Now, before you say anything, the misspelling of "faggot" with "foggot" was intentional and relates to the story. 

Friday afternoon, a co-worker of mine forwards me this link to a website. On the website there is an email exchange between two individuals; David Thorne, author and blog writer, and George Lewis, an arrogant and hateful man, struggling with simple spelling and grammar rules, that is using email to deface and harass Mr. Thorne for his perceived sexuality. What ensues is an email correspondence of epic proportions. I cannot tell what is my favorite part of the conversation. Could it be the part where Mr. Thorne thanked Mr. Lewis for the fan letter and sent him a autographed head shot, or perhaps the part where Mr. Thorne informed Mr. Lewis that he had created a fake facebook profile under the guide of "Oscar Wilde" and friended our secretly-gay-but-will-never-admit-it Mr. Lewis - who accepted the friendship without hesitation, or better yet, the part where Mr. Thorne said that after looking at Mr. Lewis' facebook photos he believes that Mr. Lewis' girlfriend could house a small village in the folds of her spandex pants. 

If you are looking for a good laugh read all the messages - here is the link; I guarantee that they will have you stitches. Good bless you Mr. Thorne and your scrappy wit. 

I have no shame in bypassing the Classics section, the New York Times best sellers, and Oprah’s choice of the month in order to make my way to a growing sensation; the young adult/teen sci-fi fantasy section. The Twilight series has certainly sparked a wave of writers tailoring their books to grab the attention of pre-teen (and adult) populations everywhere.

I have noticed a pattern inherent in all of these books. Invariably there are hot people with incredible powers – whether through magic, alien heritage, or supernatural curses – who find themselves in small remote towns that later plays as the stage for an epic war. Most of the time the teenager in question desires one of two things; a break from the mundaity and ordinariness of their miserable, yet privileged, lives or the opposite, a desire to be normal and experience the everyday rituals that we take for granted.  Similarly, the book usually includes a love story sub plot that is often the cause of all the trouble - like some modern day Romeo and Juliet. I rather enjoy these books for there is just enough "human drama" to make it relatable but the majority of the novel is epic battles and displays of incredible powers.

Most recently I have fallen in love with the novel “I Am Number Four”; a four hundred and some page book that I voraciously finished in one day.  The novel relates the story of a planet named Lorien, not unlike our Earth, which was savagely attacked by a race of harbingers known as the Mogadorians. In order preserve the culture and give their people a chance of survival, nine alien children were sent to Earth. They were scattered throughout the world, each given a protector to guide them and develop their powers, so that one day they may reunite, defeat the Mogadorians, and restore life to their once beautiful planet. A clever nuance of the story is that the aliens can only be killed in sequence.The book opens with the death of #3, thus prompting #4 to go into hiding in a small remote Ohio town known as Paradise. Here #4 - also known as John Smith - must develop his supernatural abilities (known as Legacies) before the Mogadorians can track him down and kill him. The Legacies can be anything from invisibility, controlling the elements, creating light, and telekinesis. This series is projected to have 5 more additional novels, and if they are anything like their predecessor, this will surely be the next Harry Potter series of the sci-fi world. What sucks is that fans will have to begrudingly wait until August for the release of the next novel entitled "The Power of Six".

The novel has garnered enough attention that it is about to be released as a major motion picture February 18th. Typically I am leery of books getting converted into movies for they usually fail to meet the expectations of the book lovers. Typically the characters lack authenticity, story lines are dropped, and new elements are added to the movie that was found nowhere in the book. I am actually extremely excited for this release of this movie. Sporting an impressive cast ( Alex Pettyfer, GLEE's Dianna Argon, and Timothy Olyphant), critics have expressed that the movie is an excellent tension-filled adventure that stays very true to the original novel. If nothing else, the movie is going to feature the ridiculously hot Alex Pettyfer - who often gets his clothes burned up in the novel - and the grizzly hotness of Timothy Olyphant, as they battle aliens with really cool powers. It honestly doesn't take much to amuse me these days. Check out the trailer for the movie before.

“The Graveyard Book” is another example in Gaiman’s vast cannon of distinguished works. I’m always impressed by the whimsical and dark writing of Neil Gaiman. Author of such books as Coraline, Stardust, American Gods, and Mirrormask, Gaiman has a zeal and zest for chilling stories with complex characters and novel twists.

“The Graveyard Book” is not your average children’s Newberry award winning novel. This one begins with a man, referred only to as Jack, murdering a man, woman, and their daughter in their home. The killer is about to end the life of the baby boy at the top of stairs, when the child crawls to safety and finds himself in the town’s local graveyard.  Given the name Nobody Owens by the inhabitants of the graveyard, Nobody is raised, protected, and educated by the denizens of the graveyard.  Nobody is given the Freedom of the Graveyard allowing him to talk to ghosts, travel through ghoul-gates, run errands for witches, and have magical powers including Fade, inducing Terror, and Dreamwalk. While the ghosts and guardians of the graveyard raise Nobody as their own, the man called Jack is out there somewhere seeking to finish what he started that night.

Gaiman truly has mastery in creating a narrative landscapes ripe with deep and complex characters. From Silas, Nobody’s Guardian, to Liza Hempstock, the graveyard witch, each person is delicately woven to add a beautiful piece to the puzzle of the overall story. At its heart, “The Graveyard Book”, is a coming-of-age story of a boy learning the intricacies of life through some unconventional tutors. Who better to learn the potentials and hardships of life from than the dead?

During his Newberry acceptance speech for this novel, Gaiman relating the impact that fiction had on his childhood. He said;

“Fiction was an escape from the intolerable, a doorway into impossibly hospitable worlds where things had rules and could be understood; stories had been a way of learning about life without experiencing it, or perhaps of experiencing it as an eighteenth-century poisoner dealt with poisons, taking them in tiny doses, such that the poisoner could cope with ingesting things that would kill someone who was not inured to them. Sometimes fiction is a way of coping with the poison of the world in a way that lets us survive it”

I like to pride myself as being a little bit of a bookworm and also an incredibly huge science fiction/fantasy lover. My interests harmoniously collided when I found writer Neil Gaiman. Neil Gaiman is a brilliant fantasy and horror writer whose dark humor, clear character development, and horrifying imagery creates a fantastic landscape and an epic storyline.

Neil Gaiman is perhaps most notably known for his novel Stardust which was then adapted into a movie in 2007 starring Michelle Pfiefer, Robert De Niro - as a cross dressing gay pirate [DELICIOUS] -, and Claire Danes. Stardust relates the love story of young Tristan who travels in a magical land in search of a fallen star to give to his hometown sweetheart. Little does he know that that fallen star turns out to be the majestic Claire Danes.

However my favorite piece by Neil Gaiman is his novel American Gods. I am really into different mythologies - again a part of the whole nerdy geeky thing - and this book is right in line with that. Imagine a world where all of the gods of ancient mythology actually existed. When immigrants traveled over to America they carried their ancient gods with them and it was through their belief that these Gods were endowed with power. However, over time people have lost their faith in the gods of old and have replaced it with faith in new gods, particularly gods of technology, food, consumerism, drugs. So now these gods are walking the earth as people all involved in never ending battle to garner faith and belief from us.

It is an absolutely incredible story and I fully recommend it to anyone. At times you have to suspend your sense of reality and just accept that what is happening in the novel is the reality of the situation. I really like it because part of the story takes place in Wisconsin, specifically the House on the Rock which was incredibly close to Madison. So if you're looking for a slightly graphic novel with an engaging yet complicated story line, then choose this novel.