Stacking The Shelves and Mailbox Monday are a pair of weekly memes that are about sharing the books that came your way over the past week, and which you've added to your shelves - whether they be physical or virtual, borrowed or bought, or for pleasure or review.

Okay, so I completely fell off the TBR wagon this week and succumbed to the addiction of new review titles but, in my defense, the first comes with recommendations from Denis Leary, Robin Williams, and Howie Mandel, and the rest are October/November releases . . . so I may be caught up by then.


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Romance For Men: Pandora's Box by Jack Icefloe Jackson
Published May 29th 2014 by Disobedient Dragon

Jack Icefloe Jackson is short, fat, bald and has a 6-inch penis -- although he only uses the first 4 because the 5th would kill a broad and the 6th would open up a rip in the fabric of time. His pleasant days in the Alaskan wilderness dynamite hunting for moose and bear are cut short when Earth is faced with an extinction-level threat.

Realizing that the end-of-the-world can only be averted by Icefloe's superior sexual prowess, President Obama calls on him to use his penis to save us all. This carnal mission will take Icefloe from The Hot Nuns of Assisi (hidden beneath the Vatican by the Pope) to The Nazi Babes of the SS in their terrible lair on Fuhrer Island...

Sick, twisted, and profane, Jack Icefloe Jackson is America’s newest hero, and ROMANCE FOR MEN: Pandora’s Box is its most hilarious new book!


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The Last Mile by Tim Waggoner
Expected publication: October 21st 2014 by DarkFuse

All Dan wanted was to be a good husband and father, to provide for his wife and daughter, to keep them fed, warm, and safe. But then the malevolent godlike beings called the Masters arrived, and their darkness spread across the world, reshaping it into a twisted realm of savagery and madness. In exchange for his family's protection, Dan now serves one of these alien gods, obtaining human sacrifices to feed his Master's eternal hunger.

Like so many people since the world changed, Alice has had to do unspeakable things to survive. Unfortunately for her, she's Dan's choice for his next sacrifice. Now Dan drives along the shattered remnants of an old-world highway, headed for his Master's lair, Alice bound hand and foot in the backseat of his car. Dan may not like what he's become, but he'll do whatever it takes to protect his loved ones. Alice doesn't intend to relinquish her life so easily, though, and she plans to escape, no matter the cost.

But in the World After, everything—animals, plants, even the land itself—has become a predator, and the journey to the Master's lair is an almost guaranteed suicide run. But Dan won't give up, and he won't stop fighting. Not until he makes it through the Last Mile.


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Lives in Ruins by Marilyn Johnson
Expected publication: November 11th 2014 by Harper

The author of The Dead Beat and This Book is Overdue! turns her piercing eye and charming wit to the real-life avatars of Indiana Jones—the archaeologists who sort through the muck and mire of swamps, ancient landfills, volcanic islands, and other dirty places to reclaim history for us all.

Pompeii, Machu Picchu, the Valley of the Kings, the Parthenon—the names of these legendary archaeological sites conjure up romance and mystery. The news is full of archaeology: treasures found (British king under parking lot) and treasures lost (looters, bulldozers, natural disaster, and war). Archaeological research tantalizes us with possibilities (are modern humans really part Neandertal?). Where are the archaeologists behind these stories? What kind of work do they actually do, and why does it matter?

Marilyn Johnson’s Lives in Ruins is an absorbing and entertaining look at the lives of contemporary archaeologists as they sweat under the sun for clues to the puzzle of our past. Johnson digs and drinks alongside archaeologists, chases them through the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, and even Machu Picchu, and excavates their lives. Her subjects share stories we rarely read in history books, about slaves and Ice Age hunters, ordinary soldiers of the American Revolution, children of the first century, Chinese woman warriors, sunken fleets, mummies.

What drives these archaeologists is not the money (meager) or the jobs (scarce) or the working conditions (dangerous), but their passion for the stories that would otherwise be buried and lost.


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Consumed: A Novel by David Cronenberg
Expected publication: October 9th 2014 by Harper Collins

The exhilarating debut novel by iconic filmmaker David Cronenberg: the story of two journalists whose entanglement in a French philosopher’s death becomes a surreal journey into global conspiracy.

Stylish and camera-obsessed, Naomi and Nathan thrive on the yellow journalism of the social-media age. They are lovers and competitors—nomadic freelancers in pursuit of sensation and depravity, encountering each other only in airport hotels and browser windows.

Naomi finds herself drawn to the headlines surrounding Célestine and Aristide Arosteguy, Marxist philosophers and sexual libertines. Célestine has been found dead and mutilated in her Paris apartment. Aristide has disappeared. Police suspect him of killing her and consuming parts of her body. With the help of an eccentric graduate student named Hervé Blomqvist, Naomi sets off in pursuit of Aristide. As she delves deeper into Célestine and Aristide's lives, disturbing details emerge about their sex life—which included trysts with Hervé and others. Can Naomi trust Hervé to help her?

Nathan, meanwhile, is in Budapest photographing the controversial work of an unlicensed surgeon named Zoltán Molnár, once sought by Interpol for organ trafficking. After sleeping with one of Molnár’s patients, Nathan contracts a rare STD called Roiphe’s. Nathan then travels to Toronto, determined to meet the man who discovered the syndrome. Dr. Barry Roiphe, Nathan learns, now studies his own adult daughter, whose bizarre behavior masks a devastating secret.

These parallel narratives become entwined in a gripping, dreamlike plot that involves geopolitics, 3-D printing, North Korea, the Cannes Film Festival, cancer, and, in an incredible number of varieties, sex. Consumed is an exuberant, provocative debut novel from one of the world’s leading film directors.

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It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is another weekly meme, this time focused on what books are spending the most time in your hands and in your head, as opposed to what's been added to your shelf.

With an eye towards my scheduled reviews for the next few weeks, I'm currently turning pages with:

The Sleeping Dead by Richard Farren Barber
Don't listen, don't look, don't hope. Suicides, strange voices, and the sleeping dead. This sounds gruesome and creepy.

Blackout by Tim Curran

First there comes a storm, then a blackout, and then whipping black tentacles that fall from the sky and begin snatching people at random. Bring it on, Tim!

City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett
I put this on pause until closer to the release date, but I'm back deep in dead gods, buried histories, and the mysterious, protean city.

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What's topping your shelves this week?

© 2014 Beauty in Ruins All Rights Reserved

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