January Books (and an Announcement)

Here's what I picked up in bookshops for the month of January. Yes, my book-buying has slowed down in the past years.

1. Hellbound Hearts, edited by Paul Kane, Marie O'Regan - From the book: Clive Barker's iconic masterpiece The Hellbound Heart, the novella adapted into the film Hellraiser, unleashed a new mythology of horror, brilliantly conceived and born of the darkest imagination. Now, enter this visionary world -- the merciless realm of the demonic Cenobites -- in this collection of stories inspired by The Hellbound Heart...

2. Let the Right One in John Ajvide Lindqvist - From the book: Oskar and Eli. In very different ways, they were both victims. Which is why, against the odds, they became friends. And how they came to depend on one another, for life itself. Oskar is a 12 year old boy living with his mother on a dreary housing estate at the city's edge. He dreams about his absentee father, gets bullied at school, and wets himself when he's frightened. Eli is the young girl who moves in next door. She doesn't go to school and never leaves the flat by day...

Bought both books at Bestsellers (a subsidiary of National Bookstore). It's interesting to note that Barker's Hellraiser mythos may go the way of H.P. Lovecraft's Old Ones. It's not every horror writer can get that instant recognition in the pop zeitgeist.

Meanwhile, I've always grooved to non-US, European fiction so finding a Swedish bestselling horror novel on our local shores was great. I first read this courtesy of karl's copy but I finally got my own. Now if only Lindqvist's second translated book will only get here...

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In other news, the book launch of Philippine Speculative Fiction volume 5 (edited by Nikki Alfar and Vincent Simbulan) has been set on April 24, 2010 at the Fully-Booked UView Theater in Fort Bonifacio. Hope you people can make it. *waves*