10 CHRISTMAS MOVIES

Sorry, I’m not counting TV shows, which rules out three of the greatest Christmas shows: A Charlie Brown Christmas, How The Grinch Stole Christmas (Boris Karloff) and Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer (Burl Ives as ‘the Snowman’). However, here are my favorite Christmas movies … and no, It’s A Wonderful Life is not on the list … a much better Jimmy Stewart film is however. In chronological order …

THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (1940) Set in and around a Budapest store, lonely co-workers Klara (Margaret Sullivan) and Alfred (James Stewart) hold an intense dislike for each other, while maintaining a secret letter-writing relationship, with neither realizing who their pen-pal is. They fall in love via their correspondence, while being peevish and curlish towards one another in real life. This is a love story about a couple too much in love with love to fall tidily into each other's arms. Though it all works out finally it explores the fear of how easily good people can miss their chances.
Klara sets up a meeting in a café with her pen-pal love and when Alfred arrives he realizes his pen-pal is none other than Klara. The following scene in the cafe and the conversation between Klara and Alfred is (for me) one the best romantic scenes in American film.
Remade in 1998 as You’ve Got Mail, which, for all the charms of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, is a pale imitation of this, the original. It's not a fluke that this film is on Time magazine's 100 Greatest Film's of All Time.

CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT (1942) Nurse Mary falls in love Navy sailor Jones. He tells her that, being in the Navy, he's never really known what a real home is like. She reads an article in a housekeeping magazine by Elizabeth Lane. Elizabeth Lane (Barbara Stanwyck) is comparable to today's Martha Stewart. She lives on a farm in Connecticut with her husband and baby, a model of domesticity and the idol of many an American housewife. Mary decides to write to the publishing magnate, Mr. Alexander Yardley (Sydney Greenstreet) who controls Lane's publication. She asks if Jones can spend Christmas on Mrs. Lane's farm. Mr. Yardley, sensing a public relations boon, supports the idea wholeheartedly.
Unfortunately, there's a problem; Elizabeth is not nearly what she appears. She lives in a small apartment in New York, is unmarried and has no concept of domestic life or cuisine. she is a brassy night life girl. She writes the articles simply for the money, and her "five-star" recipes are provided by her uncle, Felix, who owns a Manhattan bistro. When she hears of Mr. Yardley's plan, she begins to panic. She tries to call off the plan, but Yardley insists she go through with the scheme. What happens next is classic screwball comedy at its finest, as Stanwyck desperately procures a Connecticut farm, rents a husband and baby for the week and then ... everything begins to fall apart.

THE BISHOP'S WIFE (1947) Bishop Henry Brogham (David Niven) prays for divine guidance with the troubled building of a new cathedral. His plea is seemingly answered by a suave angel named Dudley (Cary Grant), who reveals his identity initially only to the clergyman.
Henry has become so obsessed with the building of the new cathedral, he ignores his duties and marriage with his neglected, unhappy wife, Julia (Loretta Young). Everyone, except for Henry, is charmed by the newcomer Dudley, even the non-religious Professor Wutheridge (Monty Woolley). As Dudley spends time cheering up Julia, there is an unexpected development: Dudley finds himself strongly attracted to her. Sensing this, Henry becomes jealous and anxious for his unwelcome guest to finish his assignement and depart. Eventually, he stands up to the angel. With his mission completed and knowing that Julia loves her husband, Dudley departs, promising never to return. All memory of him is erased. It was remade in 1996 as The Preacher's Wife starring Denzel Washington, Whitney Houston.


A CHRISTMAS WISH [a.k.a.The Great Rupert] (1950) The Great Rupert was something of a marvel when it was released in 1950. Produced by special-effects pioneer George Pal, this charming comedy employs Pal's technique of animated puppetry to bring life to the title character--a lovable trained squirrel that comes to the rescue of a down-and-out family of vaudeville performers in the depths of the Great Depression.
Jimmy Durante leads the struggling clan, barely able to pay rent in a converted garage adjoining the home of a man who's been stockpiling lucrative investment dividends in the floorboard between the two homes. From his cubbyhole in the wall, the resourceful Rupert begins to toss wads of $100 bills to Durante's wife, who thinks it's cash from heaven!

Photo: Jimmy Durante [center] with Lauren Bacall and Bogart


A CHRISTMAS STORY (1983) The greatest Christmas movie of all. You know it’s true. How much of this movie can you quote by heart? It's hard to believe that the man (Bob Clark) who made this sweet-natured gem, was also responsible for the very crude, but hilarious Porkys.

DIE HARD (1988) Most people forget this is a Christmas movie. The best Christmas action movie. Yippie-kai-yah mother-&*$*er.


PRANCER (1989) Jessica Riggs (Rebecca Harrell) is a 9-year-old girl who still believes in Santa Claus while her peers taunt and throw rocks at her. Therefore, when she stumbles across his reindeer Prancer in a remote part of the forest, no one believes her.

THE SANTA CLAUS (1994) Sounds silly but for some reason it’s great. Tim Allen plays an executive who accidently kills Santa on Christmas Eve and is magically compelled tinto service as the next Santa. I had no desire to see this, but once I did …


THE REF (1994) The movie opens with Lloyd and Caroline Chasseur in marriage counseling on Christmas Eve; the session does not go well and the audience quickly learns of their problems. Caroline has had an affair, and Lloyd is miserable and blames the problems with their son Jesse on his wife.
The movie then switches to a criminal named Gus (Denis Leary) who breaks into a house to steal jewelry from the safe; however, he accidentally sets off the alarm, a trap door opens, and he lands in the basement. He is able to get away but his getaway car driven by his partner Murray is no longer there.
While Caroline is in the market Gus spots her and with a gun to her back orders her to take him to her car. He then proceeds to order both her and Lloyd to take him to their house. Along the way the couple continues to argue, with Gus beginning to act as a referee to make them shut up. And then the fun begins … Not your typical Holiday movie, caustic and nasty. Which leads us to …

BAD SANTA (2003) This is almost an anti-Christmas movie. Rude, crude, and seething with attitude. NOT FOR EVERYONE. Billy Bob Thorton stars as Willie, an alcoholic mall Santa who, with his dwarf partner (who works as Santa’s elf) breaks into the safes of the malls where they work. And that’s just the beginning.

POST-ELECTION READING SUGGESTIONS

BlackCatTours.com ~ WickedCharleston.net ~ MarkRJones.net

Congratulations! For only the second time in her adult life, on Tuesday night Michelle Obama was proud of her country.

Now that the first ever American Idol presidential election is over and the United States has decided (due to a massive Bush hangover) to turn toward European-style socialism, here are some reading suggestions that may help steer some of our citizens to an alternative way of thinking.

***Sorry, none of these books have pictures; I know it's a stretch to ask a government school-educated citizen to actually read a book longer than a People magazine article because, after all, we have so little free time to expand our minds, due to the fact that there are so many great TV shows to watch and video games to play. ***


BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley. Written in 1932, this novel depects a "negative utopian" vision of the world, as opposed to the slew of books popular at the time that presented a positive view of communial living.

1984 by George Orwell. Written in 1949, about life under a futuristic totalitarian regime in the year 1984. It tells the story of Winston Smith, a functionary at the Ministry of Truth, whose work consists of editing historical accounts to fit the government's policies. The book has major significance for its vision of an all-knowing government which uses pervasive and constant surveillance of the populace, insidious and blatant propaganda, and brutal control over its citizens. The book contributed the term 'Big Brother' into popular use.

ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand. Published in 1957, this is one of the longest novels ever written (645,00 words) and one of the most audacious. It is also becoming more eerily prescient as the years progress. If this book doesn't make you feel uncomfortable (or pissed) and if you cannot see the parallels between this story and the world we live in .... God have mercy on us all.

And last,but not least .........

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE / THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.

THE FEDERALIST PAPERS by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay. **For extra credit, do you know who killed Hamilton, what office Madison held and what famous treaty John Jay signed? ***

STANDING IN THE SHADOW OF STUBBS

On October 17, Levi Stubbs, the greatest voice from the heyday of Motown was silenced after a long bout with cancer. Compared to the smooth supple singing of Smoky Robinson, Marvin Gaye and Eddie Kendricks (of The Temptations) Stubbs was all about emotion, singing like a man whose survival depended on each word that came of his mouth in a strangled cry.

Stubbs began his professional singing career with friends Abdul "Duke" Fakir, Renaldo "Obie" Benson and Lawrence Payton to form the Four Aims in 1954. Two years later, the group changed their name to the Four Tops. The group began as a supper-club act before finally signing to Motown Records in 1963; by the end of the decade, the Four Tops had over a dozen hits to their name.

Although Stubbs was a natural baritone, most of the Four Tops' hits were written in a tenor range to give the lead vocals a sense of urgency. The Four Tops were elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.

Go back and listen to four of the greatest songs in the Motown catelogue, songs we all know by heart, but this time around, listen to the VOICE. The songs:

1. Baby I Need Your Loving: Listen to Stubb strangled cry when he sings, "Baby I need your lovin', GOT to have all your lovin'."
2. Reach Out, I'll Be There: Great line - “… the world has grown COLD … drifting out on your OWN … and you need a hand to HOLD.”
3. Bernadette: Just listen to they way he screeches her name - "Bernadette!"
4. Standing In the Shadows of Love: Greatest line of any Motown song: "It may come tomorrow, it may come tomorrow / But it's for sure I've got nothin' but sorrow."
   
   Amen, Levi.

PAUL NEWMAN - DEAD

www.MarkRJones.net ~ www.BlackCatTours.com ~ www.WickedCharleston.net

Here is my list of BEST and WORST Paul Newman films.

BEST

• Somebody Up There Likes Me (1954). Bio-pic of middle weight boxing champion Rocky Graziano.
• What A Way To Go! (1964). A very obscure but hilarious movie which is a delicious send-up of Hollywood style and greed. Shirley MacLaine stars as a women who wants to marry for love and the film follows her life through her four marriages. Each one of her poor husbands become fabulously wealthy before dying in some freak accident, leaving her an increasingly rich (and frustrated) widow. Dick Van Dyke, Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum and Gene Kelly star as her husbands.
• Harper (1965) William Goldman scripted this hard-boiled detective flick based on Ross MacDonald’s “Lew Archer” novels.
• Cool Hand Luke (1967) What can you say? One of the all time great films with one of the most famous lines … “What we got is (a) failure to communicate.”
• Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) Another all-time classic. Newman and Redford together for the first time. another William Goldman script. Great line: "I got vision and the rest of the world wears bifocules."
• The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972) Not for everyone, but I love this very odd movie with Newman playing the notorious frontier hanging Judge Roy Bean.
• The Sting (1973) Newman and Redford in one the greatest crime caper movies ever! Newman's poker game scene is still one of the best.
• Slapshot (1977) Love it or hate it … savagely funny.
• Absence of Malice (1981) Newman is great in this crime story as Michael Colin Gallagher who finds himself persecuted in the press by a pretty reporter and extracts his subtle revenge.
• The Hudsucker Proxy (1993) One of the best (and overlooked) movies by the Cohen brothers. Must be seen to be believed. Wacky, wacky wacky … Plot includes a corporate takeover, the invention of the hula hoop and the Frisbee.
• Nobody’s Fool (1994) Newman is great as down-on-his–luck small town handy man Donald J. “Sully” Sullivan, who drinks too much and works too little.
  
  WORST
• The Silver Chalice (1954) Newman’s screen debut was this costume drama. It was so bad Newman took out an ad in Variety magazine to apologize for its awfulness.
• WUSA (1970) One of the all time awful movies, a supposed “comedy” that is more political correctness than a movie.
• Sometimes A Great Notion (also known as Never Give An Inch) (1971) Based on Ken Kesey’s terrible novel, this was made into an even worse film. It is only notable because it was the first movie shown on HBO when that cable channel debuted in 1973.
• The Towering Inferno (1974) One of those Irwin Allen produced “disaster” movies that were all the rage in the mid-70s after the success of The Poseiden Adventure.
• Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (1976) A typical Robert Altman over-the-top mess. The most over rated director in Hollywood history.
• When Time Ran Out (1980) The last of Irwin Allen’s disaster epics is by far the worst … which is saying a lot. The best things about the film are Jacqueline Bisset’s breasts.
• Message In A Bottle (1999) A movie based on another Nicholas Sparks novel. ‘Nuff said.

Norman Whitfield - R.I.P.

Norman Whitfield (67) died on Sept. 16 of complications from diabetes. If his name is not familiar then ... what a shame. I'm pretty sure you know his music. During his heyday as a writer/producer for Motown (mainly for The Temptations) in the 1960s and 70s he was instrumental transforming soul music into a more socially conscious commentary on society. Inspired by Sly and the Family Stone and Funkadelic Whitfield infused a bit more funk into the notoriously smooth Motown productions. The sound was called "psychedelic soul." Whitfield and his song-writing musicial partner Barrett Strong (who sang Motown's first big hit "Money (That's What I Want)" were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2004. A list of their songs include:

• "Ain't Too Proud To Beg" recorded by The Temptations, 1966.
• "I Know I'm Losing You" The Temptations, 1967.
• "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" recorded by Gladys Knight and the Pips and Marvin Gaye, 1967-8.
• "I Wish It Would Rain" by The Temptations, 1967.
• "Cloud Nine" by The Temptations, which won Motown it's first Grammy award (1968) for Best Rhythm and Blues Performance by a Duo or Group.
• "Too Busy Thinking 'Bout My Baby" by Marvin Gaye, 1969.
• "War" by Edwin Starr. Massive #1 hit in 1970 and considered one of the all time great protest songs.
• "I Can't Get Next To You" by The Temptations, 1969 and later by Al Green.
• "Psychedelic Shack" and "Ball of Confusion" by The Temptations.
• "Smiling Faces Sometimes" by The Undisputed Truth, 1971. Personally, one my favorite Motown songs of all time with a great wicked bass line.
• "Just My Imagination" by The Temptations, 1972.
• "Papa Was A Rolling Stone" by The Temptations (1973). Perhaps the crowning achievement of Whitfield's career which also won a Grammy for Best R&B Song.
• "Car Wash" by Rose Royce, 1976. A #1 early disco smash from the hit comedy movie and winner of the Grammy for Best Score Soundtrack Album.
  

If you cannot sing along to at least half of these songs ... you need to seriously expand your musical horizions.

