Three More Halloween Top Tens (Countdown to Halloween 2)

Our countdown to Halloween continues, with just 10 Days Left!  

As with last week’s post, I’m giving you quantity rather than quality here.  You get three top ten lists, but very little fluff text.  Hope you enjoy it anyway. 

Ten Christmas Films It’s OK to Watch at Halloween;

or, Ten Halloween Films Set at Christmas

(In No Particular Order)

Note: I have intentionally excluded some films that are set at Christmas but not so much that I remember they are set at Christmas (notably Jaws: The Revenge and Psycho – which would have been the worst and best movies on the list had I included them). 

      1.      Black Christmas (1974 version is preferred to the 2006 version)

      2.      Child’s Play

      3.      Santa Claus Conquers the Martians

      4.      Gremlins

      5.      Jack Frost (the 1997 horror film, not the 1998 family comedy)

      6.      Silent Night, Deadly Night

      7.      Tales from the Crypt (…And All Through the House – First movie segment or TV series episode 1.01)

      8.      The Nightmare Before Christmas

      9.      Wind Chill

      10.  Any Super-Hero movie set at Christmas (ex: Batman Returns, Iron Man 3)

While we are on the topic of movies, I had a request for a follow up to last week’s Top Ten Halloween Family Movies.  So, for the open-minded youngsters out there, may I present:

Top Ten Classic Halloween Family Movies

10.       House of Frankenstein

9.         King Kong (1933 version) or better still its sequel Son of Kong

8.         War of the Worlds (1953 version)

7.         Godzilla vs. Megalon

6.         13 Ghosts (1960 version)

5.         Dinosaurus!

4.         Jason and the Argonauts (1963 version)

3.         King Kong Vs. Godzilla

2.         Seven Faces of Dr. Lao

1.         Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

Top Ten Works of Short Fiction to Read for Halloween

10.       Sherlock Holmes “The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

9.         “The Crystal Egg” by H.G. Wells (sort of a prequel to The War of the Worlds)

8.         “The Vampyre” by John Polidori

7.         “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce (For something a bit more traditionally horror also by Bierce try “The Damned Thing”)

6.         “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

5.         “The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacobs

4.         The Mist by Stephen King

3.         “The Statement of Randolph Carter” by H.P. Lovecraft (For something a bit longer – but still short – also by Lovecraft try “The Call of Cthulhu” or “Herbert West: Re-Animator”)

2.         “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe

1.         The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

Until next time, 

Nerd is the New Cool, signing off.

2013 Reading List

Bloggers Note:  This post was originally intended to be published the last Sunday in December, 2012.  Some of it reflects that.

In the upcoming year, I am undertaking several Heavy Reading Projects for myself.  Firstly I am taking the Harvard Classics 15 Minutes a Day Challenge, reading from the 50 Volume set daily for at least 15 minutes.  I have almost finished Vol. 50: Introduction and Readers Guide and the supplementary book Fifteen Minutes a Day: The Reading Guide (of which I have read all but the daily reading assignments and their brief introductions, but have left the 49 main volumes and the book of Lectures to the Harvard Classics untouched and will begin reading them in January, starting with Ben Franklin’s Autobiography from Vol. 1.  (My wife intends to take the challenge with me!)

Secondly, I am beginning a yearlong close reading of The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.  I plan to average 7 pages a day on this work, which will allow me to complete it in just under 1 year.  I will be doing some personal reflection writings on my readings from this and may post some of them (without a schedule) on here in the future. 

Finally, time permitting I am going to delve into Norman Davies’ Europe: A History and The Isles: A History.  I have had the books for over a decade and while I have read bits and pieces of both, I have not attempted a serious reading of either of these dense tomes.  3 pages a day would complete one in a year, or 6 pages both.  As I go through my reading of them I hope to whittle them down to less than half a year each, but with my other two reading projects above and the light reading I’ll discuss below, I am not sure how much time I will want to dedicate to these two monstrous volumes. 

On more fun notes, my light reading selections for the year begin with the King himself.  I am currently sitting between Dark Tower volumes IV and V.  And while I want to finish King’s magnum opus, there are several tie-in books I feel I should read first: It, From a Buick 8, and Talisman to name but three. 

My friends have also recommended a number of Geeky novels and series I should try out, including the Gor series by John Norman and the Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin, of which I’ve read the first book A Game of Thrones.  So I’d like to get and read the next book in the latter and the first book in the former. 

There are, of course, numberous other books I have on my to-read list with Tolkien’s The Hobbit, Wells’s War of the Worlds (and Invisible Man which I started some time ago and never finished), Del Toro and Hogan’s The Strain, and Goldman’s The Princess Bride all topping the list. 

So that’s what I plan on reading this year.  What is on your 2013 Reading List?  Leave a response in the comments below or on my twitter page @nerdisnewcool.

                  
Nerd Is the New Cool, signing off.

Update- I received the first four volumes of Song of Ice and Fire for Christmas from my wife so should be able to start on them soon.  I also received from her Your Movie Sucks by Roger Ebert which I am currently reading.  I am also working on Cloud Atlas, which I started reading several years ago in college.  I have restarted it and hope to actually finish it this time. 

I have so far not managed to keep up with any of my three main projects.  I am a dozen or so pages into the Norton Anthology, have only read from the Harvard Classics twice, and haven’t started Europe: A History.  Likewise, I have not kept my Journal up either.  But I hope to do some catching up in the weeks to come and get on my actual intended schedule soon. 

-Nerd