In the mood for some romantic reading?  Win a copy of Aching for Always by Pittsburgh’s own Gwyn Cready!  Email us at booksnatblog  [at] gmail  [dot] com and we’ll pick a winner at random.  For more on Gwyn & her books (all set in the ‘burgh)–see previous post.

Who knows romance better than a romance author?

Gwyn Cready is the RITA® Award-winning writer of four sexy, funny romances. She is a Pittsburgh native and all of her books are set in Pittsburgh. Her latest, Aching for Always, is in stores now. Booksnat asked Cready to choose her top five romantic movies for our readers:

The top five romantic movies, huh? It’s a tall order, but I am up to the challenge.

Let’s start with the ground rules. First, a romantic movie is one that makes us feel as if we have helium bubbling through our veins long after we’ve hit the Eject button. Which means, of course, Gone With the Wind is not in the running. Sorry. If that makes you feel like you have to pack up your Franklin Limited Edition Rhett Butler plate and go home, you have my sympathy. But the fact is no one leaves that movie happy. Satisfied, perhaps, or emotionally spent, but not happy. Titanic goes, too, as does Romeo and Juliet in all its incarnations including West Side Story. Second rule, sappy is a show stopper. Wave a tearful farewell to Love Story, The Notebook and Bridges of Madison County. Third, you need to laugh. Anyone who’s been in love knows that if you can’t share a chuckle, the relationship is going to collapse under its own weight faster than you can say, “Did I mention my conspiracy-theorist brother is coming for a week?” And the last ground rule: absolutely no Nazis. Sorry, Maria and Captain Von Trapp. You’ll have to climb a different mountain.

My picks for best romantic movies are:

(Click links for trailers)

> Sixteen Candles (John Hughes, 1984.) Samantha Baker, nerdy, adorable high school student wins the heart of the cutest guy in school. Jake Ryan, the guy that raised the bar forever on what it means to be a good boyfriend, helps Sam celebrate her birthday when everyone else forgets.

> Pride and Prejudice (Simon Langton, A&E mini-series, 1995.) When Colin Firth slashed his rapier through the air in an attempt to master his feelings for Lizzy Bennet, crying, “I shall conquer this,” the DNA of a generation of women was instantly re-sequenced. Their collective “Oh!” started an Austen frenzy that exists to this day.

> Bridget Jones’s Diary (Sharon Maguire, 2001.) Colin Firth spoofs himself in Helen Fielding’s wonderfully updated version of P&P. Bridget counts alcohol units and bemoans Smug Marrieds but wins the heart of sexiest man since Fitzwilliam Darcy. Find out how real men fight when Firth takes on a villainous Hugh Grant to protect Bridget’s honor.

> 13 Going on 30 (Gary Winick, 2004.) A dark horse, but you can’t pass up the story of 13-year-old Jenna Rink, who is transported into her future and discovers a great job and a closet full of shoes isn’t enough to make up for losing the one boy who really understood her. The über-fun dance numbers, “Thriller” and “Love is a Battlefield,” made this 80s gal squeal with delight.

> To Catch a Thief (Alfred Hitchcock, 1955.) Gorgeous locations, Edith Head dresses, a witty screenplay and, sigh, Cary Grant. I’m a sucker for charming thief stories, and there’s no denying the charm here. An ethereal Grace Kelly pursues Grant across the Côte d’Azur first for stealing jewels then for stealing her heart. That fireworks-studded kiss on the balcony of the Carlton Hotel is a classic.

****

Gwyn Cready can be reached at her website, which also features 20 Valentine’s Day Ideas Under $20.  Her books can be found at local retailers and online:

The Happy Herbivore is a cookbook and website that focuses on healthy vegan meals that are easy to prepare–including treats that sneak in healthy foods, like Black Bean Brownies.  Lindsay has a great blog on her site, tackling topics such as how to eat healthy while traveling and fat-free Superbowl snacks.

We chatted with Lindsay about her book, her cooking, and her upcoming event in Pittsburgh:

Q.  What kind of cookies will you be making at your Pittsburgh event at Right by Nature?  How did you come up with that recipe?