BEST SONGS WRITTEN BY A SOUTH CAROLINA NATIVE

www.MarkRJones.net ~ www.wickedcharleston.net/ ~ www.BlackCatTours.com

• “Smooth” (recorded by Santana) & “3 AM” (recorded by Matchbox 20)– Written by Rob Thomas (Lake City and Turbeville, SC). Thomas is the lead singer of the band Matchbox 20. "Smooth" won a Grammy Award for both Santana and Thomas.
• “Little Darlin’” & “Stay” Written by Maurice Williams (Lancaster, SC). Maurice (with the Zodiacs)earned Rock and Roll immortality for the classic "Stay", which was famously covered by Jackson Brown in 1977. "Little Darlin' hit #2 in 1957 and was featured in the film American Graffiti.
• “Take The Highway” & “Can’t You See” Written by Toy Caldwell (Spartanburg, SC) and recorded by The Marshall Tucker Band. As guitarist and main songwriter for MTB, Caldwell is one of the stalwalts of the 1970s Southern rock movement.
• “Half of My Mistakes” Written by Radney Foster and Bobby Houck (Charleston, SC) and recorded by Radney Foster. Houck, who is part of The Blue Dogs, co-wrote this amazing song with Foster, one of the best and hottest writers on the Country/ Americana scene today.
• “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” (recorded by Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell, and Diana Ross) & “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing” & “You’re All I Need To Get By” (recorded by Marvin Gaye) & “Let’s Go Get Stoned” (recorded by Ray Charles) Written by Nicholas Ashford (Fairfax, SC) and Valerie Simpson. The husband and wife team known as Ashford & Simpson is as big a part of the Motown story as is Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross. "Stoned" was their first major success as a hit for Ray Charles.
• “Summertime” Written by George Gershwin and Dubose Heyward (Charleston, SC). Heyward wrote the libretto for this opening song for the opera "Porgy and Bess" and it is the only song he ever wrote. But what a song ... There are more than 1000 recorded versions of this song.
• Every Day In The Week Blues” Written by Pink Anderson (Laurens, SC). When English Mod Syd Barrett was looking for a name for his rock band he combined the first names of his favorite two bluesmen - Pink Anderson and Floyd Council and the rest is history.
• “Still” Written by Whisperin’ Bill Anderson (Columbia SC). Major country star of the 60s and 70s. In later years Anderson hosted a game show on TNN.
• Thinkin’ Problem” by David Ball (Rock Hill, SC). Another South Carolina country singer.
• “I Got You (I Feel Good)” & “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag” & “It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World” by James Brown (Barnwell, SC). Soul Brother #1. The Hardest Working Man in Show Business. 'Nuff Said.
• “A Night In Tunisia” & Groovin’ High” by Dizzy Gillespie (Cheraw, SC). A staggering jazz figure. Generally considered to be the co-inventor of be-bop (with Charlie Parker) Dizzy's importance in modern music cannot be overstated.
• “Corner Pocket” by Freddie Green (Charleston, SC). A product of the amazing Jenkins Orphanage Band in Charleston at the turn of the 20th Century. Freddie is credited for having the longest job in jazz history - the guitarist for the Count Basie Orchestra for over 50 years. "Pocket" has become a jazz standard. The Count Basie version is smokin' hot.
• “Fire On The Mountain” by George McCorkle (Spartanburg, SC). Second guitarist for The Marshall Tucker Band. "Fire" is one of the great Southern country rock songs of the 1970s.
• "Long Black Train” by Josh Turner (Hannah, SC). A Christian-oriented country artist whose first hit was this amazing song.
• “Blues For Lawrence” & A Gathering In The Clearing” by Cat Anderson (Greenville, SC). Another product of the Jenkins Orphanage. For 20 years, Cat was played first trumpet for the Duke Ellington Orchestra and became world famous for his high-note playing. He was also a superb composer and arranger.
• “You’ve Got To Stand For Something” by Aaron Tippin (Traveler’s Rest, SC). A hard core honkey-tonk singer who sings with a full twange.
• “Only Wanna Be With You” & “Old Man & Me (When I Get To Heaven)" by Darius Rucker, Mark Bryan, Dean Felber and Jim Sonnefield (Hootie and the Blowfish). These guys need no introduction.
• “Jazz Battle” & “Let’s Get Together” & “Till Times Get Better” by Jabbo Smith. Jabbo was one of the first kids from the Jenkins Orphanage to make a national reputation. One of the all time great trumpet players in early jazz.
• "Jazz Me Blues" by Tom Delany. Delany was also a member of the Jenkins Orphange and penned this early jazz standard that has been recorded more than 1000 times, the most notable being a version by Bix Beiderbicke. Delany also wrote the obscure and filthy "All The Girls Love Big Dick".

ONE SUMMER. FOUR MOVIES

www.WickedCharleston.net ~ www.BlackCatTours.com ~ www.MarkRJones.net

As years pass, I have less and less interest in viewing Hollywood films at the local multiplex. This summer I managed to see 4 movies in the theater. Three were sequels (or at least part of a series) and the fourth was a stand alone.

INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL: Phhhht. This movie seemed to be running on fumes. The time to make this movie has long passed - maybe 10 years ago. In ranking the Indiana Jones films this one comes in third, behind The Last Crusade, Raiders of the Lost Ark but well ahead of the abomination Temple of Doom.

THE X-FILES: THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE: Okay, I am an admitted and committed X-Files fan. I think Scully is the hottest woman on TV (or the silver screen) and Mulder is one of the coolest characters ever. So ... all my bias aside ... I was initially disappointed when I walked out of the theater. I mean ... come on ... after 10 years, couldn't the Chris Carter brain trust come up with a better plot line than this? At least 1/3 of the series episodes had more clever ideas than this feature film. But the film's major strength ... Mulder and Scully and their relationship ... has filtered to the forefront. More than a month later, I like the film better. The X-Files is ultimately more about Mulder and Scully than any plot, or monster, or alien. And by the way ... Scully is still hot.

THE DARK KNIGHT: I waited until the masses were gone and sat in a movie theater with a total of four people to watch this. Who would have thought that Batman would become a secondary character? For all it's tortured moral dilemmas ... and Heath Ledger's star turn ... the movie has left me ambivilent. Rather disappointing.

GONE WITH THE WIND: Far away the best film I watched this year in the theater. The Terrace Theater on James Island ran the classic for a week and did big business. I'm pretty sure, 50 years from now, none of the previous three movies I saw this summer will be playing to sold out audiences in a movie theater. Now, if only they would play Harvey ...

PREGNANT PROSTITUTES SELL SEX ON-LINE

www.WickedCharleston.net ~ www.BlackCatTours.com ~ www.MarkRJones.net


Two women were charged with prostitution in Camden County (Missouri) on Thursday after they were arrested in a sting operation at a Lake Ozark hotel last week.Two other women were also arrested, and three of the women are pregnant.

Alexandra Wells and Allysia Waldrop were both charged on Thursday. Waldrop is pregnant, but is not known if Wells is also.The undercover bust went down at a Lake Ozark area hotel after the sheriff's department received several reports that pregnant women were advertising prostitution on an internet advertising site.One of the women arrested was eight months pregnant, another six months pregnant, and another was three months pregnant. They ranged in age from 18 to 22 years old.

(No comment - Mark.)

JAY LENO BREAKING NEWS!

It has been reported that Jay Leno's last night as host as "The Tonight Show" will be in Sept. 2009. To celebrate that event, Leno promises to say something funny during that last show.

BEST CRIME / MYSTERY / THRILLER SERIES

www.markrjones.net - www.blackcattours.com - www.wickedcharleston.net

In no certain order ...

1. “Travis McGee” by John D. MacDonald. 21 books all with a color in the title (The Deep Blue Good-bye; Darker Than Amber; The Green Ripper.) McGee, who works as a “salvage consultant” in Ft. Lauderdale, has all the best qualities of Magnum, Rockford, Bond, and Robin Hood, with the addition of yen philosophizing and rueful self-awareness. Must be read in consecutive order.

