Sad Bastards in the news!

The cover of the sad bastard cookbook. It has a photo of uncooked ramen and a plastic knife, but no spoons.

We will forever be excited when actual news outlets take our ridiculous cookbook seriously. I mean, it is a serious cookbook, with real recipes, but it’s also ridiculous. You know how it goes.

Which is to say that Brock Weir from the Penticton Herald wrote an article on The Sad Bastard Cookbook, Rachel A. Rosen, and chronic pain. Read the gloriousness here.

As always, get your free e-book copy of the cookbook here.

Armed with a Book: Indie Recommends Indie

indie-recommends-indie

If you’re looking for your next great read, how do you find it?

Armed with A Book asks indie authors to suggest their favourite indie reads. Dale Stromberg is the author of Melancholic Parables, a collection of short stories exploring the questions, “Are we the same person we were last year? Or last week? Or last story?”.

His 5 recommended reads includes Night Beats’ own Query, plus 4 other amazing books. Check it out here!

Book Report Corner

by Sabitha F.

Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Image is a woman's eyes on a red background with silver text, reminiscent of old school horror movie covers.

I adore everything Silvia Moreno-Garcia writes, so I’ll hit the buy button or place a library hold on every new book she produces before I’ve even read the plot summary. That said, Silver Nitrate couldn’t be more catered to my tastes if she sawed open my brain and splashed it across the page. Mexico City in the 1990s, evil Nazi occultists, and cinematic alchemy clash in this weird, compelling story of a childhood friendship, a curse, and a cult.

Nothing has gone right for Montserrat, a sound editor who can barely make ends meet thanks to industry sexism, or for her best friend Tristán, a soap opera star whose career failed after a drunken car accident. They encounter Abel, a washed-up horror director who tells them about a lost film, cut short by the murder of its funder. Woven into its film stock is a spell that could reverse all of their fortunes—but as with silver screen success, magic too has its cost.

This book is more difficult and aloof than the author’s better-known work, but it showcases what to me are some of her greatest strengths—flawed, complicated women, supernatural elements that are deeply entwined with the story’s themes and milieu, and inventive subversions of genre tropes. It’s a love letter to horror and a perfect spooky season read.

Book Report Corner

by Anarchist Review of Books

The cover of the sad bastard cookbook. It has a photo of uncooked ramen and a plastic knife, but no spoons.

Yes, the literal Anarchist Review of Books did a feature on The Sad Bastard Cookbook. I’m not screaming with excitement, you’re screaming with excitement. We’re both screaming.

We’re in Issue 6 (not yet available online but keep checking here!) or read the interview/review below.

Book Report Corner

by Zilla N.

Assassin of Reality cover

The first thing you have to understand is that Vita Nostra is perfect. When something is its own ideal, fully encapsulated, how can there be a sequel?

The answer is Assassin of Reality.

Sasha is older now, more aware. They are all. They know what is being done to them, and they know why. They cannot become a concept without deconstructing their humanity; they cannot grow without retaining it, at least a little. Without love, and therefore fear, to trap them. They will trade freedom for harmony. They will become the trap.

Except there are always possibilities. A world where the ice fell on neither mother nor baby carriage, where you bought the fire extinguisher, where you swerved away from the bus. A world where love exists without fear.

Be brave, Sasha tells us.