If horror movies keep you awake, you should try reading a horror story. You may not know it yet, but we have an excellent selection of horror fiction at the store. Here are just some of them.

(Note: The Bram Stoker Awards are awarded annually in the United States by the Horror Writers Association for Superior Achievement in the horror genre and are named after Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula.)

The Traveling Vampire Show by Richard Laymon
2000 Stoker Award Winner for Novel

The Traveling Vampire Show

Come and see–
the one and only known Vampire in captivity!

–Valeria–
Gorgeous! Beguiling! Lethal!

This stunning beauty, born in the wilds of Transylvania, sleeps by day in her coffin. By night she feeds on the blood of strangers.

See Valeria rise from the dead!
Watch as she stalks volunteers from the audience!
Tremble as she sinks her teeth into their necks!
Scream as she sups on their blood!!!

Where: Janks Field, 2 mi south of
Grandville on Route 3
When: One Show Only - Friday, midnight
How much: $10

(Nobody under age 18 allowed)

For three local 16-year olds, two boys and a girl, this is a show they can’t miss. Even though the flyers say no one under eighteen will be admitted, they’re determined to find a way. What follows is a story of friendship and courage, temptation and terror, when three friends go where they shouldn’t go, and find much more than they ever expected.

Swan Song by Robert McCammon
1987 Stoker Award Winner for Novel, tied with Stephen King’s Misery

Description: An ancient evil roams the desolate landscape of an America ravaged by nuclear war. He is the Man with the Scarlet Eye, a malevolent force that feeds on the dark desires of the countless followers he has gathered into his service. His only desire is to find a special child named Swan — and destroy her. But those who would protect the girl are determined to fight for what is left of the world and their souls.

In a wasteland born of rage, populated by monstrous creatures and marauding armies, the last survivors on earth have been drawn into the final battle between good and evil that will decide the fate of humanity….

Boy’s Life by Robert McCammon
1991 Stoker Award Winner for Novel

Nightmare Chronicles by Douglas Clegg
1999 Stoker Award Winner for Fiction Collection

Description: It begins in an old tenement with a horrifying crime. It continues after midnight, when a young boy, held captive in a basement, is filled with unearthly visions of fantastic and frightening worlds. How could his kidnappers know that the ransom would be their own souls? For, as the hours pass, the boy’s nightmares invade his captors like parasites — and soon, they become real.

Thirteen nightmares unfold: A young man searches for his dead wife among the crumbling buildings of Manhattan…a journalist seeks the ultimate evil in a plague-ridden outpost of India…ancient rituals begin anew with the mystery of a teenage girl’s disappearance…and in a hospital for the criminally insane, there is only one doorway to salvation…But the night is not yet over, and the real nightmare has just begun.

Wither by J. G. Passarella
1999 Stoker Award Winner for First Novel

Description: The college town of Windale, Massachusetts is proud of its colonial heritage — including the legend of a dark witches’ coven dating back three hundred years. No one in Windale actually believes in witches, or imagines that the blood-chilling history of the Salem era could repeat itself. But three people, unknown to one another, are experiencing vivid nightmares of palpable horror. They alone can sense that a dreadful presence is working its way into their waking lives — and is coming for them.

On a crisp autumn night deep in the New England woods, a young woman’s harmless channeling ritual unwittingly opens the floodgates to terrifying forces that have, until then, lived only in dreams: a breed of demonic creatures with the power to shatter an unsuspecting town.

The Night Class by Tom Piccirilli
2002 Stoker Award Winner for Novel

Lost Boy Lost Girl by Peter Straub
2003 Stoker Award Winner for Novel

Description: A woman commits suicide for no apparent reason. A week later, her son– fifteen-year-old Mark Underhill–vanishes. His uncle, novelist Timothy Underhill, searches his hometown of Millhaven for clues that might help unravel this horrible dual mystery. He soon learns that a pedophilic murderer is on the loose in the vicinity, and that shortly before his mother’s suicide, Mark had become obsessed with an abandoned house where he imagined the killer might have taken refuge. No mere empty building, the house whispers from attic to basement with the echoes of a long-hidden true-life horror story, and Tim Underhill comes to fear that in investigating its unspeakable history, Mark stumbled across its last and greatest secret: a ghostly lost girl who may have coaxed the needy, suggestible boy into her mysterious domain.