2. “Burke” by Andrew Vachss. 18 books. Vachss (rhymes with “tax”) is a lawyer who only represents children and youths and writes the darkest, most unrelenting series of books about crime and revenge. Main character Burke is one of the “children of the secret” - abused children who were victimized without ever experiencing justice, much less love and protection. To say the least, the adult Burke is a deeply conflicted character. Must be read in order.

3. “Sherlock Holmes” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 4 novels and 5 collections of short stories. What can you say?

4. “Thorn” by James P. Hall. 10 books featuring Thorn who lives in the Florida Keys and makes his living tying lures for fly fishing. There’s quite a bit of Travis McGee in Thorn, and a little bit of Burke also. You don’t have to read these books in order, but I highly recommend reading the first one (Under Cover of Daylight) so you will know why Thorn is the way he is.

5. “Repairman Jack” by F. Paul Wilson. 10 books. Andrew Vachss calls Repairman Jack “righteous!” An apt description. Jack is a loner who lives off the public grid (no SSN, no official identity) and makes his living “fixing” extreme situations. His adventures also feature touches of the paranormal. Must be read in order.

6. “Joe Kurtz” by Dan Simmons. 3 books – Hard Case, Hard Freeze, Hard As Nails. Hard-boiled crime noir at its best. Simmons is one of my all-time favorite writers. In addition to these great novels, he has also written my two favorite horror novels (Carrion Comfort and Children of the Night), a sci-fi classic (Hyperion) and a great Hemingway historical novel (The Crook Factory). It helps to read them in order.

7. “Parker” by Richard Stark (Donald E. Westlake). 24 books. Parker may be the meanest, nastiest character on this list. Very few redeeming qualities. These books are almost nihilistic. Highly recommend you read these in order – some of the books began the second after the previous book ends.

8. “Justin & Cuddy” by Michael Malone. 3 books - Uncivil Seasons, Time’s Witness, First Lady. Great literate mysteries set in small town North Carolina. Uncivil Seasons is one of the best mysteries I’ve ever read. Read in order.

9. “Lew Archer” by Ross MacDonald. 18 books. William Goldman calls these the "the finest series of detective novels ever written by an American". Macdonald is the primary heir to Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler but his writing built on the pithy style of his predecessors by adding psychological depth and insights into the motivations of his characters. Archer often unearthed the family secrets of his clients and of the criminals who victimized them. Lost or wayward sons and daughters were a theme common to many of the novels. Macdonald was one of the first to deftly combine the two sides of the mystery genre, the "whodunit" and the psychological thriller.

10. "87th Precinct" by Ed McBain. 56 books. THE BEST. The most consistent police procedurals written about day-to-day cops, the inspiration for "Hill Street Blues" and all the other more realistic, gritty cops show that followed. Steve Carella, Meyer Meyer, Bert Kling, Ollie Weeks, Cotton Hawes, and Andy Parker just to name a few of the memorable characters we have to know and love who work out of the 8-7. And of course, the Blind Man, one of the greatest, coolest criminals to grace crime pages. McBain died in 2005 so alas, there will be no more 8-7 books.

11. “Spenser” by Robert B. Parker. 35 books. I almost didn’t list Spenser here … but I had to. This is an infuriating series … the first 14 books are as good as PI fiction gets … and the rest are hit-and-miss. Hawk is one of the great characters in crime fiction. But then you also have Susan Silverman - Spenser's main squeeze. The more important Susan Silverman becomes to the story the more annoying the book is. I keep hoping Susan gets killed and we get back the old, tougher Spenser, not the Oprah-fied Spenser we currently have.

A RESPONSE TO 'Entertainment Weekly's' Best Books List

www.markrjones.net / www.wickcharleston.net / www.blackcattours.com

You would think that when a publication such as Entertainment Weekly creates a list of top 100 books of the past 25 years the list would be chock full of fun books, best-sellers, 'entertainments' as Graham Greene used to call them.

But .... NO! Seems like the editorial board of EW don't have the balls to disagree with the all-too-serious English majors who run the literary criticism industry in America. You know, those elitist sneering snobs who write for The New York Times Book Review and the New York Review of Books and the like. That is the only way to explain the prepondance of so-called "literary" books on the list.

So I took it on myself to create my own list. It may be not 100, but it's close and the list is not finished. I will adding more books... feel free to make suggestions. I can guarantee, the books on my list are more enjoyable, and probably better written than most of the books on the EW list. Have fun!

MARK'S LIST OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE PAST 25 YEARS.

1983
Adventures in the Screen Trade - William Goldman. The most influencial book ever written about Hollywood. If you've ever heard the phrase, "nobody knows anything", give credit to Goldman.
The Mists of Avalon – Marion Zimmer Bradley. The story of Camelot told from the female perspective.
Pet Sematary – Stephen King. One of my all time favorite King's novels.
The Anubis Gates – Tim Powers. One of the best time-travel novels.

1984
Who Made Stevie Crye? – Michael Bishop. Creeeeepy. Like a hazy dream.
Headhunter – Michael Slade. Reeeal creeeepy. The serial killer novel to end them all, The Silence of the Lambs notwithstanding.
The Butter Battle Book – Dr. Seuss. Yes, that's right. Great political satire.

1985
The Damnation Game – Clive Barker. My personal favorite Barker novel. Real evil.
Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card. One of the greatest sci-fi books ever.
The Accidental Tourist – Ann Tyler. A literary writer who can actually tell a story.
Flood – Andrew Vachss. The first Burke novel, launching perhaps the best (and darkest) series of crime novels.
The Fraternity of the Rose – David Morrell. One of the greatest thriller writers who is more literary than the writers who are profiled by the New York Times.

1986
Speaker of the Dead – Orson Scott Card. Sequel to one of the greatest sci-fi novels.
It – Stephen King. Perhaps the last really good King novel. Most of his 1990s work seemed bloated.
Tourist Season –Carl Hiaasen. The first of Hiaasen's comic crime novels. He is the 20th century Mark Twain.
The Prince of Tides – Pat Conroy. THE Conroy book to read.
Lonesome Dove – Larry McMurtry. The western.

1987
Replay -Ken Grimwood. One of the greatest variations on time travel, and a sweet love story to boot.
Watchers – Dean R. Koontz. Koontz at this best - emotionally damaged characters looking for an oasis and redemption.
Swan Song – Robert McCammon. For anyone who read McCarthy's The Road ... you check this one out to see how a good writer handles cataclysmic events.
A Season on the Brink – John Feinstein. One of the greatest sports books ever despite the fact that I think Feinstein is a class A jerk.
Under The Lake - Stuart Woods. Part mystery, part psychological thriller, part history.

1988
Blue Belle – Andrew Vachss. Third Burke novel. Fascinating and dark.
A Brief History of Time – Stephen Hawking. A brilliant man writing for people like us.

1989
Skin Tight – Carl Hiaasen. My fav! One of the oddest and greatest villians in crime fiction.
The Pillars of Earth – Ken Follett. One of the best epic historical sagas ever written.
Geek Love – Katherine Dunn. Veeeeery disturbing. Not for the squimish. An X-Files episode filtered through Dickensian sensibilities.
Carrion Comfort – Dan Simmons. Gets my vote as the best horror novel of the last 50 years, and one of the creepiest characters is a Charleston blue blood. Again, Simmons is a writer who is more literary than most literary giants.

