Anthony Monday Available as E-books

Open Road Media will publish the three remaining books in the Anthony Monday series as e-books on May 16. The Dark Secret of Weatherend (1984), The Lamp from the Warlock’s Tomb (1988), and The Manion in the Mist (1992) join The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn (1978), published initially as an e-book back in 2014.

Something About Wonderful Things

Man upside down, ripple of water, ankh. Ankh!

Cover Critic: The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn (US, 1985)

Cover Critic is our periodic survey of readers and fans about the various artwork and illustrations of the books in the Bellairs Corpus.

Something About Inverse Images

Positively strange.

Something About Spoiling the Treasure

Judging a book by its cover.

2018 Kicks Off with #JohnBellairsMonth, 'Pedant' Celebration

Happy 2018!

Right out of the gate, January is Richard Denney‏’s #JohnBellairsMonth in which he and other fans will read The House with a Clock in its Walls (he’s done this month-thing before, too, so he’s no novice).  If you want some discussion topics or need some past reviews we've got you covered.

It’s a good book to celebrate and a good month to celebrate, too, as the 17th would have been John’s 80th birthday.

Spooky Stories Haunt the Shelves of Winona Public Library

Ben McLeod wrote to us last decade to tell how Bellairsia finally helped him connect the dots between Hoosac and Winona:

I cannot describe to you the frisson of reading a book about a mysterious library and a treasure hidden within while sitting in the very library being described. As I read more of the Anthony Monday books certain particulars made it very, very clear that Hoosac was in fact Winona. When I tried to point out to parents and librarians that these books were about our town, I was met with disinterested disbelief. Adults simply assumed that I was projecting myself onto the characters of the books.

McLeod discovered through the site that Bellairs had taught at the now-defunct College of Saint Teresa in the early 1960s, prompting him to finally find his white whale.  Or his Winterborn.  Or Weatherend.  Whatever.   Now he's back (McLeod, that is), this time with an article in the Winona Post just in time for Halloween that further explains the connection and celebrates the four-book Anthony Monday series:

Where's There: Sugar Loaf

(The third in a series about places or things John Bellairs didn't write about in towns where he lived.)

When it comes to the three cities that John Bellairs created for his books, it’s easy to understand how New Zebedee and Duston Heights came about, what with his close association to his native Michigan and later home in Massachusetts. How Hoosac, Minnesota fits into the equation is often forgotten or perhaps not known. For two years in the early 1960s John taught at the now-defunct College of Saint Teresa in Winona, a city in southeast Minnesota. It may not have been his favorite place (consider he was coming to rural Minnesota after years of living and working in Chicago’s Hyde Park area) but we’re glad he was there if only for it to help foster some Fidgettine inspiration. But more on Saint Fidgeta later.

BiblioFile: The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn (Bantam, 1980)

We’ve carried a lot of love for the Bantam Skylark paperback editions from the 1980s because that’s how a lot of fans first discovered John’s books. (Yeah, some of you had public or school libraries with the original Dial hardcovers on their shelves and you got the full Bellairs and Gorey experience....) In a word, the Bantams are colorful nostalgia trips that bring back lots of memories. (Never mind that “colorful nostalgia trips” may conjure thoughts of the 1960s…let us not be silly.)

Alert: Anthony Monday & eReads

Spend your holiday season in Hoosac!  eReads, the oldest independent digital publisher in the field bringing out-of-print books back in electronic formats, has released the first book in the Anthony Monday series.

What's What: Lapsang Souchong

We get an idea of how awkward Miss Eells is by how she prepares her hot plate and kettle for tea, including the ordeal of sweeping up sugar and trying to remove the lid off the Lapsang Souchong box [The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn; 15-6].

This Isn’t Your Usual Alpheus Winterborn

In fact, we don’t know exactly what this is. Anyone?

What's What: Civil War Spy Codes

Miss Eells apparently knows something about Civil War era spy codes - and what she knows is apparently interesting enough to share with, and impress, Anthony Monday [The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn; 7].

In Small Square Letters, Were These Words: ‘Lucky You!’

Honestly - after we had a good chuckle and contemplated doing something similar - we couldn't help but think of ol' Alpheus Winterborn.

Our friends over at the Museum of Hoaxes recently shared the story of a woman who found "a small envelope in a rocking chair she bought at auction. In the envelope [were] a key and a note giving her directions to where $250 in U.S. gold coins was supposedly buried in a lead chest...The note was signed 'Chauncey Wolcott.'"

Photographic Memories: Marshall Library

Deltiology, anyone? Here’s an interesting site showcasing library postcards from decades past. Recently the site highlighted the former Marshall Public Library.

Report the Features of the Octagon House

We received word a few weeks ago the Winterborn House in Marshall is for sale. Actually, it’s the Pendleton-Alexander House and here’s the scoop:

Therein Illustrated & The Honour Of It

We came across this article about the decline in artwork used in children's books. For an example the author cites John's novels and the differences in artwork between those published in the 1970s and those released during the 80s. We thought we'd re-publish it here to gain some more insights:

Discovering Hoosac

by guest contributor, Ben McLeod:

When I was about nine or ten years old, in the very early 1980's, I checked out the Winona Public Library's copy of The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn. I probably took it back into the stacks, which is where I liked to curl up with creepy finds. But before you write this off as another fan's first-time discovery of Mr. Bellairs work, let me explain. I felt like Bastian in Michael Ende's The Neverending Story because as Anthony Monday wandered around the Hoosac Public Library, I began to think it was strangely familiar. As I read further and the novel's description of Hoosac developed, I came to realize that it was, in fact, Winona, Minnesota under a different name.

Happy New Year 2008

Here’s a little something we picked up today off the wire: Public Domain Day, the day when a whole year’s worth of copyrights enter the public domain. In countries using the “life plus 70 years” term, works by authors who died in 1937 enter the public domain, including another familiar face, H. P. Lovecraft. 

A few celebrations of note this year:

Hauntings at Massachusetts' Hoosac Tunnel

This article, entitled "Ghosts of the Bloody Pit", from PrairieGhosts.com talks about hauntings at Massachusetts' Hoosac Tunnel. We were interested since the name of the tunnel (and the mountain range) figures into some of John's books that take place in Minnesota.