In the Night Room by Peter Straub
2004 Stoker Award Winner for Novel

Description: Willy Patrick, the respected author of the award-winning young-adult novel In the Night Room, thinks she is losing her mind–again. One day, she is drawn helplessly into the parking lot of a warehouse. She knows somehow that her daughter, Holly, is being held in the building, and she has an overwhelming need to rescue her. But what Willy knows is impossible, for her daughter is dead.

On the same day, author Timothy Underhill, who has been struggling with a new book about a troubled young woman, is confronted with the ghost of his nine-year-old sister, April. Soon after, he begins to receive eerie, fragmented e-mails that he finally realizes are from people he knew in his youth–people now dead. Like his sister, they want urgently to tell him something. When Willy and Timothy meet, the frightening parallels between Willy’s tragic loss and the story in Tim’s manuscript suggest that they must join forces to confront the evils surrounding them.

Oddest Yet: Even More Stories To Chill The Heart by Steve Burt
2004 Stoker Award Winner for Work for Young Readers, tied with Cliver Barker’s Abarat

Dark Delicacies edited by Del Howison, Jeff Gelb
2005 Stoker Award Winner for Anthology

Creepers by David Morrell
2005 Stoker Award Winner for Novel

Description: On a cold October night, five people gather in a run-down motel on the Jersey shore and prepare to break into the Paragon Hotel. The once-magnificent structure is now boarded up and marked for demolition. They are “creepers”: urban explorers with a passion for investigating abandoned buildings and their dying secrets. Reporter Frank Balenger joins them to profile this highly illegal activity for the New York Times. But he isn’t looking for just another story, and soon after they enter the rat-infested tunnel leading to the hotel, he gets more than he bargained for. Danger, fear, and death await the creepers in a place ravaged by time and redolent of evil.

• Oprah Winfrey chooses “Love in the Time of Cholera” as her next book club selection. A feature film based on the book is also set to be released next month in the United States. The novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez has always been a bestseller at the store. We are expecting a new batch of mass market paperbacks of the novel to arrive soon.
• The Nobel Prize Laureate in Literature will be announced on October 11. On the shortlist are: Claudio Magris (Italy), Les Murray (Australia), Philip Roth (USA), Thomas Transtromer (Sweden), Adonis (Syria).

Back in February, we hosted a book launch for Heartbreak, a collection of short stories from Cozy Reads Publishing. We are happy to announce that the young publishing company has come up with its second title (of a trilogy), another short story collection called “First Love: Unforgettable Stories of Getting Weak In The Knees And Falling.”

This cozy read is just as nicely printed as the first one. It has a shiny cover with eleven stories on thick creamy paper inside. Of the eleven, I enjoyed That Familiar Hand by Celestine Marie Trinidad the most. Of course all the stories are about first loves and this one was about that first feeling between two people in their sixties. Here is the complete list of eleven stories and authors:

Project Uno by Elyss G. Punsalan
- Three random words from the story: serendipity, returned, sign
That Familiar Hand by Celestine Marie Trinidad
- First line: His handwriting seemed vaguely familiar.
Room 101 by Belen Morabella
- The only line in italics: Why can’t you forget him?
Summer Interlude by Chona Suner-Narvadez
- Musical acts mentioned: Marilyn Manson, Black Sabbath, Mozart
A Certain Quality by I. P. Goze
- Theme song: Could It Be Magic by Barry Manilow
A Kiss Is A Kiss Is A Kiss by Karen Manalastas
- Lola says: Don’t be too hard on him.
What Ever Happened To…? by Sally Magdiwang
- Last line: Huy! Excuse me, are you still listening?
Meeting at San Agustin by Ana Maria S. Villanueva
- Last line: He didn’t ever want to let go.
Love, Digitally by Jason Paul Laxamana
- Online handles: Midnighter, Porkyupine
The Seatmate by Raymund P. Reyes
- Symptoms: daydreaming, loss of appetite, singing, restless tossing, pimples
Note to Self by Isabel Reoja
- Advice: Go for broke.

“First Love” is edited by Faye Ilogon.

We’ll be having a shipment of books arriving in a few days. We are expecting them to be at the store in a week or two, on the fifteenth, at the earliest. We will be posting titles when they arrive.

I got a chance to read the latest issue of The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories yesterday. My favorite story this time was the one called “Y” by Sharmaine Galve. It is science fiction (the author’s first) about a man who wants to change the world through… Let’s just say it deals with the issue of how much of what we think, feel, or act depends on our genes. In her notes the author tells us outright that her story was “borrowed” from works of a lot of other authors. The premise may not be unique but I enjoyed the story anyway.

