books

From 1997-2016, Ken Magill covered the wild and woolly happenings of online marketing (and email marketing) from its nearly nascent beginnings through to the world-changing behemoth it would become. From DM News, to Magilla Marketing, to the Magill Report, Ken worked hard to provide “the real stories behind the PR nonsense,” keeping us updated on online and email marketing industry changes, and calling bullshit as appropriate, as “Marketing’s Weekly Dose of the Truth.”  In October 2023, he published his memoir: There, He’s Crying. There, He’s Crying: A Memoir, by Ken Magill [ Buy now: Amazon | Bookshop ] Ken Magill is quick to let me know that he grew up in a different time. Out with the other kids all day long, shooting crabapples at each other, mom has no idea where you are, you’re out on your own with your friends, fending for yourselves, and everything’s just fine. He compares

There’s a guy named Jason Pargin (originally writing under a pseudonym) who wrote a book back in 2007 called “John Dies at the End.” I don’t know how to describe it — “comic horror” is a label I’ve seen applied to it, and I guess that works as well as any other. It’s about a couple of guys who live in a dying rust belt down and end up dealing with some, well, weird stuff. Monsters and mayhem in a mundane setting, maybe?Since then there have been more books in the series: This Book is Full of Spiders, What the Hell Did I Just Read, and the most recent one, which I just finished a week ago, called If This Book Exists, You’re in the Wrong Universe (purchase link here).If you’re looking for something somewhere between supernatural and sci fi, comedy and horror — with protagonists just trying to pay the