strange and random happenstance

The Panda, the Cat and the Dreadful Teddy by Paul Magrs
Published by: HarperCollins
Publication Date: October 12th, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 144 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

If you live in a house where you have stuffed animals with very distinct and vocal personalities, ranging the gamut from sarcastic to profane to inebriated, then this is the book you've been waiting all your life for. And hopefully the stuffed animals will be fans as well. Though I know my Dad's monkey Salbert would probably downgrade the book for having no mention of Kim Novak. Thankfully the book doesn't mention Joey Bishop or we'd have real problems. And yes, wherever Sal is he knows what time it is in Vegas. While everyone might not have someone in their life at this moment giving constant commentary, we've all had a stuffed friend like this at some point in our life. Paul has Panda. Some of us know him as Art Critic Panda, but I am sure he has a plethora of aliases. If you read this book without any context, even though I do love that Paul added a picture of the trio at the back of the book, you are in for an entertaining time. Panda is saying what we are often thinking about but at too decorous to say. Though I would occasionally like to let loose with a stream of profanity Panda-style. The art varies in quality, but sometimes just the simplest of lines captures Panda and his posture so perfectly with so little that I wish I could draw like that. In particular I'm thinking of him exercising and looking lovingly at a bottle of gin. Yes, Panda does love his gin. There were also times when I wished that the drawings had been organized thematically or had some overarching story, but then I remembered this is a parody. I realized I couldn't properly critique this book without first reading The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy. I remember when this book came out and it was everywhere. There were large drifts of it in Barnes and Noble because if I recall correctly they made it their book of the year. Well, that book does have some amazing drawings, in a wide range of styles, and occasionally there is something profound said, but for me it was too saccharine. My teeth hurt after reading it. It was too goody goody trying to be something more and occasionally ending up sounding like your friends in college when they got high and thought they'd discovered the answers to life. But reading that book made me appreciate Paul's book so much more. He got the artistic shifts, the lack of structure, everything down pat, but with a wonderfully cynical edge, which is totally my wheelhouse. So yes, you can read this book in a vacuum, but I'd say read the book after doing your homework, you will enjoy it so much more!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Art Critic Panda, Barnes and Noble, Charlie Mackesy, Cynical, Joey Bishop, Kim Novak, Pandas, Paul Magrs, Sal, The Boy the Mole the Fox and the Horse, The Panda the Cat and the Dreadful Teddy: A Parody, Vegas

From Wildthyme with Love by Paul Magrs
ARC provided by the author (Thanks Paul!)
Published by: Snowbooks
Publication Date: April 1st, 2012
Format: Paperback, 431 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Iris and Panda are sadly separated, but despite the time and distance between them they are keeping in touch until the happy day when Panda is back aboard the Celestial Omnibus. While Iris has her bus and is in the far flung reaches of the galaxy, Panda has been more Earth bound going to parties with Ngaio Marsh and spending Christmas aboard an ill-fated star cruiser. Yet they both miss each other so much that Iris aligns herself with a robot version of Panda, Pand R, and Panda goes off exploring the galaxy with an older, sexier, but bleaker version of Iris. Sadly for us readers, once they do reunite we will never get to read anymore of their fabulous correspondence.

I have always been a sucker for the epistolary novel. The nature of reading someone else's correspondence is illuminating and also slightly thrilling, like it's something you're not supposed to read. Fact or fiction, this device gets me every time. I always wonder what it would have been like if Jane Austen had kept Sense and Sensibility in her original epistolary form... ah, what I wouldn't give to have read that version as well. The most famous and one of my most favorite examples is Helene Hanff's 84, Charing Cross Road. In her correspondence with Frank Doel she created an instant classic, a classic that Paul and I are very much a fan of. In fact Paul wrote an homage, if you will, to Helene in his book 666 Charing Cross Road. He perfectly captured her and her voice, though never actually writing in the epistolary form. It has to be said that his foray finally into this style is an unequivocal success. This is Paul's personal epistolary tribute to Doctor Who with Panda and Iris poking fun at and saying all the snide asides we have all voiced from time to time but in the end come from a place of love. From Wildthyme with Love is a snorting good time, literally.

