The Book Thread Book • Page 145

Ohhh I’ve heard of the first. I’m gonna take a look!

 

After abandoning Fairy Tale, which was unfortunately doing nothing for me, I started The Devil Takes You Home, which I finished today. That was pretty good, but I can’t say I loved it. It is similar to The Fisherman in its examination of grief, except the protagonist handles his in a much darker, more violent way. I thought the story didn’t really justify its length, and there were two twists - one that I think was supposed to be major - that were so unsurprising that it truly did make my opinion of the novel sink and question the writing as a whole, which is obviously not a good thing. Still, there were some good ideas, and I loved the paranormal aspect. I just think it could’ve been something special with less clumsiness and less one-dimensional characters.

I just started a collection of short stories by Maggie Siebert called Bonding, and this I’m already loving.

 

Speaking of Bonding, here is a free PDF of it that she shared. I read three stories last night and enjoyed them all, but Ammon really stood out and I would recommend reading it when you have 15 minutes to kill.

bonding_5_19_final_single.pdf

 

Bonding was really good, and each story was a quick read. I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in horror that veers into the grotesque. The PDF I posted above is a link shared by the author, so you can check it out guilt free.

I am now reading Negative Space by B.R. Yeager. I feel like my reading is heading in an interesting, decidedly less-mainstream direction; I’m craving Kathe Koja levels of insanity, and while I’m only twenty pages into Negative Space, the vibe is definitely right.

 

Got a B&N gift card from work and did a book haul and Negative Space was included. Excited to eventually read that!

 

Happy Cormac McCarthy publishing day to those who celebrate! We get another day next month as well. Didn't think we would get another one from him--let alone two. Reading his Border Trilogy right now but will borrow his new one in the coming weeks.

 

Excited to read those back to back once they're both out. The Road is still in my top five books of all time.

 

Just popping in to say I've finished The Book of Disquiet and man it was seriously one of the best works of literature I've ever read.

 

Has anyone read anything by Richard Laymon? Happened to get a book rec via Tik Tok and am enjoying Night in the Lonesome October.

I just rented The Traveling Vampire Show from my library.

 

Yeah I love him. Super over the top "splatterpunk." His more realistic novels (the ones without supernatural stuff) I've enjoyed the most. He's similar to one of my favorite authors, Jack Ketchum. He's polarizing though, you will always see reviews for any of his books that find them just to be sleazy trash.

I haven't read either of the two you mentioned, but Night has been in my queue for awhile. I'm not jumping on the Traveling Vampire show, since as I mentioned I don't dig his supernatural stuff as much.

 

Man I’ve heard so many good things about the tartar stepp but I’m over halfway through and it’s done nothing for me

 

This is awesome to hear! What were your favorites by him? Night in Lonesome October definitely fits the “sleazy” description haha

Also read my first Jack Ketchum this year: The Girl Next Door. It was solid and I’ll be reading Off Season in the near future.

 

Finished Something Wicked This Way Comes for the first time. Was absolutely loving it at first, but the prose does get a little tiresome after a bit. Still really liked it and can see myself revisiting it in future Octobers.

 

Funland, Endless Night, No Sanctuary are my favs. His bibliography is my go-to when I need a horror book and can't think of anything else, so I've started reading from his first published, will probably read all of them but there is an awful lot.

Yeah Girl Next Door is extraordinary. Off-Season also great in a totally different way. I'm sure you've read about how it was banned or whatever, it's not the goriest thing out there, by today's standards, but it's pretty harrowing. The third book in the trilogy, "The Woman," is really great and has a good movie adaptation. I've read all of his books, you really can't go wrong with him.

 

This is all great info and I’m definitely super excited to read these eventually, thank you!!

 

I recently finished Stay True by Hua Hsu. It's very moving, very relatable memoir.

 

I finished The Justice of Kings by Richard Swan.

A good start to this trilogy

I'm not a big fan of crime fiction (which slowed me down a bit in the first half), but I was intrigued by the characters and the story. The plot was well-paced and unpredictable.

 

Finished Clown In A Cornfield 2 finally!!! Very good! Still have a couple horror books checked out from the library to get to over the next month or so.

 

I enjoyed it too. What are the other ones you have?

 

Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix(really excited to check this one out-seems super cool)
Horror Hotel by Victoria Fulton & Faith McClaren(this is definitely more YA but seemed interesting enough for me)

Non-horror books I also currently have checked out and plan to read by the end of the year are:

All Good People Here by Ashley Flowers
Nothing More To Tell by Karen M. McManus
The Truth About The Harry Quebert Affair by Joel Dicker

 

Horrorstor is a fun time! Have never heard of Horror Hotel

 

Yeah the layout of the book seems really neat



Couldn't figure out how to copy the link. I came across this book in Target one day and the cover interested me

 

Horrorstor is such a fun, quick read.

 

That is a pretty nice cover

 

Finished The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon yesterday. Started The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen this afternoon and haven’t been able to put it down.