A.  They are called “No Bake Choco-Oat Cookies” and all you do is mix the ingredients together, shape it into a cookie and then let it “firm” a bit and you have a cookie! Without using your oven!  I’ve been mixing the ingredients – oats, peanut butter, cocoa and maple syrup, together for years as a quick and relatively healthy snack when the sweet tooth hits.

I’d first heard about the ingredient combo when I was on a raw detox and it was one of the desserts (only the detox used carob, agave, groats and raw nut butter in a slightly different proportion to make a “cookie dough” you ate with a spoon). After the detox I used more common ingredients, changing the ratios a bit, and then shared it with some friends. It was my friend Heather that realized if you let the “dough” sit out, it will turn into an actual cookie!

A.  I wanted to show vegan food can be easy, affordable, healthy & above all — approachable for everyone, even non-vegans. I think a lot of vegan cookbooks can be intimidating to new comers because they use specialty ingredients, which are often hard to find or expensive. I also wanted there to be a vegan cookbook out there that is low in fat and uses wholesome ingredients like whole wheat flour. I think there is a stereotype that vegan food is healthy, and it certainly can be, but most vegan cookbooks use a lot of oil and margarine, refined sugars, white flours —  and so it’s a more ethical alternative, but not necessarily a healthier one. My mission is to show food can be just as nutritious as it delicious

Lindsay Nixon

Q.  What is your favorite recipe from the new cookbook?

A.  Right now I’m really obsessed with the Quick Queso. I think I need an intervention.

A.  I do have a great recipe for baked fries (that I bet would be yum in a sandwich) and I also have a lot of recipes for foods that are traditionally unhealthy — like meatball subs, chimichangas, guacamole, bacon bits, fettuccine alfredo and cupcakes.

A.  It took 10 different tries to get the spicy sausages “just right.”  Most recipes didn’t need more than 1 or 2 attempts, but those sausages (they taste like pepperoni) were brutal. The recipe itself is really easy to make. One of the nice things about the book is how easy they are to make, but there are a couple, like the baked onion rings, that you’ll get better with over time.

A.  I do! I’m supposed to meet up with my publisher shortly after my signing in Pittsburgh to talk about another book So hopefully I’ll be back in Pittsburgh with my new book next year.

If you’re interested in meeting Lindsay, you can RSVP to her event at Meetup or on Facebook.

We’ll be sharing & discussing the results.

And now…   let us leave you with the Steelers Polka:

Photo via boringpittsburgh.com

A few quick updates.  Sadly, the South Side Joseph-Beth is closing.  We have some wonderful bookshops in the area such as Mystery Lovers and Caliban Books, but this was a great place for events, general book-buying, and a spacious and bright store.  It will be missed.  Near this time last year, the Squirrel Hill B&N closed.

On a brighter note–Pittsburgher  and Post-Gazette reporter Len Barcousky is doing an event for his new book, Remembering Pittsburgh, today at the Fire Escape CoffeeHouse.   Find out more in the Post-Gazette article.   They’ll be donating $2 to the Allegheny County Library Association’s Bookmobile Center for each copy sold.

On December 3, the Gist Street reading series has a great lineup: Holly Goddard Jones, author of Girl Trouble, and poet Jericho Brown.  If you haven’t been to Gist Street yet, please go.  Author John McNally says, “If you want your art without the pretension, your surroundings cozy without being claustrophobic, your hosts friendly rather than brooding, I urge you to check out the fiction and poetry readings at Gist Street.”

And Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures has two events coming up worth checking out: Andrew Ross Sorkin, the author of Too Big to Fail, on November 15, and Lee Child, author of 61 Hours on December 6.

Night of the Living Dead: Behind the Scenes of the Most Terrifying Zombie Movie Ever is an entertaining look at this important film, which was created by George Romero and other Pittsburghers and filmed here in the burgh. This book is a print documentary, examining the making of the film, how it re-wrote the rules of horror cinema, and how it continues to influence popular culture. 

Night of the Living Dead is filled with interesting anecdotes, interviews with cast and crew,  photos, mini-memoirs on the film by the likes of Wes Craven, as well as the screenplay of the movie, which has never been included in a book, until now.