Speaking of snorting... let's talk about the literal LOL, the laugh out loud. If you are lucky you have a good sense of humor. You know what's funny and what isn't and you take joy in sharing a joke and laughing. Yet there are many forms of laughter. There is of course the unexpected laughter where you're out in public and you try to contain it because you don't want to draw attention to yourself, here I will add a note that perhaps it's not best to watch How I Met Your Mother on a treadmill at the gym because, well, this will happen quite frequently. There's the slow build laughter the leads to painful clutching of sides and perhaps falling off furniture, this usually requires other people, usually close friends to help induce and sustain this state. There's just the quick bark or smile you get while watching television, which is probably the most common. But there is a rare laugh... the embarrassing kind that I find to be the truest form of laughter.

When reading I rarely laugh out loud, there's usually a small knowing smile that I get, but beyond that, no verbalization. So when I say that From Wildthyme with Love actually had be doing my most embarrassing snort laugh... you can be guaranteed of the humor. The snort laugh is so guttural and also mildly offensive, that it comes from deep within you and can not be contained. If others are present, you will be red with embarrassment. The fact that I did it more then once... yeah, this book's a keeper. Almost everything in this book is a laugh out loud joke and if I were to highlight all my favorites, well, the whole book would be highlighted if I did each one. In fact, because I just had the word doc that Paul sent me I had to order a copy for my shelves because I knew that without this book proudly displayed my shelves wouldn't be quite the library they would be otherwise.

So what was it that made me snort? Well, Panda and his rather disastrous Christmas back in 2007. In his letter to Iris he said:

"You've missed Christmas. I went off and spent it on a cruise liner. Turned out we were traveling through bloody space! I met a nice girl serving drinks who looked a bit like that one off 'Neighbors'... I wasn't quite sure what was going on at that point - something about angels chasing after us and I almost spilled my drink walking a tightrope over a bloody inferno."

This succinct and cynical take on the David Tennant/Kylie Minogue Doctor Who episode "Voyage of the Damned" captures everything odd and wrong about the episode but never goes so far as to condemn it. This whole book is an ode to The Doctor and his fifty years. There is real love from Iris. There is love for the camp and the crazy, the stunt casting and the multiple bickering Doctors. Having just recently watched "The Three Doctors" I was loving Panda's recap of his own personal "Three Pandas" experience: 

"There are two other Panda's here! One is much younger and far more frivolous than I, and the other seems to be terribly old and venerable. He didn't even make it through the Event Horizon or whatever, and we can only see him on Skype, thank goodness. Looks like he might smell of wee, TBH."

With loving jabs at everything from lost footage to negotiating with an over-sized scrotum (I call him penis face, but to each his own), to the "penultimate question," to a hilarious party where Panda messes with Ngaio Marsh saying that in the future nobody knows who Agatha Christie is but was later interrupted by a giant wasp, from the Hartnell years up to the present series, each and every joke and insight made me want to just embrace this slim volume and never let it go! Also, this book with a nod and a wink brings up the fact that, just perhaps, The Doctor has been taking all of Iris's best stories and claiming them as his own...

This book gave me faith in the show again. This past season with Matt Smith where I kept feeling that the material never lived up to the potential was nicely recapped as "I think she's got her knickers in a twist recently because of the convoluted story arc she's muddled up in. Feeling a bit mithered as a result." After reading and living life as a full time Whovian for the past few weeks I was feeling the same, I was flagging there, but this book brought me back. It refreshed me and made me so happy, which I have to say, some days that's a hard thing to do. If you aren't a Doctor Who fan... and I do know you're out there, will you be able to enjoy this book? Hell yes, even if you don't get all the context, the content is beyond a doubt hysterical. With Pand R being like an annoying Scrappy Doo and little jokes about Philippa Gregory, it does work outside the sphere of Doctor Who. From Wildthyme with Love is wonderfully funny, snarky, and just lovely.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 84 Charing Cross Road, Agatha Christie, David Tennant, Doctor Who, Doctor Who 50th Anniversary, From Wildthyme with Love, Helene Hanff, Iris Wildthyme, Ngaio Marsh, Panda, Pandas, Paul Magrs, Philippa Gregory

From Wildthyme with Love by Paul Magrs
ARC provided by the author (Thanks Paul!)
Published by: Snowbooks
Publication Date: April 1st, 2012
Format: Paperback, 431 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Iris and Panda are sadly separated, but despite the time and distance between them they are keeping in touch until the happy day when Panda is back aboard the Celestial Omnibus. While Iris has her bus and is in the far flung reaches of the galaxy, Panda has been more Earth bound going to parties with Ngaio Marsh and spending Christmas aboard an ill-fated star cruiser. Yet they both miss each other so much that Iris aligns herself with a robot version of Panda, Pand R, and Panda goes off exploring the galaxy with an older, sexier, but bleaker version of Iris. Sadly for us readers, once they do reunite we will never get to read anymore of their fabulous correspondence.

