#C.S. Johnson

[marianneshepherd]

The Starlight Chronicles

In August 2023, I read every book (and the in-between episode books) of The Starlight Chronicles by C.S. Johnson.

I have made it my mission to read as many Christian fiction books as I can while writing my own book. This series was my first taste of the genre.

Specifically, this series is Christian fantasy with supernatural elements in a modern setting. There was so much to read, but I could not put these books down. If you like Angels and Demons and lots of action (superheoroes?) and a little bit of romance, this is for you!

Brace yourself for this long list ahead. These are the books in the series:

#1 Slumbering

#1.5 Awakening: A Christmas Episode

#2 Calling

#2.5 Falling: A Starry Knight Episode

#3 Submerging

#3.5 Seeing: A Wedding Episode

#4 Remembering

#4.5 Belonging: Date Night Episode

#5 Continuing

#5.5 Reflecting: A Dream Episode

#6 Outpouring

#6.5 Reawakening: A Rebirth Episode

#7 Everlasting

#8 Searching (the Prequel that's meant to be read last)

I loved this series and have found it difficult to find books that can follow this series and still keep my attention.

Without spoilers, the book found me laughing uncontrollably, sobbing until my eyes burned, and had me on the edge of my couch to the point where my family had to make sure I was okay on a dozen occasions.

The pros, I didn't see any noticeable plot holes and there were plenty of moments I didn't see coming. The characters were well written, and the setting was vivid enough for even me to see (I struggle with visuals.) The characters had so many redeeming qualities, which is a must-have for a book of this nature. On another note, her books are very affordable and available in paperback, hardback, box sets and digital copies. I did a combo of paperback and digital (because I was too impatient to wait for shipping at the time) and it worked out wonderfully.

The cons of the series, many reviewers said they gave up in the middle of the first book (don't do this.) The said the main character was too narcissistic and rotten, but I promise you it's worth getting through the first book to read all the rest of them. Lastly, the editor did a terrible job (I know it's not the best news.) But, I was able to work around it, just like I work around autocorrect. This was not the author's fault, so I can't fault her for it. Unfortunately for the author, her work was muddied by the editing mistakes made and if I could change anything about the series that would be the only change.

Biblical tie-ins: I saw the transformative power of God throughout this book. I couldn't help but be overwhelmed with gratitude and love for my Savior. I've had time to soak in silence after finishing the series, and it drew me into a closer relationship with Jesus.

Verses that go with this series include:

"For nothing is impossible with God." Luke 1:37

"We also boast in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope." Romans 5:3-4

"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us." Romans 8:18

"So then, let those who suffer according to God's will entrust themselves to a faithful Creator while doing what is good." 1 Peter 5:9

Final Thoughts: If you're looking for a finished Christian-based urban fantasy series about love, faith and giving evil an epic butt-kicking then pick up these books and binge until you cry snot-faced tears all over your dog. You won't regret a single moment of it.

-Marianne Shepherd

[jolieeason]

Popsugar 2025 Reading Challenge---February

Prompts I finished in February A book under 250 pages A book you got for free A book that an AI chatbot recommends based on your favorite book A book that fills a 2024 prompt that you’d like to do over (or try out) redoing the free book prompt A book that you want to read based on the last sentence Bonus—Book you have always avoided reading A book with two or more books on the cover or��

[bookaddict24-7]

New Young Adult Releases! (December 5th, 2023)

___

Have I missed any new Young Adult releases? Have you added any of these books to your TBR? Let me know!

___

New Standalones/First in a Series:

Every Time You Go Away by Abigail Johnson

Make Me A Liar by Melissa Landers

Caught in a Bad Fauxmance by Elle Gonzalez Rose

New Sequels:

This Cursed Light (The Last Finestra #2) by Emily Thiede

Dark Heir (Dark Rise #2) by C.S. Pacat

The Ruined (The Beautiful #4) by Renée Ahdieh

___

Happy reading!

