April's Books

We have delivery of the next two books from the library!

As per the previous post we have Darkly Dreaming Dexter, by Jeff Lindsay available or

Elf Sorrow, by James Barclay

We hope to see you at book club tonight, to obtain your copy!

drabble prompt: Broken

First of all to answer the question of "what's a drabble?" I shall borrow from that oracle of all knowledge useful and not...Wikipedia

"Drabble: A drabble is an extremely short work of fiction exactly one hundred words in length, although the term is often used to indicate a short story of fewer than 1000 words. The purpose of the drabble is brevity and to test the author's ability to express interesting and meaningful ideas in an extremely confined space."

the prompt for those of you wishing to work on writing skills as well as joining the book group, is to write a 100 word drabble using the prompt "Broken". Its not as easy as it looks but I do find that they are quite fun to work on, they get your brain working, thinking, and being creative. A small baby step before writing that novel, magazine article, or fairy tale. A few of my drabbles can be found here ( http://www.daemara.blogspot.com/ my rather dustily abandoned writing blog, just scroll down past the unfinished fairy tale) . You put your whole heart into writing, and by my sharing of my little drabbles I'm putting my heart on the line for this group and hope that you will be brave enough to put yours.

please post a copy of your drabble in the comments so we can all share.

The Next Book?

The following books are a few of the choices for the next book(s). Most people haveby now read The Graveyard Book, or are nearing the end of it so the following books have been selected off a list that is still being compiled, as we are awaiting to see which books the Librarian can get hold of for us. Let us know if these seem of interest, and if you have any suggestions for books you have read that might intrest the rest of the group. Or what book are you waiting to get in your hot little hands?


Darkly Dreaming Dexter- Jeff Lindsay


Meet Dexter Morgan, the chief protagonist of Darkly Dreaming Dexter. He's a highly respected lab technician specialising in blood spatter for the Miami Dade Police Department. He's a handsome, though reluctant, ladies' man. He's polite, says all the right things, and rarely draws attention to himself. He's also a sociopathic serial killer whose "Dark Passenger" drives him to commit the occasional dismemberment. Mind you, Dexter's the good guy in this story. from amazon.com

Graceling- Kristin Cashore

If you had the power to kill with your bare hands, what would you do with it?

Graceling takes readers inside the world of Katsa, a warrior-girl in her late teens with one blue eye and one green eye. This gives her haunting beauty, but also marks her as a Graceling. Gracelings are beings with special talents—swimming, storytelling, dancing. Katsa's Grace is considered more useful: her ability to fight (and kill, if she wanted to) is unequaled in the seven kingdoms. Forced to act as a henchman for a manipulative king, Katsa channels her guilt by forming a secret council of like-minded citizens who carry out secret missions to promote justice over cruelty and abuses of power. --- taken from amazon.com

Watchmen- Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons

"A work of ruthless psychological realism, it's a landmark in the graphic novel medium. It would be a masterpiece in any."
-TIME, TIME MAGAZINE's 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present.

*I added Watchmen as several book group members have read it, and at least 3 members (one of which is me Apryl) are in the process of reading it.

The Book Meme

I have been googling around and compiling this list of meme questions the last few days and I'm posting it now for those of you who are participating in the book group from a distance, or just addicted to memes. It's heavily sci-fi/fantasy/horror based but if you feel like taking the meme please link back to the group. I hope you have fun filling it out. ~ Apryl



Total number of books owned:

Last book bought:

Last book read:

Book that means the most to you:

Book you re-read time and time again?

Science Fiction, Fantasy, Graphic, or Horror?

Hardback or Trade Paperback or Mass Market Paperback?

Heinlein or Asimov?

Amazon or real book shop?

Borders or Waterstones?

Hitchhiker or Discworld?

Bookmark or Dogear?

Alphabetize by author, by title or random?

Keep, recycle or Sell?

Keep dust jacket or toss it?

Read with dust jacket or remove it?

Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket?

Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks?

"It was a dark and stormy night" or "Once upon a time"?"

Buy or Borrow?

What makes you buy a book, reviews, recommendation or browse?

Lewis or Tolkien?

Hard SF or Space Opera?

Tidy ending or Cliffhanger?

Morning reading, Afternoon reading or Nighttime reading?

Standalone or Series?

Urban fantasy or high fantasy?

New or used?

Favorite book of which nobody else has heard?

Favorite genre books read last year?

Favorite genre books of all time?

Favorite genre series?

Favorite genre short stories?

The Graveyard Book

The first book for Chimera Book Group is The Graveyard book by Neil Gaiman. Available at your local library, bookshop or Amazon.

The Graveyard Book is the story of Nobody "Bod" Owens a normal boy who escaped the grisly murder of his family and has gone to live in a graveyard. Bod is being raised and educated by some of the things that go bump in the night. Learning life lessons from those that lack it.

The cover art and illustrations by Chris Riddell are wonderfully macabre and inspiring. an the book itself is filled with spirits, ghosts, friendship, witches, menacing humor, and did I mention there is a murderer on the loose? Will Bod live long enough to grow into a man?


I think its the perfect choice for this budding book group and can lead us on to darker things. Come along to our next meeting (Tuesday at 7:30 at Chimera, Ripley) or pick up the book and read along with the blog, and join our Facebook page "Chimera Book Group".

First Meeting

Lat night was the very first meeting of Chimera Book and Writing Group. We sat down with coffee listening to the storm rage outside as we got down to the nitty gritty of discussing our first book choice, Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, and why Heather and I started the book group in the first place.

Over more coffee and tea we talked about the books we like, what made us purchase them, or borrow them from the library and read into the small hours of the night. I brought along a hastily grabbed pile of my books to discuss content and covers. What makes you fall in love with a book? is it that dragon glimmering on the cover or daring hero/heroine? the first sentence? the book jacket? what makes the characters come to life and speak to you?

The book group is centred on our love of the dark side of things, the things that lurk in the darkest corners of our nightmares, and the hunters that seek them, dark worlds and the fantastical filled with all manner of creatures good and evil. Books off the edge of the map where "Here there be Dragons".

Chimera Book and Writing Group

Tuesday 3rd March 2009 sees the start of a new Book and Creative Writing group at Chimera.
Start time 19:30-21:30
Cost: £2.50
What to bring: Your notepad and a pen.

So what's all this about then? We figured that Ripley needs an alternative book group that deals in the likes of Horror, Manga, Comic Book, GW Novels etc, none of your Romantic Rubbish (though we might make an exception for raunchy Vampires!) so here it is. We don't discriminate on age, though we would recommend your parents don't mind you being out this late, especially on a school night.

The format of the night will be an hour on the chosen book (supplied by our local library, agreed upon by the group) followed by creative writing practise for the second hour (if your a manga or comic book artist, feel free to join us, its all part of the story telling process). So if you've been itching to sort out that novel or short story, let us help focus your mind, or be a sounding off forum.

So what are you waiting for, we'll see you at the store on Tuesday 3rd March at 19:30.