I have always been a sucker for the epistolary novel. The nature of reading someone else's correspondence is illuminating and also slightly thrilling, like it's something you're not supposed to read. Fact or fiction, this device gets me every time. I always wonder what it would have been like if Jane Austen had kept Sense and Sensibility in her original epistolary form... ah, what I wouldn't give to have read that version as well. The most famous and one of my most favorite examples is Helene Hanff's 84, Charing Cross Road. In her correspondence with Frank Doel she created an instant classic, a classic that Paul and I are very much a fan of. In fact Paul wrote an homage, if you will, to Helene in his book 666 Charing Cross Road. He perfectly captured her and her voice, though never actually writing in the epistolary form. It has to be said that his foray finally into this style is an unequivocal success. This is Paul's personal epistolary tribute to Doctor Who with Panda and Iris poking fun at and saying all the snide asides we have all voiced from time to time but in the end come from a place of love. From Wildthyme with Love is a snorting good time, literally.

Speaking of snorting... let's talk about the literal LOL, the laugh out loud. If you are lucky you have a good sense of humor. You know what's funny and what isn't and you take joy in sharing a joke and laughing. Yet there are many forms of laughter. There is of course the unexpected laughter where you're out in public and you try to contain it because you don't want to draw attention to yourself, here I will add a note that perhaps it's not best to watch How I Met Your Mother on a treadmill at the gym because, well, this will happen quite frequently. There's the slow build laughter the leads to painful clutching of sides and perhaps falling off furniture, this usually requires other people, usually close friends to help induce and sustain this state. There's just the quick bark or smile you get while watching television, which is probably the most common. But there is a rare laugh... the embarrassing kind that I find to be the truest form of laughter.

When reading I rarely laugh out loud, there's usually a small knowing smile that I get, but beyond that, no verbalization. So when I say that From Wildthyme with Love actually had be doing my most embarrassing snort laugh... you can be guaranteed of the humor. The snort laugh is so guttural and also mildly offensive, that it comes from deep within you and can not be contained. If others are present, you will be red with embarrassment. The fact that I did it more then once... yeah, this book's a keeper. Almost everything in this book is a laugh out loud joke and if I were to highlight all my favorites, well, the whole book would be highlighted if I did each one. In fact, because I just had the word doc that Paul sent me I had to order a copy for my shelves because I knew that without this book proudly displayed my shelves wouldn't be quite the library they would be otherwise.

So what was it that made me snort? Well, Panda and his rather disastrous Christmas back in 2007. In his letter to Iris he said:

"You've missed Christmas. I went off and spent it on a cruise liner. Turned out we were traveling through bloody space! I met a nice girl serving drinks who looked a bit like that one off 'Neighbors'... I wasn't quite sure what was going on at that point - something about angels chasing after us and I almost spilled my drink walking a tightrope over a bloody inferno."

This succinct and cynical take on the David Tennant/Kylie Minogue Doctor Who episode "Voyage of the Damned" captures everything odd and wrong about the episode but never goes so far as to condemn it. This whole book is an ode to The Doctor and his fifty years. There is real love from Iris. There is love for the camp and the crazy, the stunt casting and the multiple bickering Doctors. Having just recently watched "The Three Doctors" I was loving Panda's recap of his own personal "Three Pandas" experience: 

"There are two other Panda's here! One is much younger and far more frivolous than I, and the other seems to be terribly old and venerable. He didn't even make it through the Event Horizon or whatever, and we can only see him on Skype, thank goodness. Looks like he might smell of wee, TBH."

With loving jabs at everything from lost footage to negotiating with an over-sized scrotum (I call him penis face, but to each his own), to the "penultimate question," to a hilarious party where Panda messes with Ngaio Marsh saying that in the future nobody knows who Agatha Christie is but was later interrupted by a giant wasp, from the Hartnell years up to the present series, each and every joke and insight made me want to just embrace this slim volume and never let it go! Also, this book with a nod and a wink brings up the fact that, just perhaps, The Doctor has been taking all of Iris's best stories and claiming them as his own...