[mmt1983]

Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm. Winston Churchill

Always do the things you fear the most. Courage is an acquired taste, like caviar. Erica Jong

Lean into (not away from) what’s making you uncomfortable. Shane Parrish

Amateurs are scared – scared to be vulnerable and honest with themselves. Professionals feel like they are capable of handling almost anything. Shane Parrish (fs.blog)

Will you dare to try and learn and grow? Or will you allow fear to take over? Life happens in the river, not on the shore. Maxime Lagacé

Freedom lies in bold action. Robert Frost

Courage, dear heart. C.S. Lewis (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader)

Choose courage over comfort. Brené Brown (Dare to Lead)

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage. Anaïs Nin

Be humble. Be hungry. And always be the hardest worker in the room. Dwayne Johnson (The Rock)

Don’t be ashamed to need help. Like a soldier storming a wall, you have a mission to accomplish. And if you’ve been wounded and you need a comrade to pull you up? So what? Marcus Aurelius

[mereinkling]

What is Courage?

We live in an age where our courage matters more than ever. With social, cultural and international relationships all in terrible disarray, facing the future is not for the timid. Courage is essential for living a life of integrity. Without it, we bend and fold whenever the pressure grows too great. Some people even go so far as to compromise their conscience. In The Screwtape Letters, C.S.…

[the-bi-library]

With November here, here are bi books out in November!

Let me know if I missed any bi books out in November. Books listed: The Mischievous Letters of the Marquise de Q by Felicia Davin The Santa Pageant by Lillian Barry I'm A Princess That Ran Away To A Magical World by Terry Bartley Til Death Do Us Bard by Rose Black Abbott: 1979 by Saladin Ahmed and Sami Kivela (Artist) Outdrawn by Deanna Grey Violet Moon by Mel E. Lemon Hummingbird: Part Two by Frances M. Thompson Vicarious by Chloe Spencer Tonight, I Burn by Katharine J. Adams A Power Unbound by Freya Marske @freyamarske Until the Blood Runs Dry by MC Johnson Dark Heir by C.S. Pacat Ride with Me by Jenna Jarvis We Are the Crisis by Cadwell Turnbull Allure by CEON Delay of Game by Ari Baran Hunt on Dark Waters by Katee Robert One Night in Hartswood by Emma Denny To Kill a Shadow by Katherine Quinn Come Out, Come Out by Alexia Onyx 💖Make sure to check TWs for all books if necessary. 💖Preorders help the authors greatly, so make sure to preorder any book(s) that catch your interest. 💖Here is the goodreads list of these books

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

💙💜🩷 Books for Bisexuality Visibility Month 🩷💜💙

please support this blog

💜 How incredible is it that I made a list of 99 books for bisexual visibility month, KNOWING there are so many NOT featured on this list? I'm so proud to be bi. Having these characters and stories intertwine with mine warms my heart.

💜 What's your favorite book featuring bisexual characters?

💙 The Henna Wars - Adiba Jaigirdar 💙 Perfect on Paper - Sophie Gonzales 💙 Imogen, Obviously - Becky Albertalli 💙 Red, White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston 💙 Queens of Geek - Jen Wilde 💙 Just Your Local Bisexual Disaster - Andrea Mosqueda 💙 Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute - Talia Hibbert 💙 Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake - Alexis Hall 💙 A Merry Little Meet Cute - Julie Murphy & Sierra Simone

💜 Leah on the Offbeat - Becky Albertalli 💜 The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid 💜 Radio Silence - Alice Oseman 💜 The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue - Mackenzi Lee 💜 You Exist Too Much - Zaina Arafat 💜 Wolfsong - T.J. Klune 💜 The Pairing - Casey McQuiston 💜 Astrid Parker Doesn't Fail - Ashley Herring Blake 💜 Heartstopper - Alice Oseman

🩷 Going Bicoastal - Dahlia Adler 🩷 Some Girls Do - Jennifer Dugan 🩷 Hani & Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating - Adiba Jaigirdar 🩷 Autoboyography - Christina Lauren 🩷 Written in the Stars - Alexandria Bellefleur 🩷 They Both Die at the End - Adam Silvera 🩷 Cool for the Summer - Dahlia Adler 🩷 Delilah Green Doesn't Care - Ashley Herring Blake 🩷 One Last Stop - Casey McQuiston

