what we have here is a failure to communicate

I have been a slacker this year about signing up for and participating in Carl V.’s (of Stainless Steel Droppings) annual R.I.P. reading challenge. R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril (IX) is one of my favorite book blogging activities, and I usually start consuming spooky books and movies with concentrated attention as soon as the calendar flips to September. Distractions (bookish and otherwise) piled up this autumn, but it’s not over till it’s over. The gorgeous banners drawn by Abigail Larson for the event have been haunting me from the sidebars of blogs everywhere, and they will now lend melancholy to my own.

The rules of the challenge are simple. Read or watch perilous things (anything along the lines of Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Dark Fantasy, Gothic, Horror, or Supernatural) and then share your love for the macabre with your fellow R.I.P.ers via the review site, found here. The event started Sept. 1st and the group is a vicious bunch, so there are already hundreds of reviews up. I will go grave robbing among them shortly to find some reading/watching suggestions.

The challenge has several “perils that you can choose to complete. Since I am starting a month late, I will endeavor to stay on this side of Death’s door by accomplishing:

I must read two wicked books before Oct. 31st! Or else… I will very likely also participate in “Peril of the Short Story” and “Peril on the Screen”, just for extra skull and crossbones points.

I haven’t officially participated in this challenge since 2011, due to moving back and forth across the country and other boring life things, so I am especially excited to join the zombie hoards again. Pittsburgh is a great city to R.I.P. in, and I look forward to uncovering a few of it’s ghost stories, and hanging out with George Romero (director of Night of the Living Dead), who filmed many of his horror films in and around the city. I’ll be dipping into my Poe anthology and probably knocking back a Shirley Jackson story, but I don’t know what scary novels I’ll read yet. I can’t wait to ravage the R.I.P. reviews, and my local library shelves, and see what I come up with!

Opening up a similar vein, All Hallow’s Read is upon us! Devilish author Neil Gaiman is the werewolf pack leader of this event, which is another spookily simple affair: give someone a scary book for Halloween.

I shouldn’t need to explain it beyond that. I just need to find THE book to give away, and then pick who gets it. I will report back when these things are accomplished – and you should do the same! Because giving away books is fun! Check out what one of my local Pittsburgh shops (Rickert & Beagle Books) is doing to participate – I’ll definitely be popping round there sometime this month to pick up a few books (and maybe run into one of the owners, Peter S. Beagle himself…?!)

Stay tuned for perilous posts. Quoth the raven, “Manymore!”