This book gave me faith in the show again. This past season with Matt Smith where I kept feeling that the material never lived up to the potential was nicely recapped as "I think she's got her knickers in a twist recently because of the convoluted story arc she's muddled up in. Feeling a bit mithered as a result." After reading and living life as a full time Whovian for the past few weeks I was feeling the same, I was flagging there, but this book brought me back. It refreshed me and made me so happy, which I have to say, some days that's a hard thing to do. If you aren't a Doctor Who fan... and I do know you're out there, will you be able to enjoy this book? Hell yes, even if you don't get all the context, the content is beyond a doubt hysterical. With Pand R being like an annoying Scrappy Doo and little jokes about Philippa Gregory, it does work outside the sphere of Doctor Who. From Wildthyme with Love is wonderfully funny, snarky, and just lovely.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 84 Charing Cross Road, Agatha Christie, David Tennant, Doctor Who, Doctor Who 50th Anniversary, From Wildthyme with Love, Helene Hanff, Iris Wildthyme, Ngaio Marsh, Panda, Pandas, Paul Magrs, Philippa Gregory

Ashenden by Elizabeth Wilhide
Published by: Simon and Schuster
Publication Date: January 8th, 2013
Format: Hardcover, 352 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Perfect for fans of Downton Abbey, a beautifully atmospheric novel about an English country house and the people who inhabit it, upstairs and downstairs, over the course of 240 years.

“The house contains time. Its walls hold stories. Births and deaths, comings and goings, people and events passing through. For now, however, it lies suspended in a kind of emptiness, as if it has fallen asleep or someone has put it under a spell. This silence won’t last: can’t last. Something will have to be done.”

When brother and sister Charlie and Ros discover that they have inherited their aunt’s much-loved house, they must decide if they should sell it. Moving back in time, in an interwoven narrative spanning two and a half centuries, we meet those who have built the house, lived in it and loved it, worked in it, and those who would subvert it to their own ends, including the original architect as he directs the building of the house, the big Victorian family who happily live there for forty years, the maid who thinks her problems will be solved if she steals a small bibelot, the soldiers who are billeted there during World War I, the speculator who holds a treasure hunt there during the Roaring Twenties, the young couple who restores it during the 1950s, and the house’s final owner. A novel about people, architecture, and living history, Ashenden is an evocative portrait of a house that becomes a character as compelling as the people who inhabit it."

Apparently, all you have to say is Downton Abbey to get me interested in a book!

The Painted Girls  by Cathy Marie Buchanan
Published by: Riverhead
Publication Date: January 8th, 2013
Format: Hardcover, 368 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A heartrending, gripping novel about two sisters in Belle Époque Paris.

1878 Paris. Following their father’s sudden death, the van Goethem sisters find their lives upended. Without his wages, and with the small amount their laundress mother earns disappearing into the absinthe bottle, eviction from their lodgings seems imminent. With few options for work, Marie is dispatched to the Paris Opéra, where for a scant seventeen francs a week, she will be trained to enter the famous ballet. Her older sister, Antoinette, finds work as an extra in a stage adaptation of Émile Zola’s naturalist masterpiece L’Assommoir.

Marie throws herself into dance and is soon modeling in the studio of Edgar Degas, where her image will forever be immortalized as Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. There she meets a wealthy male patron of the ballet, but might the assistance he offers come with strings attached? Meanwhile Antoinette, derailed by her love for the dangerous Émile Abadie, must choose between honest labor and the more profitable avenues open to a young woman of the Parisian demimonde.

Set at a moment of profound artistic, cultural, and societal change, The Painted Girls is a tale of two remarkable sisters rendered uniquely vulnerable to the darker impulses of “civilized society.” In the end, each will come to realize that her salvation, if not survival, lies with the other. "

Well, first there's the art, then there's the Belle Époque... so I think I'm fully sold on this.

The Bughouse Affair by Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini
Published by: Forge
Publication Date: January 8th, 2013
Format: Hardcover, 272 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"In The Bughouse Affair, this first of a new series of lighthearted historical mysteries set in 1890s San Francisco, former Pinkerton operative Sabina Carpenter and her detective partner, ex-Secret Service agent John Quincannon, undertake what initially appear to be two unrelated investigations.