💙 I'll Be the One - Lyla Lee 💙 Running With Lions - Julian Winters 💙 Take a Hint, Dani Brown - Talia Hibbert 💙 Felix Ever After - Kacen Callender 💙 Not Your Sidekick - C.B. Lee 💙 Ophelia After All - Racquel Marie 💙 Iron Widow - Xiran Jay Zhao 💙 Something to Talk About - Meryl Wilsner 💙 The Girls I've Been - Tess Sharpe

💜 Iris Kelly Doesn't Date - Ashley Herring Blake 💜 Never Ever Getting Back Together - Sophie Gonzales 💜 Her Royal Highness - Rachel Hawkins 💜 Call Me By Your Name - André Aciman 💜 I Wish You All the Best - Mason Deaver 💜 Mistakes Were Made - Meryl Wilsner 💜 Hang the Moon - Alexandria Bellefleur 💜 Kiss Her Once for Me - Alison Cochrun 💜 The Brightsiders - Jen Wilde

🩷 Wild Beauty - Anna-Marie McLemore 🩷 The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - Victoria Schwab 🩷 Payback's a Witch - Lana Harper 🩷 A Dowry of Blood - S.T. Gibson 🩷 Six of Crows - Leigh Bardugo 🩷 Dark Rise - C.S. Pacat 🩷 If This Gets Out - Sophie Gonzales & Cale Dietrich 🩷 Let's Talk About Love - Claire Kann 🩷 Carry On - Rainbow Rowell

💙 Under the Whispering Door - T.J. Klune 💙 I Kissed Shara Wheeler - Casey McQuiston 💙 Pumpkinheads - Rainbow Rowell 💙 Icebreaker - A.L. Graziadei 💙 This Poison Heart - Kalynn Bayron 💙 A Lot Like Adiós - Alexis Daria 💙 Sorry, Bro - Taleen Voskuni 💙 We Are Okay - Nina LaCour 💙 Count Your Lucky Stars - Alexandria Bellefleur

💜 Hot Dog Girl - Jennifer Dugan 💜 Verona Comics - Jennifer Dugan 💜 They Hate Each Other - Amanda Woody 💜 The Disasters - M.K. England 💜 The Raven Boys - Maggie Stiefvater 💜 You Should See Me in a Crown - Leah Johnson 💜 These Witches Don't Burn - Isabel Sterling 💜 My Dearest Darkest - Kayla Cottingham 💜 City of Shattered Light - Claire Winn

🩷 The Unbroken - C.L. Clark 🩷 Dread Nation - Justina Ireland 🩷 House of Hollow - Krystal Sutherland 🩷 Love & Other Disasters - Anita Kelly 🩷 Ace of Shades - Amanda Foody 🩷 The Lost Girls - Sonia Hartl 🩷 Of Fire and Stars - Audrey Coulthurst 🩷 This Is Kind of an Epic Love Story - Kacen Callender 🩷 Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe - Benjamin Alire Sáenz

💙 If You Still Recognise Me - Cynthia So 💙 Melt With You - Jennifer Dugan 💙 The Charm Offensive - Alison Cochrun 💙 That Summer Feeling - Bridget Morrissey 💙 The Lesbiana's Guide to Catholic School - Sonora Reyes 💙 The Luis Ortega Survival Club - Sonora Reyes 💙 The Fiancée Farce - Alexandria Bellefleur 💙 Flip the Script - Lyla Lee 💙 Role Playing - Cathy Yardley

💜 I Think I Love You - Auriane Desombre 💜 Truly, Madly, Deeply - Alexandria Bellefleur 💜 Gearbreakers - Zoe Hana Mikuta 💜 Finally Fitz - Marisa Kanter 💜 The Spirit Bares Its Teeth - Andrew Joseph White 💜 Margo Zimmerman Gets the Girl - Brianna R. Shrum & Sara Waxelbaum 💜 Late Bloomer - Mazey Eddings 💜 A Darker Shade of Magic - Victoria Schwab 💜 Love at First Set - Jennifer Dugan

[veliseraptor]

December Reading Recap

It's not that late in the month! It's still January!

long-ass post cause I read a lot last month; putting it under a read more to save your dashes.

