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
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.
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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:
Here we go! Steelers-themed books to get you even more pumped for the Stairway to Seven. Many of these can also be found at your local bookstore or at http://www.indiebound.org/.
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.
Do you remember the first time you saw the film Night of the Living Dead? Did it scare you, or did you laugh at how campy it seemed? When it came out in 1968, it started the zombie craze that’s still going strong in movies and books, and it was one of the most gruesome depictions of onscreen violence.
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 Read more…
Happy Fall! There’s a spooky book event coming up this weekend, to get you ready for Halloween. But first, check out Small Press Pittsburgh’s handy-dandy list of Pittsburgh bookstores organized by neighborhood and by type. They’ve also made up a list of libraries including bus route info!
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!
An American Childhood by Annie Dillard—how many of you read this in school?
I adore this book, but I do feel some uncomfortable emotions about it because of the similarities to my life: growing up in Point Breeze, attending private school, going to dancing school… hallmarks of a privileged Pittsburgh upbringing, that not everyone has had—it feels a little prissy.
But I absolutely love the prologue—it’s a description of the topology of the Pittsburgh area intertwined with the coal-mining, steel-making history of the area. Here’s a snippet:
This book magically appeared on my bookshelf when I was in high school. I don’t know how it got there, I don’t remember anyone giving it to me, and I didn’t buy it myself. I ignored it for months (maybe longer) because I thought it was a collection of stories about things you never understood about the ‘burgh, such as: how many bridges do we have? What is the entomology of “slippy”? Or perhaps it was a collection of unsolved mysteries in Pittburgh, relating to a theft of Mrs. Carnegie’s jewels…
But then one day I was bored, I had read everything on my shelves many times (everything from The Secret Garden to Clan of the Cave Bear), and so I grabbed The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and everything changed. From the very first page I knew it wasn’t one of those books I thought it would be. I must say, as cliché as it sounds, it changed my life. Growing up as an only child in Pittsburgh, a somewhat lonely and bookish experience, I didn’t dream of escape, but I didn’t realize that adventure and love and life could happen right here—in Oakland, Shadyside, Squirrel Hill…