1990
The Stand (Complete and Uncut Version) - Stephen King. An epic story fully restored. One of the all time great horror books.
Get Shorty – Elmore Leonard. Next to Hiaasen, Leonard is the best consistent comic crime novelist we have.
Possession – A.S. Byatt. One of the few literary elite favorites who I enjoy.
Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of R.J. Nabisco – Brian Burrough and John Helyar. An entertaining look at corporate greed. Hilariious.
The Witching Hour – Ann Rice. I find her vampire books tedious, this one however ...
Palindrome - Stuart Woods. Part thriller, part Southern gothic. Woods last good novel before he became a formula machine, definitely better than James Patterson ... barely.

1991
Boy’s Life – Robert McCammon. An odd combination of the small town coming-of-age story and mysterious horror. Ray Bradbury could do no better.

1992
Doomsday Book – Connie Willis. Brilliant historical novel masquerading as sci-fi.
Jumper - Steven Gould. Not to be confused by the awful movie of the same name and supposedly based on the novel. Whoever made the movie, read a different novel than me. This is a disarmingly charming and dark story about a young boy's escape from an abusive father and his struggle to overcome that shadow. The fact that he learns he can teleport helps.
Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus – John Gray. Yes, you read it right. Very illuminating insight about the differences between the sexes.
Children of the Night – Dan Simmons. A different take on the typical vampire story.
Nightworld – F. Paul Wilson. Scaaary. Wilson writes an odd combination of horror /paranormal / thriller / govt. conspiracy novels.

1993
Nobody’s Fool – Richard Russo. Great picturesque novel about an affable loser.
A Season in Purgatory – Dominic Dunne. A fictionalized version of a notorious unseolved murder which led to another investigation and conviction. 'Nuff said.

1994
Dark Rivers of the Heart – Dena Koontz. If you're not paranoid about the One World government, you're not paying attention.
Sacrifice – John Farris. A chilling thriller. Great use of historical legends. Wow.
Thank You For Smoking – Christopher Buckley. On my list of the funniest books ever written.

1995
About Time – Paul Davies. A scientific exploration of time travel, written for dumb people like me.
I, Asimov: A Memoir – Issac Asimov. The life of one of the 20th century's most prolific writers.
The Baker’s Boy – J.V. Jones. The first novel in the Book of Words trilogy, one of the best sword-and-sorcery series.
Presidential Sex – Wesley O. Hagood. Sex lives of the U.S. Presidents, and yes, the Clinton and Kennedy chapters make up for more than half the book.

1997
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – J.K. Rowling. Come on! You gotta have a Harry Potter on this list, so why not the first one, where it all started.
Alien Agenda – Jim Marrs. The best-selling book ever written about UFOs and aliens. Well-researched by the amazing Marrs.

1998
Election – Tom Perrotta. Brilliant satire on many levels. Basis of the hiarious movie with Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick.
Homebody – Orson Scott Card. A great ghost story, and love story.
Confederates in the Attic – Tony Horowitz. Hilarious. A Yankee's view of modern Southern culture and the religion called The Confederacy.
The Greatest Generation – Tom Brokow. Seminal book about the men and women who fought the Second World War.

1999
Tara Road – Maeve Binchey. Women's fiction extrodinaire. It was great well before Oprah picked it for her club.
Chocolat – Joanne Harris. If you've only seen the movie, read the book.

2000
Rule By Secrecy – Jim Marrs. A scary non-fiction book, dealing with secret societies, and modern politics.
Scarlet Feather – Maeve Binchy. Another great novel. Binchy is one in a long tradiont of great Irish storytellers.

2001
Seabiscuit: An American Legend – Lara Hillenbrand. One of the most inspiring stories of the 20th century.
John Adams – David McCollough. Switch off the HBO version and read the book, dammit!
Uncivil Seasons - Michael Malone. I feel justified inserting this in the list, even though it was first released in 1982, which is when I read it. However, it was re-released in 2001, and it is still one of the best novels I've ever read. It's marketed as a mystery, but so much more.

2002
Just Shy of Harmony – Philip Gulley. My favorite of the Harmony books. Funny, funny, funny! The trying life and times of a Quaker minister in a small midwestern town.
The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebbold. Harrowing.


2003
1000 Places to See Before You Die – Patricia Schultz. The only person I know who has a chance to visit all 1000 may be Myron.

2004
Skinny Dip – Carl Hiaasen. Maybe the best novel he's written. Drop dead hilarious.
The Devil in the White City - Erik Larson. Great non-fiction. A history of the Chicago World's Fair and H.H. Holmes, a sexual deviant serial killer who preyed on dozens of women who came to work the Fair.

2005
Jonathon Strange & Mr. Norrell – Susannah Clarke. One of those great long, leisurely written novels. Set in an alternate England where magic and magicians have always been part of the fabric.

2006
The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield. One of the best novels I've read in 10 years. Mysterious and charming. Evil and sweet.
Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the music of the The Beatles - Geoff Emerick. For my money, the best book about the Beatles because it mainly deals with the music, and ultimately, that's what the band was about.

CHARLESTON / JULY 4th in POST CIVIL WAR

www.markrjones.net / www.wickedcharleston.net /www.blackcattours.com

JULY 4, 1866. Charlestonians refused to celebrate America's birthday. United States General Daniel Sickles, military governor of South Carolina, wrote to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton that "I have never seen a Carolinian raise an American flag and if one were ever hoisted over a Dwelling, or a Hotel, or a Shop, the population would avoid the place as they would shun a pest house filled with lepers ..."

When a Charleston fire company refused to carry the Stars and Stripes during a parade, Gen. Sickles ordered the company to display the national banner. One of the firemen symbolically removed a star from the flag and stated, "South Carolina wants no part of the Union." Sickles had the man arrested and imprisioned for 30 days.

JULY 4, 1868. Jacob Schirmer, a Charleston merchant, wrote in his diary: "The day now belongs to the 'Nigger', very few whites moving about."

JULY 4, 1908. The first post-War official Independence Day celebration organized by the city of Charleston is held.

For more info about Gen. Sickle's life, pick up a copy of Wicked Charleston, Vol II: Prostitutes, Politics & Prohibition.

CARLIN ... R.I.P.

My favorite Carlin lines include ...

"Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits."

"It's okay to prick your finger, but don't finger your prick."

"Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity."

"If God had intended us not to masturbate he would've made our arms shorter."

"If fire fighters fight fire and crime fighters fight crime, what do freedom fighters fight?"

"The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live."

AN ESSAY IN PHOTOS

Crook, liar, baffoon, former economic advisor and current prison bitch

Retired ... finally









Still dead.

Still Mayor.

FAVORITE LIVE LPS (not CDs)

As you will see, this is heavily weighed to the 1970s … what can I say? I grew up in the 70s.
In chronological order:

Live at Newport 1956 – Duke Ellington Orchestra (1956)
When Duke Ellington took his orchestra to the Newport Jazz Festival in 1956, the band was in need of an uplift, looking for a way to revitalize its image in the wake of bebop, hard bop, and so many more jazz currents. Ellington got the lift he needed when he called "Diminuendo in Blue" with set-closer "Crescendo in Blue" tacked on the end. Tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves got the nod from Ellington to segue from "Diminuendo" to "Crescendo," and he created the most famous sax solo in jazz history. With one rousing 27-chorus solo, Gonsalves blew a fever into the crowd and jump-started Ellingtonia for another generation. Capping off Gonsalves solo is an equally over-the-top trumpet solo by Cat Anderson, former member of the Jenkins' Orphanage band in the 1920s.

