My October and November in reading

In which I reread multiple books in order to better jump into their sequels. And then some.

The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor Lavalle

H.P. Lovecraft was notoriously racist, but Victor Lavalle expertly takes the cosmic horror style popularized by Lovecraft and applies it to the story of a Black man in Jazz Age New York City. When a wealthy white man hires Tommy Tester to play guitar at his fancy party, Tester has no idea what sprawling horrors he’s about to help unleash—and once he does have an idea, he takes those horrors into his own hands. Quick read, very creepy.

Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death by Susana Monsó

This book has a very cutesy illustrated cover, which threw me off a bit—the text ended up being far more academic than I expected. Nevertheless, I learned a lot from Monsó about the budding field of comparative thanatology, which I did not realize existed. She makes a compelling case that animals often have a sophisticated understanding of death—especially predators. If you’re interested in death and dying, this is a good one.

My Favorite Thing is Monsters: Book 1 by Emil Ferris

I initially read this book back in 2021, but I guess I wasn’t reviewing books on my site at that time. This graphic novel about a young, queer, monster-obsessed girl living in 1960s Chicago along with her artistic but irresponsible older brother, her dying mother, and her mysteriously murdered upstairs neighbor, is a masterpiece. I absolutely loved it. Can’t recommend it enough.

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Once again, I read Stoker’s classic via Dracula Daily emails. You should sign up—it’ll restart in May of next year!

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

I read this one last year, so I’ll link you to that review.

What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher

I was very happy to leap into this second Alex Easton adventure, which ditches creepy mushrooms for a folkloric monster that hunts people within their dreams. I’m not sure I liked this one as much as the first book in the series, but Easton is still a wonderfully compelling narrator. If you like the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, I think you’ll like this series. Watson and Easton are both former soldiers, and they both get pulled into horrifying, nearly inexplicable ordeals—though Easton has to simultaneously act as chronicler and accidental detective.

My Favorite Thing is Monsters: Book 2 by Emil Ferris

I’d been looking forward to the return of young Karen Reyes for years, and I wasn’t disappointed—except for the very end, which seemed rushed. Like an editor said, okay, enough already. I’m hoping Ferris does a third volume, because it strikes me as an odd place to end? But I still liked it overall. The plot is so dark and harrowing, but Karen’s awestruck, imaginative, childlike narration makes it bearable. I wished I could reach into the pages and hold her hand.

Paradise Rot by Jenny Hval (translated from the Norwegian by Marjam Idriss and narrated by Brie Jackman)

We are living in a golden age of eerie mushroom fiction, and I’m thrilled. In Hval’s novel, a young Scandinavian exchange student moves into a former brewery with a local roommate. The roommate has very few (physical or emotional) boundaries. The house has very few (physical or emotional) boundaries. There is yeast, decomposition, urine. What more could you want in a book?

Nordic Visions: The Best of Nordic Speculative Fiction, edited by Margrét Helgadóttir

I brought this one with me on my recent trip to The Netherlands—not Nordic, I know, but close enough. While I understand that the term “speculative fiction” encompasses science fiction, I always associate it more closely with horror or magical realism or weirdness in general. So I was surprised by the amount of sci-fi stories in this anthology—but I’m not opposed to surprises. Helgadóttir divides the stories by region: Sweden, Denmark, The Faroe Islands, Iceland, Norway, and Finland. I wish she’d included more indigenous stories, but perhaps those deserve their own collection. I think my favorite was Jakob Drud’s bizarre crime story “Heather Country,” which involves two detectives stitched together and a prize pig on the loose.