#william morrow

The Last Haunt 👻

As October ends, we bid farewell to spooky season with What’s a Ghost Going to Do? by Jane Thayer, illustrated by Seymour Fleishman. Published in 1966 by William Morrow & Company in New York, this heartwarming tale follows Gus, a ghost faced with a haunting dilemma: the only house he’s ever known is about to be torn down.

What’s a ghost to do when his home (and haunt) is disappearing? With kindness, courage, and a touch of ghostly charm, Gus finds his way forward, reminding readers that even endings can lead to new beginnings.

Jane Thayer (1904-2005) was the pen name for American children’s author Catherine Woolley, who wrote 86 books, many now considered classics. Seymour Fleishman (1918-2012) was a prolific commercial artist and illustrator of over 80 children’s books, four of which he also authored.

As we close the chapter on our Spooky Edition of Fairytale Friday, What’s a Ghost Going to Do?  reminds us that even when the pumpkins fade and the candy is gone, the magic of good stories lingers, like a friendly ghost.

🎃👻 Until next time, may your shelves stay enchanted and your spirits bright! 📚✨

-View previous Fairytale Friday posts

-View more from our Historical Curriculum Collection

---Melissa (taking notes from the witches’ spellbook, but only the nice spells), Distinctive Collections Library Assistant

Photo by William Morrow

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Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell

"'Uhhh, maybe I'd believe that if I hadn't seen you filming a romantic comedy at my own wedding reception. Like, seriously. It was my wedding, but you guys got voted Cutest Couple.'"

Year Read: 2024

Rating: 3/5

Thoughts: I enjoyed Rowell's other adult romances, Attachments and Landline, but Slow Dance is easily my least favorite of the three. Slow is right there in the title, and boy, is it. It takes forever for this story to get going, and it's not helped by the typically boring flashbacks on Shiloh and Cary's teenage years. While it helps to build a picture of their relationship--and how very long it's been going on, both platonically and romantically--nothing interesting ever happens there.

There are points when the current timeline is little better. For readers looking for a depressingly realistic look at the difficulties of adult relationships, this is the book for you. There's drama on multiple levels: family, divorce, single mom, aging parent, long distance, and it's all drearily apt to real life. There are always a thousand reasons why a relationship won't work in the real world, and Shiloh goes through all of them multiple times. I don't think I've ever seen a more reluctant leading lady in a romance. Cary is steadfast and solid but bad at communicating his feelings, which is part of the reason this romance takes literal decades. They're a good balance for each other, however, and the reader is able to see all the reasons the relationship will work long before the characters do.

I'm not sure why it took me so long to get to it, but today I'm finally reading Simon Shuster's book The Showman: Inside the Invasion That Shook the World and Made a Leader of Volodymyr Zelensky (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO), and it is EXCELLENT.

This isn't breaking news or anything, but Zelensky really is a remarkable figure who evolved into the leader Ukraine (and the free world) needed/needs despite seeming to be in way over his head in the early days of his Presidency and the lead-up to Russia's full-fledged invasion . Shuster's book, which was written while he was effectively embedded with Ukraine's government leadership from the beginning of Russia's invasion -- including time spent in the bunkers of the Presidential buildings in Kyiv in the first days and weeks of the war -- is riveting.

New Release Spotlight: Wrath Goddess Sing by Maya Deane

Look, I know queer readers are mythology nerds, and I’ve seen what readers of all genders and orientations have done for Song of Achilles. So what I’m saying is, this Pride month, treat yourself to a fantastic fantastic featuring a badass trans woman Achilles. You can thank me in July when we get to Wrath month. (It’s a perfect read for that one too.) Wrath Goddess Sing releases from William…

Charles Band Autobiography CONFESSIONS OF A PUPPETMASTER coming this Fall from HarperCollins!

Renowned producer, director, and “B movie” showman Charles Band takes readers on a wild romp through Hollywood’s decidedly un-Oscar-worthy underbelly, where mayhem and zombies reign supreme, and cheap thrills and entertainment are king

Zombies, aliens, a little skin, lots of gore—and even more laughs—the cinematic universe of Charles Band is legendary. From the toilet-invading creatures of Ghoulies to the time-travelling bounty hunter in Trancers to the pandemic-crashed Corona Zombies, Band has spent four decades giving B-movie lovers exactly what they love. In Confessions of a Puppetmaster, this congenial master of Grindhouse cinema tells his own story, uncut.

Born into a family of artists, Band spent much of his childhood in Rome where his father worked in the film industry. Early visits to movie sets sealed young Charlie’s fate. By his twenties he had plunged into moviemaking himself and found his calling in exploitation movies—quick, low-budget efforts that exploit the zeitgeist and feed people’s desire for clever, low-brow entertainment. His films crossed genres, from vampire flicks to sci fi to erotic musical adaptations of fairy tales. As he came into his own as a director, he was the first to give starring roles to household names like Demi Moore, Helen Hunt, and Bill Maher.

Off set, Band’s life has been equally epic. Returning to his beloved Italy, he bought both Dino De Laurentiis’s movie studio and a medieval castle. After Romania’s oppressive communist regime fell, he circumvented the U.S. State Department to shoot films in Dracula’s homeland. He made—and then lost—a moviemaking fortune. A visionary, Band was also at the vanguard of the transition to home video and streaming, making and distributing direct-to-video movies long before the major studios caught on.

In this revealing tell-all, Band details the dizzying heights and catastrophic depths of his four decades in showbiz. A candid and engaging glimpse at Hollywood’s wild side, Confessions of a Puppetmaster is as entertaining as the movies that made this consummate schlockmeister famous.