, wont take up much of your time, clever and etcetera. I’m curious how Jonathan Selwood will follow this book.

Finals are finally over. Now I return to my books already in progress:

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
The City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers

I decided to participate in the 20 Books in 2009 Challenge. How hard could it be?

I came across this article on You Thought We Wouldn’t Notice last and thought it was interesting enough to post about.

Do you remember the children’s book Nate the Great? Me neither. But it was a book published back in 1972 about a boy detective who solves murders petty crimes. In the book series this is this girl who goes by Rosamond who can only be described as “strange”.

See? They call her strange. Anyway, if you’ve been in Hot Topic recently (you can admit it, I wont think less of you), you may have noticed this girl.

Her name is Emily and she is “strange” as well. Emily was the poster child for skateboards in the early 90′s and have since become a pop culture icon with her very own book series.

Notice anything different? Me neither aside from a few words. YTWWN has more detailed information about this possible copyright infringement.

I don’t know who Annie Dillard is. Apparently, she’s a Pulitzer Prize-winning author if Wikipedia is reliable. Her name was written down in my moleskin on my list of books and authors that I should check out. There was no particular book assigned next to her name so while I was in Powell’s Book I was forced to browse through a couple of her books. In the end, I didn’t pick up any of her books this time around. None of them struck me as something I needed to read immediately. Anyway, one of my favorite things about buying used books at Powell’s is that people will occasionally leave bookmarks in their old books. Sometimes, these bookmarks are notes. One of Annie Dillard’s books had this note in it (click on it for a larger image):

The author of this note didn’t enjoy the book it seems. If anyone has any incite in to Annie Dillard or how Connecticut is different from North Carolina, feel free to share.