Sabina’s case involves the hunt for a ruthless lady “dip” who uses fiendish means to relieve her victims of their valuables at Chutes Amusement Park and other crowded places. Quincannon, meanwhile, is after a slippery housebreaker who targets the homes of wealthy residents, following a trail that leads him from the infamous Barbary Coast to an oyster pirate’s lair to a Tenderloin parlor house known as the Fiddle Dee Dee.

The two cases eventually connect in surprising fashion, but not before two murders and assorted other felonies complicate matters even further. And not before the two sleuths are hindered, assisted, and exasperated by the bughouse Sherlock Holmes.

Fans of Marcia’s Muller’s bestselling Sharon McCone novels and Bill Pronzini’s Nameless Detective series will applaud this and future exploits from the annals of Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services."

I am a sucker for anything set in San Francisco, no, truly I am! Add in the fact it's a period piece AND has a former Pinkerton operative, and I can't wait to read this new book!

Paper Valentine by Breanna Yovanoff
Published by: Razorbill
Publication Date: January 8th, 2013
Format: Hardcover, 368 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The city of Ludlow is gripped by the hottest July on record. The asphalt is melting, the birds are dying, petty crime is on the rise, and someone in Hannah Wagnor’s peaceful suburban community is killing girls.

For Hannah, the summer is a complicated one. Her best friend Lillian died six months ago, and Hannah just wants her life to go back to normal. But how can things be normal when Lillian’s ghost is haunting her bedroom, pushing her to investigate the mysterious string of murders? Hannah’s just trying to understand why her friend self-destructed, and where she fits now that Lillian isn’t there to save her a place among the social elite. And she must stop thinking about Finny Boone, the big, enigmatic delinquent whose main hobbies seem to include petty larceny and surprising acts of kindness.

With the entire city in a panic, Hannah soon finds herself drawn into a world of ghost girls and horrifying secrets. She realizes that only by confronting the Valentine Killer will she be able move on with her life—and it’s up to her to put together the pieces before he strikes again.

Paper Valentine is a hauntingly poetic tale of love and death by the New York Times bestselling author of The Replacement and The Space Between."

Personally, this one is all about the cover lust. Look at that cut paper look... wish they hadn't added a photo, takes away from the graphic awesomeness.

Chu's Day by Neil Gaiman and Adam Rex
Published by: HarperCollins
Publication Date: January 8th, 2013
Format: Hardcover, 32 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Chu is a little panda with a big sneeze.

When Chu sneezes, bad things happen.

Will Chu sneeze today?"

Seeing as this is Neil Gaiman, it's an automatic buy. But I'm excited by the cover, which looks like those old Golden Books, and knowing Neil, it's subversive in some way, so I'm very excited about that. Plus, who doesn't love pandas?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 4 comments  

Labels: Ashenden, Chu's Day, Degas, Downton Abbey, Elizabeth Whilhide, Neil Gaiman, Pandas, Paper Valentine, Paris, San Francisco, The Bughouse Affair, The Painted Girls

Wishing all readers a Happy Halloween from the denizens of Whitby, Pandas everywhere, Art Critics and otherwise, Paul Magrs and Me, Miss Eliza. May it be a memorable one! Perhaps with a little punch up in true Brenda and Effie style.

*Thanks to the amazing artist Bret Herholz for letting me use one of his sketches of Brenda and Effie! The Rocky Horror font though is all me.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Art Critic, Brenda and Effie, Bret Herholz, Halloween, Magrs Month, Pandas, Paul Magrs, Whitby

As Magrs Month draws to a close, we take this time to highlight what is truly important in life. Pandas and cats. We also thank Paul for all of his time, but mainly, it's just about the Pandas and cats.

Question: Animals with tuxedo coloration are the best, true or false?

Answer: Panda’s and special little cats and tapir – of course!

Question: As someone who skirts the campy macabre, was naming your cat Fester, by chance, an homage to Charles Addams, and if so, how awesome is Charles Addams?

Answer: Wonderful. I’ve always had an extremely soft spot for his work. And others who’ve ploughed that same macabre, monochrome furrow – cartoonists and writers like Edward Gorey and my sometime collaborator, Bret Herholz.