Live at the Apollo – James Brown (1962)
The hardest-working-man-in-show- business proves he deserves the title. Brown was born in the hometown in which I graduated high school, Barnwell, SC. Barnwell's other claims to fame are being home of Cliff Hollingsworth, who wrote the screenplay for the movie Cinderella Man starring Russell Crowe, and the birthplace of Henry Wallace, convicted serial killer of nine women in Charlotte, NC in 1993.



Live at Folsom Prison – Johnny Cash (1968)
One of the seminal events in country (and popular) music. By turns funny, maudlin, rocking but always with attitude. This LP helped pave the way for Waylon, Willie and the Outlaw music of the 1970s. Rolicking versions of "Folsom Prison Blues", "Cocaine Blues" and "Twenty-four Minutes to Go," one of the greatest execution songs ever written.

Live at Leeds - The Who (1970)
Four guys, three instruments and a wall of noise. Loud, loud and louder! Heavy metal bands are still trying match this. You can almost visualize Townsend's trademark pinwheel guitar playing and Roger Daltrey swinging the mic like a lariat.

Mad Dogs & Englishmen – Joe Cocker (1970)
Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs & Englishmen revue showed the world how a rock and roll road show should be done. Recorded live at New York's Fillmore East in the spring of 1970, this CD documents a slapdash extravaganza (the whole thing was conceived, organized, and abandoned over the course of two months) that overflows with big, brassy, rockin' soul. Front and center is Joe Cocker, a spastically charismatic Brit soul shouter. The bandleader is Leon Russell, playing some of the best rock piano ever waxed. And the crack company (boasting 21 singers and players) includes the rhythm section of a band which become known as Derek & the Dominoes' .

Live at the Fillmore East – Frank Zappa and the Mothers (1971)
This was a live concept-like album. It was a quick peek behind the curtain of the life of a rock band on the road as narrated by Frank Zappa. Frank and the Mothers portray stereotypically egotistical members of a rock band "negotiating" with a groupie and her girlfriends for a quick roll in the hay. The girls are insulted that the band thinks they are groupies and that they would sleep with the band just because they are musicians. They have standards; they will only have sex with a guy in a group with a "big, hit single in the charts – with a bullet!" and a "dick that’s a monster." One of the funniest LPs ever!

Made In Japan – Deep Purple (1973)
This is often in the top five in "Greatest Live Album" lists. One listen you will understand why. Definitive heavy metal with master musicians. The band even indulges in some great long-form jams, reaching into the 10-minute range for most of the main set and closing with the now-famed live read of "Space Truckin'." Ritchie Blackmore earns his "guitar god" status on this release. Ian Gillian releases one of rock and roll's all time great screams in "Strange Kind of Woman."

On Your Feet or On Your Knees – Blue Oyster Cult (1975)
As non-mainstream (for the 70s) as this music was, "On Your Feet Or On Your Knees" was Blue Oyster Cult's first album to break into the Top 30, a stunning document of the innovations to come. Sonic bombast on par with their obvious model, the aforementioned "Made In Japan." Bands like Judas Priest and Dokken built a career copying this model.

Frampton Comes Alive – Peter Frampton (1976)
What else do you need to know? The album became the biggest selling live album at the time of its release and sold over 6 million copies in the US, and 16 million worldwide. As of 2008, it is the fourth best selling live album of all time.Released in early January 1976, it debuted on the charts at 191. It stayed at the top of the charts, at number one, for 10 weeks, stayed in the Billboard's Top 40 album chart for 55 weeks, and stayed on the Billboard charts in total for 97 weeks. It was the top selling album of 1976. It was so successful it took Frampton almost 20 years to recover professionally.

Live Bullet – Bob Seger (1976)
Frampton got most of the sales records and press, but Live Bullet stands the test as one of the all time great live recordings. Bob Seger is one of the best songwriters in rock and roll, and one of the greatest vocalists also ... with a prime-to-the-pump back-up band ... how can you go wrong? This was the LP that put Seger over the top. His next release was called Night Moves.

One More From For the Road – Lynyrd Skynyrd (1976)
Again, one of the greatest live recordings of one of the all time great bands. Those of who that have only seen the current version of Skynyrd have NO IDEA how great the original line-up was on stage. Happy that I got to see them twice. In 1976, and the next year, in their next-to-the-las performance before the fatal plane crash.

Seconds Out – Genesis (1977)
The last great Genesis LP before they became nothing more than Phil Collins' back-up band. Peter Gabriel had left the group the year before and after auditioning hundreds of vocalists as replacements, the band just decided to let drummer Phil Collins take over the lead vocal duties. Genesis had such a reputation as a live act, it was imperative that the new line-up (sans Gabriel) prove it's mettle on stage - and they did. If you can only own one Genesis release ... this is the one. It includes an amazing version of the 29 minute end-of-the-world opus "Supper's Ready". After this Genesis was well on it's way to becoming the 80s superstars they became. Great for the bank, but lacking in musical creativity.

The Last Waltz – the Band (1978)
How amazing can live performances get? The Band's last performance with guest stars galore - my personal favorite being Dr. John. This is also one of the great concert movies.

Waiting For Columbus – Little Feat (1978)
The funkiest bunch of west coast (mostly) white guys. Smoking hot versions of Little Feat classics like 'Fat Man In The Bathtub", "Dixie Chicken" and "Oh Atlanta." Lowell George's last great performance.

Live and Dangerous – Thin Lizzy (1978)
These guys may qualify as the greatest rock and roll band that ALMOST made it. Sure, everybody has heard "The Boys Are Back In Town", but Lizzy is so much more. Phil Lynott was the Irish Springsteen / Seger. Guitarist Brian Roberson later provided guitar fireworks for Motorhead. One of my regrets is that I never got to see these guys live.


Full House / Aces High – Amazing Rhythm Aces (1981)
I may have listened to this LP more than any other live recording! I initially ordered through an ad in Rolling Stone magazine. This LP has been responsible for kicking more parties into gear, and provided the greatest soundtrack for cruising. If you've never heard of them ... think of a Memphis version of Little Feat with more country twang and a wicked sense of humor. God bless the Aces.

GONE WITH THE WIND @ The Terrace Theater

www.MarkRJones.net / www.WickedCharleston.net / www.BlackCatTours.com

Last night Rebel and I attended (in costume) a showing of GWTW in Charleston at The Terrace Theater on James Island. Great fun! A good contengiency of Charleston Tour Guides were in attendance, including two newbies who had never seen the film before. Great fun for all who attended. It also got me thinking about how good movies used to be. How many great movies come out in a single year these days ... one or two ... often zero.

1939 was a watershed year in Hollywood. It gets my vote for being the best year for movies in Hollywood history. Here are movies nominated by the Academy for Best Film in 1939.

Goodbye Mr. Chips: Robert Donat in his Oscar performance as the beloved school teacher.
Mr. Smith Goes To Washington: James Stewart in one his more iconic roles.
Of Mice and Men: One of the best versions of Steinbeck's classic. Wth Burgess Meredith as George and Lon Chaney, Jr. as the simple-minded Lenny.
Stagecoach: Stagecoach has been lauded as one of the most influential films ever made. This was John Ford's first Western with sound, and also featured John Wayne in his breakout role.
Ninotcha: Launched with the tagline "Garbo Laughs!", Ninotchka is Greta Garbo's first full comedy, and her penultimate film.