Feast of Souls and Wings of Wrath by C.S. Friedman. I've really enjoyed this series so far, which has been sitting on my shelf forever because it shares an author with the Coldfire Trilogy, which I love. I read a complaint about it that was criticizing the fact that the male characters are less well developed than the female characters, which is, to be fair, kind of true, but also the female characters are pretty great so I'm not really complaining. It's got some gender issues as one might expect from a early 2000s fantasy series, but fewer than I would've feared, and it's interesting enough in terms of the worldbuilding and story it's telling that I've put in the effort to track down the books (which aren't the easiest to find anymore). Looking forward to reading the last one, slightly delayed by my used copy getting lost in the mail.

Super-History: Comic Book Superheroes and American Society, 1938 to the Present by Jeffrey K. Johnson. I don't know why I keep reading books about superhero comics when they keep disappointing me, but for some reason I do keep doing it. Very shallow analysis and I learned absolutely nothing new from this book. I suspect I spent too much on it. Ah well.

Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh. Me and novellas have a love-hate relationship - when I like them I really like them but a lot of times they don't work for me. I've had this one on my shelf for quite a while and was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it. A lovely little story with the texture of a fairy or folk tale.

Seduced by Story: The Use and Abuse of Narrative by Peter Brooks. This book was interesting but not quite what I was hoping for - I wanted more of a dissection of the way that the tendency to narrativize everything can be problematic (in the academic sense) but I felt like that ended up being less the focus than I wanted it to be, and that there were fewer examples of the trend than there could have been. I think I found the first chapter the most compelling of the five, personally.

When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill. I really enjoyed this book while I was reading it and then read a bunch of critical reviews and was like. Hm. Maybe this wasn't that good after all. So I'm not sure what to make of that - either my own taste is bad or I was just enjoying the ride too much at the time to notice. I suspect the latter might be the case. Not that it was bad, but it was certainly a somewhat shallow and obvious metaphor, and I feel like the return of the dragons halfway through the book ultimately weakened the book as a whole.

Bird Box by Josh Malerman. Not my favorite work of horror but I did love that (a) everything remained unexplained all the way through to the end and (b) the sustaining of tension was impeccably done. I powered through this book in a single plane ride, pretty much, because the pacing dragged me through it without wanting to stop.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo. I've had this novella on my shelf for ages too, and while I didn't love it quite as much as I expected to based on the responses I've seen elsewhere, it was a good one, and actually felt well suited to a novella (which is sometimes my issue with them). I'm going to be picking up the sequel, when I get the chance.

Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier. Apparently this past month was the month of (a) picking up books that'd been sitting unread on my shelf for a while and (b) fantasy books from the early 2000s. I enjoyed this one but wasn't overly impressed by it, on the whole; certainly not enough that I'll be picking up the following in the series, though that's partly because what drew me to this one in the first place was the conceit of the fairy tale retelling. And I will say that, of the fairy tale retellings I've read - and I've read a fair amount - this was one of the better ones.

The Hunter by Tana French. Been a long time since Tana French, and also I always forget how much I like reading mysteries until I read another mystery. Also how much I like Tana French. I really liked this one and I'm glad I finally got around to it.

Orbital by Samantha Harvey. Read this little novel on a recommendation from my father and while it's certainly not my usual fare I'm glad I did. I'm not totally sure what to make of it as a whole but just in terms of the reading experience, and the prose itself, it was a pleasure to read.

The Secret History of Moscow by Ekaterina Sedia. Yet another book that I've been meaning to read for literal years! I don't even remember when I picked it up or why, I think it was sort of an impulse purchase possibly based on a blurb comparison to Neverwhere. I didn't love it but I'm glad I read it just the same - there's definitely something about the texture that reminded me a little of Sergei Lukyanenko's books, which I remember really liking and now kind of want to reread. I wonder how hard those are to find these days.

Black Water Sister by Zen Cho. Definitely one of my favorite books I read last month. Possibly the favorite. I really liked Zen Cho's other work I've read but I think this is my favorite of hers, and definitely comes with a recommendation - also cements that I'm going to be looking for more of her work in the future.

Wonder Woman Unbound: The Curious History of the World's Most Famous Heroine by Tim Hanley. Yes, another history of comic books and another...well, it wasn't as much of a disappointment as the other one, but I still found it fell short of what I wanted, particularly in the analysis of more modern comics. The skating over of Greg Rucka's run felt particularly egregious to me, personally, and I don't think that's just because I really like it. I did learn some things from it, but on the whole found it less than edifying.