We have a brief Q&A with the author of the book, Joe Kane, aka The Phantom of the Movies®, who has been a journalist in the horror genre for over four decades.

Q.  Why Night of the Living Dead? What is the film’s significance?

A.  By utilizing an almost newsreel, documentary approach that mirrored the horrors seen on the nightly news in the 1960s, Night of the Living Dead liberated the horror film, creating a shocking amalgam of raw reality and transgressive fiction. The very premise of former friends, neighbors and strangers transformed into roving bands of mindless, nearly unstoppable cannibals had never been seen before. The concept was terrifying on a visceral level and evoked a torn society locked in a generational civil war that was figuratively cannibalizing itself over a senseless foreign war, riots, assassinations and violent unrest. It turned the tropes of past horror films on their collective head to terrify a new generation and define a fresh brand of fear film, one without a safety net of any kind.

Q.  How did the film come about?

A.  Remarkably, from twenty-something first-time filmmakers operating a modest regional production house in Pittsburgh who were determined to make a drive-in movie. What followed was an example of celluloid alchemy rarely matched before or since as they far surpassed their own goals to create a nightmare statement that captured the era’s zeitgeist and still resonates—and frightens—today.

Q.  What happened after the group split apart?

A.  Like a rock band, the core group would alternately fight and reunite, in various constellations, and even directly duel each other, as when the John Russo-spawned Return of the Living Dead went head to head with Romero’s Day of the Dead at the box office in 1985.

Q.  It is true the film was never legally copyrighted?

A.  That’s true. And that whole sad story is also related in the book—along with efforts, some desperate, to reverse that status.

Q.  Why the endurance and ever-growing popularity of zombies?

A.  Zombies, as redefined by George Romero and crew, are true everymonsters, infinitely elastic symbols that can mean all things to all people, different croaks for different folks, if you will. Equal parts aggressors and victims, they can represent the usurpers, as in Night of the Living Dead, the oppressed, as in Land of the Dead, or the manipulated, mesmerized masses, as in Dawn of the Dead. Even more than Casual Fridays, zombies may be our contemporary corporate-driven consumerist culture’s biggest safety valve: You can pretend to be one and stand up for your zombie rights at mass “zombie walk” events, or you can hunt them down and kill them sans a shred of conscience, as in countless video games. To paraphrase Pogo and George Romero, “We have met the zombies and they are us.”

Night of the Living Dead Trailer

Today Pittsburgh author Heather Frazier will be reading at the Paranormal Pittsburgh Event at Barnes & Noble – South Hills Village, from her book Pittsburgh Ghosts: Steel City Supernatural between 12 and 3pm.  Her website is pretty awesome.  She’ll be joined by Jim Titus, author of Supernatural Pittsburgh and Its Suburbs.

Check in tomorrow for a Q&A with the author of Night of the Living Dead: Behind the Scenes of the Most Terrifying Zombie Movie Ever!

You can find out more about Alicia on her website, her blog, and her etsy page, where she has more information and photos of all her adorable and creative projects.

If you like this book, here’s the Facebook fan page for it, and it’s in stores now.

Q&A with Alicia:

Alicia Kachmar

What inspired you and your co-editor to create this book?  What was the process like?

Well, the book was my co-editor’s idea, so props to Margaret McGuire, a full-time editor at Quirk Books. She was about halfway done with compiling the crafts/crafters by the time I came on board. She asked me over Etsy to contribute a crochet project, but after displaying my crafty know-how over email, she asked me to be the co-editor! I then searched for the rest of the projects and contributed a few of my own. For someone who has not worked in publishing, (other than contributing a project to the Photojojo book), I learned as I went along, but overall it was really fun to work with so many talented people and…feel like I was really utilizing my degree in English!

What is your favorite craft from Witch Craft?

Am I allowed to pick a favorite? I honestly love each and every project, but I will say that the Spider Earrings accomplished something for me I didn’t think possible: that I would fall in love with and want to wear really big “holiday earrings.” Okay, spiders could be non-holiday, I suppose…but they are just so stunningly beautiful! And because I loved them so much, I got to keep them after the photo shoot. Score!

