Sunday, October 02, 2011

It's October!

October is a great month to:


1.  Read John Bellairs books

Last month I bought a complete set of John Bellairs books on eBay:


It's a set of 28 books, all first editions, and 20 of them have artwork by Edward Gorey.  They are fantastically creepy.  I've put up photos of each book with Gorey artwork here.

If you're not sure where to start, try his most famous book, The House with a Clock in its Walls.

2.  Read the Monstrumologist series

The third book in the series, The Isle of Blood, came out last month.  We both read it and loved it. It's the best one so far, and is beautifully and gorgeously written.  The series is literary horror for young adults, with heavy emphasis on literary.  And it's classic horror, ala Frankenstein, not horror-movie horror.  The books are fantastic.  You must read them!  I've written about the first two books here and here.


This is one of my favorite movies, and every time October rolls around I want to watch it.  I have no idea why, because there's nothing at all creepy or Autumn-like about it.  It's about a barber in the late 1940's who becomes involved in a blackmail scheme leading to murder.  But it's shot in black-and-white, has beautiful cinematography, and is very moody and atmospheric.

Wendy and I first saw this movie purely by accident when it was released.  We went to see the movie From Hell, but the opening scene was too gruesome for Wendy to watch, so we walked out and wandered the theater's hallways until we found another movie that was about to start.  It was The Man Who Wasn't There.

4.  Star-gaze

In the southern sky, look for Fomalhaut (FOE-mal-oh).  Because there are no other bright stars near it, it's been called the Lonely Star of Autumn.  It's also orbited by a planet, which has been directly photographed by Hubble.

Also keep an eye out for Algol.  It's a binary star, and about every 3 nights it dims dramatically because the fainter star eclipses the brighter star.  This periodic dimming/brightening earned it the name Demon Star.

5.  Watch college football

Of course, any month is a great month to watch college football!