Which film won? None of the above. In 1939, the Academy nominated more than 5 films. Here are some other nominees.

Love Affair: The classic tear-jerker starring Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer. It was later re-made as An Affair To Remember with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr and re-made again as Love Affair with Warren Beatty and Annette Bening.
Wuthering Heights: The film that made Lawrence Olivier a star, also starred Merle Oberlin and David Niven.
Dark Victory: Another classic weeper. Bette Davis plays a swinging socialite, living the fast life of booze, smokes, and--with the help of Humphrey Bogart as her Irish stableman--raising thoroughbred horses. When a brain tumor starts giving her headaches and eroding her vision, she falls in love with her surgeon (George Brent), who grows more determined than ever to cure her.

None of those won either because 1939 was also the year in which The Wizard of Oz was released.

Which did not win because the movie of the year was Gone With The Wind. Pretty good year, huh?

Here's a list of more films from that year.

Beau Geste: The best known version of this classic adventure story with Gary Cooper, Ray Milland, Robert Preston, Susan Hayward, Broderick Crawford, and Brian Donlevy.
The Cat and the Canary: This comedy-horror film is considered to one of Bob Hope's best overall films, and his best performance.
Destry Rides Again: This is on my list of James Stewart's Top Five films, and one of the funniest westerns ever. The Western film genre was a first for both James Stewart and Dietrich - in a perfect example of inspired casting and image reversal. Stewart plays the role of an atypical, pacifist, unarmed Western hero and the usually glamorous seductress Dietrich is a sultry saloon entertainer-trouper post-von Sternberg. Imagine that Stewart managed to make this film and Mr. Smith Goes To Washington in the same year.
Golden Boy: William Holden's film debut, with Barbara Stanwick. Joe Bonaparte's father wants him to pursue his musical talent; but Joe wants to be a boxer. Persuading near-bankrupt manager Tom Moody to give him a chance, Joe quickly rises in his new profession. When he has second thoughts Moody's girl Lorna uses feminine wiles to keep him boxing. But when tough gangster Eddie Fuseli wants to "buy a piece" of Joe, Lorna herself begins to have second thoughts...for that and other reasons. Is it too late?
Ginga Din: One of the all time adventure movies! On par with the Indiana Jones films. Starring Cary Grant and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
Made For Each Other: James Stewart (yes, again!) and Carole Lombard star in this comedy-drama about the struggles of a young married couple Stewart and Lombard play a recently married couple, Jane and John Mason. John works as an attorney for the law firm of skinflint Judge Doolittle. Doolittle calls John back to work immediately after the wedding ceremony, forcing the couple to abandon their honeymoon. A classic romantic comedy.
The Man in the Iron Mask: Louis XIV of France plots to keep his twin brother Philippe imprisoned in an iron mask, away from the knowledge of the public, which might prefer Philippe as King. But the Three Musketeers and their comrade D'Artagnan contrive to rescue the unjustly imprisoned Philippe. Great adventure movie.
Only Angels Have Wings: A quintessential adventure-aviation film with drama, dark fatalism, suspense and romance that is stocked with true-to-life sequences, fast-paced action and top stars in skillfully-executed roles. The film's themes include male camaraderie and loyalty, professionalism, courage and duty in the face of life-and-death perils and dangers, and rugged, stoic bravery - the pilots' code. Starring Cary Grant, Jean Arthur and Rita Hayworth.
You Can't Cheat An Honest Man: One of the last great W.C. Fields comedies. Larson E. Whipsnade runs a seedy circus which is perpetually in debt. His performers give him nothing but trouble, especially Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. Meanwhile, Whipsnade's son and daughter, Phineas and Vicky, attend a posh college. Vicky turns down her caddish but rich suitor Roger Bel-Goodie, but changes her mind when she learns of her father's financial troubles. Will Vicky marry for money or succumb to the ventriloqual charm of Edgar Bergen?
Young Mr. Linclon: Directed by John Ford and starring Henry Fonda. Ten years in the life of Abraham Lincoln, before he became known to his nation and the world. He moves from a Kentucky cabin to Springfield, Illinois, to begin his law practice. He defends two men accused of murder in a political brawl, suffers the death of his girlfriend Ann, courts his future wife Mary Todd, and agrees to go into politics

FICTION SET IN CHARLESTON: What to read --- What to avoid!

Here's a list of some of my favorite (and not-so-favorite) fiction in which Charleston is one of the major settings. Obviously, there are plenty of books I am going to leave out ... feel free to make your own list.

WHAT TO READ

Prince of Tides and The Lords of Discipline / Pat Conroy
The Prince of Tides tells the story of Tom Wingo, a teacher and football coach who is reluctant to help his twin sister's psychiatrist unlock their dysfunctional family's secrets. When the sister, famous New York poet Savannah Wingo, attempts suicide again, Tom is torn from his safe and dull world and travels to New York to help her. Calling the Wingo family dysfunctional is like calling Paris Hilton an annoying skank - it's true but an understatement.

Discipline pissed off a lot of Charleston people when it was published. Why? It was a little too close to the truth. Charleston people like to be in charge of the mirror. They get upset when someone else decribes the reflection. Both books are amazing fiction. Conroy is an emotional and compelling writer.

Great Mischief / Josephine Pinckney
A perfectly creepy little book that unfortunately is out of print. I had to buy it used on Amazon.

The year is 1895, and much of sleepy little Charleston is still lit by gas. Timothy Partridge operates a rundown apothecary shop, where things have't really changed much since the glory days of Romeo and Juliet; drugs are still hanging from nails on the walls, such as bat wings, hummingbird feathers and strange, fiery potions. Timothy is supporting his shrewish sister Penelope and has a roguish best friend, the drunken doctor Golightly, who is always encouraging Tim to live a little, stop being such a fussbudget, One creepy stormy evening a young woman enters, dashing into the shop in an urgent, insistent plea for some solanum. Tim knows instantly there's something "off" about the girl, but he has no idea that she's actually a witch from hell, who will intertwine herself to his life and change it--forever.

Carrion Comfort / Dan Simmons
The War and Peace of the horror genre. One of my all time favorite books. It is December 1980, and a small circle of vampires—not the fanged blood drinkers of legend, but monstrously cruel human beings with the psychic ability to possess and dominate others—gather in Charleston for a reunion, where they score points by comparing the latest acts of extreme violence initiated on their command.

It is a page-turning marvel, weaving multiple plot threads and over-the-top action sequences into a narrative of genuine, resonant power. One, Nina, is particularly proud of getting a faceless nobody to assassinate the Beatle John Lennon. But the game soon gives way to a power struggle of an even more ruthless sort. The mind controllers turn on one another, initiating a bloodbath fought with innocents snatched from their everyday lives.

Enter Charleston Sheriff Bobby Joe Gentry, nobody's top nomination for action hero: An overweight, soft-spoken failed historian, who is baffled and angered by the sudden eruption of madness that has left Charleston littered with nine bodies in a single night. Gentry is out of his depth when his investigation begins to involve conspiracies that involve superpowers and coverups at the very highest levels of government power. He is soon joined by Saul Laski, an aging Jewish psychiatrist who has spent his life searching for the Nazi whose psychic powers he experienced during World War II, and Natalie Preston, a young black photographer whose own father was a victim of the massacre in Charleston. These woefully outnumbered three take on a global conspiracy, finding themselves alone in a world where any innocent can be possessed and turned into a murderous assassin without warning.