I enjoy reading the Editor’s page as much as the stories in the digest. In this issue, editor Kenneth Yu mentioned other publications that are open to short story submissions. He mentioned The Philippine Free Press, The Philippine Graphic, and Story Philippines. Story Philippines was the only one I found online in a few short seconds so here is a link to its submission guidelines.

You should also visit the digest’s blog here as Kenneth Yu posts many interesting links, articles, and insights. The digest is on its third issue and I expect it will go on for more. I am waiting, waiting for an issue of mystery/detective stories. There have been some mysteries in the digest including “Homer’s Child” in this issue and my favorite story from the last issue, “Beneath the Acacia.” But, I guess, I want more.

Her A Wrinkle in Time was one of the first science fiction books I read. It was also one of the first books that upon reading the last page I found my heart and my mind exploding. This is the only way I can describe finishing a book with your heart beating fast and your thoughts going in every direction. Her books made the world seem bigger and the possibilities endless. She wrote with excitement, wonder, and compassion. We will miss her.

We now carry these finely crafted book jackets, bookmarks, magnetic clips and letter openers from aklateklat.

The leather book jackets come in different types of leather, including suede, and will fit a mass market or trade paperback. What is a book jacket for? It keeps your book safe and easy to carry around. It also makes a nice gift for any book lover. (I would certainly want someone to surprise me with one.) Each comes with a string bookmark weighed down with either murano glass, shells, hand-painted stones, wood, beads, etc. and no two accessories are alike. Each book jacket is unique!

The bookmarks, magnetic clips, and letter openers are carved from wood and adorned with resin moldings.

All aklateklat products are handcrafted in the Philippines.

Our next ship date has not been finalized yet but it will be sometime in September or October. If you would like your books to arrive before Christmas, please be sure to order them now.

It could be out of curiosity or maybe people like to read what other people are reading, our customers usually like to know what other customers are ordering. Here is a peek at a few of the books we have been getting requests for this month.

• The Blue Place by Nicola Griffith
• Cases and Materials on Modern Procedure and Judicial Administration by Arthur T. Vanderbilt
• The Companions (Dragonlance: The Meetings Sextet, Vol. 6) by Margaret Weis
• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
• The Deadline: A Novel About Project Management by Tom DeMarco
• Digital Designs for Scrapbooking by Renee Pearson
• Egyptology by Emily Sands
• Getting Started in Hedge Funds by Daniel A. Strachman
• The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling
• Harry Potter 1-7 Box Set by J. K. Rowling
• Hegel’s Logic: Being Part One of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
• Jurisprudence by Roscoe Pound
• The Lady in the Tower: The Wives of Henry VIII by Jean Plaidy
• Lime Ricky by Jill Winters
• Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa
• Never: Jens Pulver And the Wednesday Group that Will Change the World by Timonthy J. McKinnon
• Riches Within Your Reach: The Law of the Higher Potential Robert Collier
• Run With the Bulls Without Getting Trampled by Tim Irwin
• To the Ends of the Earth: A Sea Trilogy by William Golding
• Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell
• The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good by William Easterly
• The Wrekening: An Ancient Mirrors Tale by Jayel Gibson

We are glad we are able to get books and people together this way. Ah, it does feel good to help.

The Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas (Umpil) would like to invite writers and lovers of literature to its 33rd National Writers Congress to be held at the Pulungang Recto, College of Arts and Letters Building, University of the Philippines , Diliman, Quezon City on August 25. The session will start at exactly 9:00 am and will last until 5 pm .

The Congress theme is “Literature and Writers’ Welfare.” Four noted writers will receive the prestigious Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas, sculpted by renowned international artist Manuel Baldemor.

Senator Francisco Pangilinan III will be the guest of honor, and will speak about his legislative vision for writers and Philippine literature in general. Atty. Louie Calvario of Intellectual Property Office will expound recent developments in intellectual property rights agenda, while Ms. Debbie P. Gaite of Filscap (Filipino Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, Inc.) will discuss the model of a collective management responsible for collecting royalties of its members.

A general election of the new set of Umpil board of directors will be held afterwards. For inquiries, please call Vim or Joey at 922-1830.

Adarna House, the country’s first and largest Filipino children’s book publisher is looking for storytellers. No details yet on what the job entails but here is the text of their invitation –

If you have a lot of free time, love the company of kids, and enjoy sharing stories, send your resume to ergoe at adarna.com.ph and gear up to tell us your favorite story!