The September House by Carissa Orlando. One of my other favorite books of the month and one of the better works of horror I've read in a while - the profoundly unreliable narrator and the gradual reveal of just how unreliable is very well done. I'm not sure that the twist on the twist worked for me - that it wouldn't have been better with just the twist - but I felt the book was well done enough to earn the benefit of the doubt on that front.

American Scary: A History of Horror, from Salem to Stephen King and Beyond by Jeremy Dauber. Better than the last history of American horror I read, but still not particularly outstanding in terms of the actual analysis, and I didn't learn a whole lot that was new from my other readings on the topic.

The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman. I've not read any Lev Grossman before because I heard pretty mixed things about the Magicians Trilogy, but my sister recommended I give this one a try and I'm glad I did. I'm not deep in Arthuriana, and perhaps someone who was would feel differently (and I'm not totally sure how I feel about the ultimate antagonist choice), but I liked the way that it used lesser known/more obscure knights and I'm always a sucker for a good aftermath-of-a-collapse story. I guess that's the post-apocalypse literature fan still in me despite the fact that I haven't read much of that genre recently.

The Husky and His White Cat Shizun: Vol. 7 by Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou. I'm so glad that we've hit this point in this novel. I'm especially glad because it's now passed the point where the human translation stopped so I can actually read something that's not a (cleaned up) machine translation. But mostly I'm glad because this is the point of the story where things really get juicy (for me, specifically). As usual, the next volumes can't come out fast enough (but also please, translators, take your time).

Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space by Adam Higginbotham. I read Midnight in Chernobyl and really liked it, so I was excited to read this one and felt like I was suitably rewarded, despite being loosely familiar with the outlines of the central story. This book went more deeply into the lead up to the Challenger explosion, and how the warning signs were there for many, many years prior to the launch itself. Compellingly written piece of reportage.

Our Dogs, Ourselves: The Story of a Singular Bond by Alexandra Horowitz. I really enjoyed reading the previous book by this author, but I felt this one was a little...I'm not sure. Sentimental? Polemic? About the author's personal feelings rather than a more scientific/information angle? It was more a book of personal essays than anything else and while that might have been fine it wasn't what I was looking for.

Monstress, vol. 9: The Possessed by Marjorie Liu. Every time I read a new volume of this series I feel like I should go back and reread everything that came before. Continues to be That Good, though, and I'm going to be following this one for however long it goes, which still feels like it could either be a while or not that many more volumes. I'm not reading that many graphic novels these days but I'm happy to be keeping up with this one. If I felt like returning to my old vice (single issues) this would definitely be a series I'd follow month by month.

A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes. The entire time I read this book I kept thinking "The Silence of the Girls did it better" and that really, I feel like, sums it up for me. I just wasn't impressed! It wasn't actively bad, didn't contain anything that really pissed me off, but...just felt thoroughly mediocre, and I came out of it not sure what all the fuss was about. So I guess mark another Greek myth retelling down as a disappointment. (And yet, like comic book history, I keep reading them anyway.)

The Fisherman by John Langan. Two whole horror books I actually really liked this month! I've had this one on my list for approximately forever and I feel like it was worth the long wait for me to finally get around to it. I'm a little sad this author doesn't seem to have published anything else, because I would love to read more by him.

The Remaking by Clay McLeod Chapman. On the flip side, horror that was, while not unpleasurable to read, not particularly good. It was very much the definition of "fine." I don't regret the experience of reading it but I wouldn't recommend it either, and probably won't be picking anything else up by the same author.

Black Sun Light My Way by Jo Spurrier. I'm still excited about this series, currently reading the third one, sort of want to make other people read it but (a) it's not that easy to find and (b) I feel funny recommending it for reasons I can't fully articulate. But I definitely have a new terrible blorbo and a new even worse threesome ship and I'm sure there isn't any fanfic. Thank you so much @mongooseland for introducing me to this one.

