Writers Reading | Paul Jessup

Writers Reading is our semi regular feature for fridays where we get to poke around writers shelves and see what get's them reading. Our guest this week is Paul Jessup who has written a number of books including the totally gorgeous Werewolves which I will be reviewing here shortly.

I've got so many books I can't fit all of them on my bookshelves. I've got so many books that I have over 100 boxes filled with books in my attic. More in my basement. When I first bought my house I dreamed of turning my dinning room into a mini library. Four or five bookshelves later, and I've got no more room, and it's spread. Into the living room, the bedrooms and the second floor hallway. Books are planning to devour my house, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I don't have any pictures for these rooms right now (they are far messier than I'd like to reveal), but I'm so happy that I've got all these books.

For today, I'm going to cover my five favorite werewolf books. I've got three that are fiction, and I've got two here that are non-fiction. The non-fiction is not tied to werewolves exactly, but contain a lot of cool stuff that I used as a spring board for my Werewolves book.

Fiction-

Moon Called, Blood Bound-

The first two books in Patricia Brigg's Mercy Thompson series and my favorite of the lot. The prose is rich and detailed, and the characters are cool and unforgettable. I like her take on the werewolves- they don't seem out of control, not when they're in the pack. Instead, they feel more like a metaphor for men in power, and the how they keep each other in check. With Mercy on the outside of this, rebelling against the natural instincts of the pack.

Wolf Age-

World Fantasy Award nominee's James Enge's werewolf in sword and sorcery style story. A cool take that's not quite Urban Fantasy, but more gritty and violent than other books. If you want to see a werewolf story in a more classic, epic fantasy setting, this is probably the best take on it. I had a lot of fun reading this.

Kitty Norville Books-

These are my favorite werewolf books out there currently. The werewolves are brutal, and pack politics are violent and rough. It goes closer to the real world wolf style pack politics, and in doing so makes them more feral and insane. I loved her take on the genre, and the way her wolves acted compared to most other modern Urban Fantasy werewolves (who seemed to have had their edges removed entirely, and are more like the werewolf version of Louis from Interview with a Vampire- Oh woe is me! I'm cursed! Cursed!).

Non-Fiction-

Man, Myth and Magic Encyclopedias

These are great, large illustrated books that go into every single occult aspect you could think of for any culture you can think of. These books are priceless when it comes to researching Urban Fantasy and all it entails. You could spend months going through, reading book after book, and come out with a million ideas and topics. I visit the section on werewolves frequently, and find something new almost every time I read it.

Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells

This is a mammoth tome, and if you can get past a lot of the misinformation in a few chapters, it has a ton of great little tidbits that I found very useful and interesting for all sorts of different story ideas. There is a section on banishing and summoning spirits, talking to faeries, getting rid of vampires and werewolves, how to raise the dead (by painting bones red). All great stuff that works great in fiction as an added dose of cool authenticity. Even includes a lot of Haitian rituals, and talks about different variations and types of werewolves.

There we go. Just a small peek behind the door to my massively insane book collection. I don't think I've ever thrown out a book since I started reading and buying them, and I don't think I ever will. Well, except for those old books on how to use DOS or Windows 3.1. Or on upgrading to Netscape Navigator Gold.