One of the creepiest characters is 'sweet little old Charleston lady' Melanie Fuller, one of the most evil creatures in modern literature.

Porgy / Dubose Heyward
The story of a crippled beggar who witnesses a murder during a dice game and later gives shelter to the murderer's woman, the beautiful, haunted Bess. The Catfish Row community is united in its opposition to the union, but Porgy and Bess make each other happy, and their happiness only increases when they take in a child orphaned by a hurricane. Their idyll is brief, however. The murderer, Crown, returns for Bess, and Porgy, defending his family, kills him. The police detain him for questioning but never dream that a cripple could have been the killer, so Porgy returns triumphantly to the Row. The triumph turns to tragedy, however, when he learns that, while he was away, Sporting Life, the dope pusher, beguiled Bess with "happy dus'" and took her away to New York City to resume, it is implied,her career as a prostitute.

The book, for all it's melodrama, is beautifully written.

North & South - Love & War - Heaven & Hell / John Jakes
Historical fiction as it should be ... well written, and well researched and full of forbidden love, illicit sex, double crosses and other intrigue. In North and South, two strangers, young men from Pennsylvania and South Carolina, meet on the way to West Point . . . The Hazards and the Mains are brought together in bonds of friendship and affection that neither man thinks can be shattered. And then the War begins.

Love & War: From the first Union rout in Virginia to the last tragic moments of surrender, here is a gigantic five-year panorama of the Civil War! Hostilities divide the Hazards and the Mains, testing them with loyalties more powerful than family ties. While soldiers from both families clash on the battlefields of Bull Run, Fredericksburg and Antietam, in intrigue-ridden Washington and Richmond, strong-willed men and beautiful women defend their principles with their lives ... or satisfy illicit cravings with schemes that could destroy friends and enemies alike!

Heaven & Hell: The war ends, but there is no peace for the Hazards and the Mains in a nation still inflamed with bitterness and hatred. The defeated South teems with schemers and carpetbaggers ... and the North has no place for scarred veterans such as Charles Main, who struggles to rebuild his life in the Plains cavalry, only to be stalked by a murderous nemesis seeking revenge against both families.
A gripping portrait of Reconstruction America, and a fitting conclusion to the saga of two mighty dynasties!

Celia Garth: A Story of Charleston in the Revolution / Gwen Bristow
This young adult tale of Celia Garth, a 20 year old woman trying to make a living as a seamstress in Charleston, South Carolina during the Revolutionary war. Celia and her friends survive the seige of Charleston by the British, living through the constant shelling and lack of food until the final surrender. At first, things seem normal after the surrender and Celia begins to build a new life, but tragedy strikes after the British go back on their promises and Celia must start life afresh. This time, while working as a seamstress she is also a bit of a "spy" for the colonials.

Galilee / Clive Barker
Clive Barker has earned a reputation as the thinking person's horror writer. His novels mix fantasy, psychology, and sheer creepiness in almost equal quantities. In Galilee, Barker soft-pedals the ghoulish in favor of the gothic. His novel (or as the author would have it, "romance") tells the tale of two warring families caught up in a disastrous web of corruption, illicit sexuality, and star-crossed love, with a soupçon of the supernatural thrown in as well. On one side are the wealthy Gearys--a fictional stand-in for the Kennedys--and on the other are the Barbarossas, a mysterious black clan that has been around since the time (quite literally) of Adam.

Galilee chronicles the twisted course of this centuries-old family feud, which centers around the magical Barbarossa matriarch Cesaria and her son Galilee. Indeed, it's the latter figure--one part Heathcliff to one part Christ--whose relationship with the Geary women sets a match to the entire powder keg of hostility and resentment. Mixing standard clichés of romance and some deep-fried Southern gothic, Baker has come up with an intelligent and shameless potboiler.

Settling Accounts: In at the Death/ Harry Turtledove
This is the last novel of the Settling Accounts tetralogy that presents an alternative history of WWII. It brings to a conclusion the multi-series compilation that is sometimes referred to as Timeline-191. This alternative history began with the Confederate States of America winning the Civil War in 1862, followed by a war between the United States and Confederate States of America in the 1880s which is also won by the South. In the conclusion, the United State detonates an atomic bomb in Charleston, wiping the city off the map, in retaliation for starting the War Between the States in 1861.

The Devil of Charleston / Rebel Sinclair
Full disclosure ... this novel was written by the love of my life. So ... I admit a major amount of bias. However ... Capt. Royal Ashurst was a brooding sea captain branded the "devil of Charleston" by a powerful merchant, Carter Seymour. Royal is sucked into events out of his control when he becomes an "agent" for the city when the notorious Blackbeard blockades the harbor. The events only enflame his passion for Seymour's estranged fiance Josephine.

The Fallon Saga / Reagan O'Neal (Robert Jordan)
Great historical fiction on the same level with North & South. Written by Charlestonian James Rigney, Jr, more popularly known as Robert Jordan, author of the massively successful fantasy series, The Wheel of Time. Jordan died in Sept. 2007. Sharp-eyed tour guides often got a glimpse of him walking Tradd Street.

In The Fallon Blood, escaping brutal English overlords, 1760s Irishman Michael Fallon becomes an indentured servant to Charleston merchant Thomas Carver, where his infatuation with Carver's sensual daughter Elizabeth causes life-changing complications.

In The Fallon Pride, Michael Fallon's son Robert Fallon survives years at sea fighting Barbary pirates and enduring the siege at Tripoli. He then returns to America with an Irish wife, Moira McConnell, and goes into business in Charleston where he raises a somewhat troublesome family.

In The Fallon Legacy, James Fallon, the last scion of the Fallon line, strikes south and west, adventuring in New Orleans, Missouri, and finally Texas (then still part of Mexico). He loves and loses women, ranches and breeds horses, and becomes entangled in the schemes of shady men and women. Enemies made by Michael and Robert during their lifetimes converge upon James, who must find out if he has strength enough to stand against them.

WHAT TO AVOID

• Rhett Butler's People by Donald McCaig. This is AWFUL!! One of the worst novels I've ever tried to read. Silly and poorly written. The narration is fuzzy and the story is well ... silly. Why can't they leave Gone With The Wind alone? First there was Scarlett by Alexandria Ripley which was a snore-fest and now this "Authorized Novel". Rhett should challenge the Margaret Mitchell estate to a duel for this insult!
• All of the 'island" books by Dorothea Benton Frank. You know ... those books that have the fill-in-the-blank plot lines; the major change in each book is the characters' names and the sea island she uses as the setting. Frank is the female James Patterson - books written for the barely literate. I find it ironic that she is from and writes about Charleston, given the sterling nature of the public school system.
• All of Mary Alice Monroe's Oprah-fied low country-based fiction.
• William Gilmore Simms - praised in his time (1800s) by none other than Edgar Allan Poe, Simms is virtually unreadable today.
  
  
  COMING SOON!

The Werewolf Super Sex Club by Mario Acevedo. Mario is the author of the bestselling Felix Gomez vampire detective series. The first three books are titled: The Nymphos of Rocky Flats, X-Rated Bloodsuckers and The Undead Kama Sutra. They are as fun to read as their titles indicate.

His next book (Super Sex Club) will be set in Charleston. Mario spent a week in the Holy City earlier this year researching the area. Rebel and I were happy to be his hosts and show him the nighttime Charleston. Can't wait for Felix and his vampire friends and werewolf enemies to be running rampant in the streets of Charleston. Could be lots of fun!