---

So that's December, in books. Like I said, currently reading North Sun Guide Me Home by Jo Spurrier to finish out that series, and then I'm reading the next volume of QJJ that just came out in translation, and then I'm planning on The Legacy of Kings by C.S. Friedman to finish out that series, and after that...not totally sure. Might go back to trying to rotate through genres, but probably not. Maybe there's some more early 2000s fantasy that's been on my list for a while that I can read. We'll just have to see.

[sapphicreadsdb]

Hi do you by chance have any sapphic fantasy recs? preferably adult fantasy but YA is fine too

sure! tho this could will get quite long... no links, sorry!, bc it was kicking up a fuss with those for some reason

+ = ya

pennyblade by j.l. worrad

lady hotspur by tessa gratton

sofi and the bone song by adrienne tooley (+)

she who became the sun by shelley parker chan

the scapegracers by h.a. clarke (+)

the third daughter by adrienne tooley (+)

the daughters of izdihar by hadeer elsbai

the malevolent seven by sebastien de castell

blackheart knights by laure eve

the warden by daniel m. ford

the unbroken by c.l. clark

dark earth by rebecca stott

witch king by martha wells

scorpica by g.r. macallister

the mirror empire by kameron hurley

now she is witch by kirsty logan

silverglass by j.f. rivkin

the woman who loved the moon and other stories by elizabeth a. lynn

...(this answer is how i discover there's a character limit per block so. doing this in chunks.)

fire logic by laurie j. marks

a restless truth by freya marske

when angels left the old country by sacha lamb (+)

the traitor baru cormorant by seth dickinson

an archive of brightness by kelsey socha

the bladed faith by david dalglish

the winged histories by sofia samatar

dragonoak by sam farren

the forever sea by joshua phillip johnson

into the broken lands by tanya huff

the jasmine throne by tasha suri

daughter of redwinter by ed mcdonald

the last magician by lisa maxwell (+)

the fire opal mechanism by fran wilde

...

the black coast by mike brooks

high times in the low parliament by kelly robson

foundryside by robert jackson bennett

the enterprise of death by jesse bullington

mamo by sas milledge (+)

from dust, a flame by rebecca podos (+)

uncommon charm by emily bergslien & kat weaver

wild and wicked things by francesca may

the unspoken name by a.k. larkwood

brother red by adrian selby

the final strife by saara el-arifi

way of the argosi by sebastien de castell (+)

the bone shard daughter by andrea stewart

ghost wood song by erica waters (+)

into the crooked place by alexandra christo (+)

ashes of the sun by django wexler

the midnight girls by alicia jasinska (+)

the midnight lie by marie rutkoski (+)

the never tilting world by rin chupeco (+)

water horse by melissa scott

...

a master of djinn by p. djeli clark

the good luck girls by charlotte nicole davis (+)

among thieves by m.j. kuhn

black water sister by zen cho

the velocity of revolution by marshall ryan maresca

sweet & bitter magic by adrienne tooley (+)

the dark tide by alicia jasinska (+)

the library of the unwritten by a.j. hackwith

a dark and hollow star by ashley shuttleworth (+)

the chosen and the beautiful by nghi vo

the councillor by e.j. beaton

these feathered flames by alexandra overy (+)

the factory witches of lowell by c.s. malerich

fireheart tiger by aliette de bodard

...

city of lies by sam hawke

bestiary by k-ming chang

the raven and the reindeer by t. kingfisher

the winter duke by claire eliza bartlett (+)

master of poisons by andrea hairston

the empress of salt and fortune by nghi vo

night flowers shirking from the light of the sun by li xing

down comes the night by allison saft (+)

wench by maxine kaplan (+)

girls made of snow and glass by melissa bashardoust (+)

girls of paper and fire by natasha ngan (+)

the impossible contract by k.a. doore

burning roses by s.l. huang

the house of shattered wings by aliette de bodard

not for use in navigation by iona datt sharma

weak heart by ban gilmartin

girl, serpent, thorn by melissa bashardoust (+)

the devil's blade by mark alder

...

we set the dark on fire by tehlor kay mejia (+)

the true queen by zen cho

moontangled by stephanie burgis

a portable shelter by kirsty logan

sing the four quarters by tanya huff

all the bad apples by moira fowley doyle (+)

the drowning eyes by emily foster

the priory of the orange tree by samantha shannon

miranda in milan by katharine duckett

the afterward by e.k. johnston (+)

thorn by anna burke

penhallow amid passing things by iona datt sharma

in the vanishers' palace by aliette de bodard

summer of salt by katrina leno (+)

the gracekeepers by kirsty logan

out of the blue by sophie cameron (+)

black wolves by kate elliott

the circle by sara b. elfgren & mats strandberg (+)

unspoken by sarah rees brennan (+)

thistlefoot by gennarose nethercott

passing strange by ellen klages

(and breathe)

[dk-thrive]

To be happy at home, said Johnson, is the end of all human endeavour.