Question: Ungow?

Answer: Something Fester says. He’s an extremely vocal, older cat. He can also shout my name – no messing. If I’m working somewhere in the house or garden, he will come looking for me. He’ll actually shout: ‘Paaaaa-oowwww-llllll!!’ Until he finds me. Then he jumps onto the desk or my lap and sits there, concentrating with me on whatever I’m writing or reading. He’s an amazing cat. He came to us as a stray. He adopted us six years ago and he’s a marvel.

Question: Once during the CBS nightly news Bob Schieffer declared that “Everybody Loves Pandas.” Would you agree with this statement?

Answer: I would. Though Panda himself can be circumspect about others of his ilk. Those who don’t wear silk cravats, have a penchant for film noir, contemporary classical music or the novels of Ngaio Marsh.

Question: What inspired your Panda?

Answer: I’m not sure. He came into our lives quite a while before he wandered into the adventures of Iris Wildthyme. He likes to be involved in what’s going on. What he really likes – as an Art Critic – is having his photo taken, in locations all over the world, standing in front of all sorts of artworks – famous or otherwise. My partner Jeremy has got quite an amazing collection of photos of Panda delivering his critiques in this fashion. What Panda likes most of all – besides wild adventures in space and time – is causing a right old rumpus in an art gallery.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Art Critic, Bret Herholz, Charles Addams, Edward Gorey, Fester, Panda, Pandas, Paul Magrs, Ungow

Last year I was lucky enough to meet this unique and talented author. I had heard of Paul Magrs (pronounced Mars) in passing because I am a fan of Helene Hanff, of 84, Charing Cross Road fame, and Paul came out with 666 Charing Cross Road last year, and the title alone made me giggle and want to pick up the book. After hearing him do a reading from his books I knew that I just didn't want to read 666 Charing Cross Road but every book he'd written, in particular his stories about Brenda and Effie, where Brenda is the Bride of Frankenstein and she opens up and Bed and Breakfast in the North East of England.

On the last day of Teslacon, we got to talking and I mentioned I had a blog and shortly after that Paul sent me the info for his publicist and shortly after that I received some amazingly lovely books in the mail. I had been planning on reading them and reviewing them anyway, but to have Paul go out of his way so that I could read his books, well, that deserves a whole themed month says I! Oh, and a giveaway with one of the books! So this month is all Paul Magrs all the time! I'm reviewing all the Brenda and Effie books, as well as a few others. There will also be some fun questions and answers every weekend, including the importance of Pandas, as well as the giveaway previously mentioned. So prepare yourself for some spooktacular fun (sorry, I had to say that, not sure why, it just came out, it's October, these things are known to happen...)

Prizes:

1st Prize: Never the Bride, the first book in the Brenda and Effie series by Paul Magrs

2nd and 3rd Prize: A Lovely Victorian Christmas Card overflowing with so much Christmasy cheer that it could burn out your eyes. Mrs. Claus would approve.

A close up of the cards so they will haunt your nightmares... I mean, so you'll want to win them! Side note, I can't believe I just found these hanging out in my closet! Too perfect, they where waiting for Magrs Month!

The Rules:
1. Open to EVERYONE, just because you haven't been following me all along doesn't mean you don't matter, you just get more entries if you prove you love me by following.
2. Please make sure I have a way to contact you if your name is drawn, either your blogger profile or a link to your website/blog or you could even include your email address with your comment(s).
3. Giveaway ends Wednesday, October 31st at 11:59PM CST Yes, that's Halloween!
4. How to enter:

Answer me this: What is your favorite B-Movie/Horror Film?

• +1 for answering the question above
• +2 for becoming a follower
• +10 if you are already a follower
• +10 for each time you advertise this contest - blog post, sidebar, twitter (please @eliza_lefebvre), etc. (but you only get credit for the first post, so tweet all you like, and I thank you for it, but you'll only get the +10 once). Also please leave a link! There's a handy code on the side for your sidebars!
• +25 if you comment on any of the posts this month, with something other than "I hope I win" or a variation thereof.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:01 AM 2 comments  

Labels: 64 Charing Cross Road, 666 Charing Cross Road, B-Movies, Brenda and Effie, Halloween, Helene Hanff, Horror, Magrs Month, Mrs. Claus, Pandas, Paul Magrs