Do you have any advice for Pittsburgh crafters–stores to shop at, fairs to go to, etc?

I am still getting to know the Pittsburgh craft scene, but what an enthusiastic and embracing one it is! So many talented people here doing creative things. I belong to two groups, Pittsburgh Craft Collective and the Steel Town Etsy Street Team, which have both helped me to dive head first into the “scene.” There are a bunch of craft fairs and events throughout the year, only some of which I’ve been to as I’m a recent transplant back here, but the I Made It! markets definitely dot the crafty calendar with fun offerings. Sometimes IMI is stand-alone, like the holiday market in December and sometimes it pops up at events like WYEP’s Rock The Block, Three Rivers Arts Festival or the annual Venture Outdoors Festival. I highly recommend! In terms of shops, Wildcard in Lawrenceville is definitely an HQ of sorts for crafternoons, gallery shows and the selling of handmade goods in a brick-and-mortar setting. It just celebrated its first anniversary, and boy am I glad that it was hatched!

What are some of your favorite places or things to do in the burgh?  Do you have a favorite bookstore?

I like exploring the city via bike rides and the seeking of bakeries, though I don’t do enough of either. I lived here until I was 17 and now again 10+ years later, so I find myself going back to those childhood places I frequented: libraries, parks and specific places like the Trillium Trail in Fox Chapel or Highland Park. It has been fun to recently go to the places I never made it to like Society for Contemporary Craft, Mattress Factory and restaurants that aren’t, you know, of the TGIF or Taco Bell variety. As for a favorite bookstore, I can’t say I have one! I’m partial to Half-Price Books out in the ‘burbs, b/c it’s cheap, there’s free coffee and a quirky staff, and they put out the best free calendars every year.

How did you get crafty?

I was born with a silver…sewing needle in hand! My entire extended family is pretty creative, and my parents in particular are a jack/jane-of-all-trades kind of pair. My mom made a lot of our clothing, including Halloween costumes, whereas my dad would build dollhouse furniture and do the bulk of the elaborate cake-decorating. I guess we ate dinner on our dining room table sometimes, but most surfaces and tables at our house were full of “projects” in process. I never realized how constant the creating was in this growing up until much later. I thought it was normal to ask your mom at midnight the day before you had to hop on back to college if you could learn how to sew a corduroy bag. And she said yes and we stayed up all night and I got my bag!

What are you working on now?

A billion things! I just got accepted to sell at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts shop, and it’s quite a tall order. The holidays, in general, are busy for me, even on Etsy alone. We’re also working on another Quirk craft book at the moment and I’m always trying to keep up with yarn magazine contributing, freelancing and getting involved in area events and craft programming. I wish I had more than two hands!

Alicia as Snow White

What was your favorite Halloween costume growing up, and why?

I go back and forth about this, and when I look at old photo albums, there are costumes I don’t even remember. (A Crayola box? Miss America? Really?) I think my favorite, from doing this “research,” was Snow White, because I wore it at non-Halloween times. I remember finding it really unique, looking so different compared to frilly pink or purple princessy dresses that you saw a lot in Disney movies and cartoons. And I just loved those puffy sleeves and red hair band.

Now, on to sunnier topics…

Mt. Lebanon author Mitchell James Kaplan’s book, By Fire, By Water, has been chosen for Philadelphia’s “One Book, One Jewish Community” program.  (via The Jewish Exponent)

Guiding Light actress and author Tina Sloan is bringing her one-woman show to Pittsburgh on Monday, and she’s got a new book out called Changing Shoes, about aging with style.  Here’s a short video of her talking about the book:

Tina Sloan talks about \”Changing Shoes\”

Mary Karr, author of Lit, The Liars Club, and Cherry was in town, giving a Drue Heinz lecture.  She also met with inmates of the Allegheny County Jail to discuss writing.  Check out the great interview with her in the Post-Gazette.

And congrats to Kevin S–he’s won our giveaway of a copy of Turn Left at the Trojan Horse by Brad Herzog!