Recent Reading From September

I was on the road for most of September. That photo’s taken in the elevator of the Flatiron Building while I was in NYC, but other places I stayed included Dallas, Texas and Pocatello, Idaho. (More on that to come!) Here’s what I read in September, according to my notes, which always seem to leave out some stuff. Bolded indicates a particularly notable read.

Alex P. Berg. Red Hot Steele.
Jillian Blake. Antisocial.
Ramsey Campbell. The Parasite.
Jessica Cluess A Shadow Bright and Burning.
George Alec Effinger. Heroics.
Justin Evans. The White Devil.
Rumer Godden. Black Narcissus. Interesting because I’d been thinking about omniscient POV, which this book uses.
Joe Hill. The Fireman.
Tami Hoag. Cold Cold Heart,
Aaron James. Assholes* A Theory. Some useful stuff on dealing with bad-faith actors.
Stephen King and Owen King. Gwendy’s Button Box.
Stephen King. End of Watch.
Mur Lafferty. Six Wakes.
Carrie Ann Noble. The Gold Son.
Dan Padavona. Crawlspace.
Sarah Porter. Vassa in the Night.
Susan Kaye Quinn. Third Daughter. Enjoyable steampunk romance with an Indian-flavored milieu.
Ron Ripley. Berkley Street.
Jon Ronson. So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. Fascinating read about social media and publicity gone awry.
Sherwood Smith. Inda, The Fox, King’s Shield, and Treason’s Shore.
Wendy Corsi Staub. Lullaby and Good Night.
Steven Rasnic Tem. Deadfall Hotel.

I’ve been watching DC’s Legends and am halfway through Season 2 so far.

I’m timing this post to come out before I’ve finished the last book of the Southern Reach trilogy, ACCEPTANCE, so I haven’t read the entire trilogy yet. But I recommend the overall trilogy based on my utter enthusiasm for the first two books, ANNIHILATION and AUTHORITY.

VanderMeer is one of the finest writers alive*, in my opinion, able to craft worlds that are eerie and beautiful and intriguing and, above all, unlike anything you’ve read before. Both ANNIHILATION and AUTHORITY are full of moments that smacked me in the face with their perception and beauty in a way that still leaves me thinking about them.

The books have that sense of the weird that haunts other works, like House of Leaves or The Crying of Lot 49. As though one were viewing the everyday world with a new lens, one that slants them, puts them askew, renders them mysterious. And they do it beautifully.

The publisher’s taken the unusual (increasingly less so, though) step of releasing all three books in one year — particularly awesome for those of us who hate waiting for the next installment to come out.

*Full disclosure: Not only do I know Jeff, but we’ve co-written a novelette, The Surgeon’s Tale, together. But part of my pleasure in that friendship/co-authorship is a deep awareness of how very very good his writing is.