To be happy at home, said Johnson, is the end of all human endeavour. As long as we are thinking only of natural values we must say that the sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal, or two friends talking over a pint of beer, or a man alone reading a book that interests him; and that all economics, politics, laws, armies, and institutions, save in so far as they prolong and multiply such scenes, are a mere ploughing the sand and sowing the ocean, a meaningless vanity and vexation of spirit.

— C.S. Lewis, from "The Weight of Glory" (Geoffrey Bles, 1949) (via Wait-What?)

[sera-fable]

Thought Provoking Books & Books That Have Important Voices! Pt. 1

1. (Not a title) literally any books on the banned book list. I may have some repeated in my lists but literally all of them!

2. Women Who Run With the Wolves by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estès (self-help/folklore/mythology/social science/feminist)

3. The Girl With Borrowed Wings by Rinsai Rossetti (fantasy/young adult/romance/dysfunctional family)

4. (Not a Title) Any works by Tolkien or C.S. Lewis

5. The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monika Kim (horror/fiction/suspense/feminist/racial issues)

6. Forgotten Home Apothecary by Nicole Apelian (remedies/medicine/health/fitness)

7. The Perfect Bastard by Quinn Carver Johnson (poetry/LGBTQ+)

8. Kindred by Octavia E. Butler (science fiction/psychological fiction/urban fiction/historical fiction/racial issues/gender issues/class)

9. I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jannette McCurdy (memoir/trauma and humor/career and film issues/controlling and abusive parent(s)/woman voice)

10. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (realistic fiction/racial issues/oppression/police brutality/young adult)

[jolieeason]

Bookish Travels: February 2025 Destinations

I saw this meme on It’s All About Books and decided to do it once a month. Many thanks to Yvonne for initially posting this!! This post is what it says: Places I travel to in books each month. Books take you to places you would never get to. Please let me know if you have read these books or traveled to these areas. Countries I visited the most: United States, Canada States/Provinces I…

[ramenwritesss]

Here is the list of banned books in my state

(the ones in white are ones I haven't read yet, the ones in red are the ones I have read, the ones in green are the ones I have seen the movie, and the ones in purple are the ones I have seen and read both the book and the movie)

I ALSO GAVE MY PERSONAL RATING

The Outsiders by S.E Hinton (5/5 -my favorite book-)

Crank by Ellen Hopkins (2/5)

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

Looking for Alaska by John Green

Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (4/5)

Sold by Patrica McCormik

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

Identical by Ellen Hopkins

The Kit Runner by Khaled Hosseini (5/5)

The Handmaid's Tail by Margaret Atwood (3.5/5)

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Tricks by Ellen Hopkins

The Color Purple by Alice Walker (I never finished it)

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe

Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope

All Boy's Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson

Mellisa by Alex Gino (3/5)

1984 by George Orwell (5/5)

The Hate U Give (T.H.U.G) by Angie Thomas (5/5)

Lawn Boy by Johnathan Evison

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie (2/5)

The Diary of a Young Girl: Anne Frank by Anne Frank (5/5)

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, by Jesse Andrews

The Heartstopper Series by Alice Oseman (4/5)

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (4/5)

Go Tell It to The Mountain by James Baldwin

The Boy in The Striped Pajamas by John Boyne (4/5)

Grapes of Wrath by John Steinback (4/5)

Harry Potter Series by J.K Rowling (5/5)

He/She/They by Schuyler Bailar

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle (3/5)

James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson

Native Son by Richard Wright

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah (3/5)

Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (2/5)

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster (4/5) (This was banned due to "Librarians Personal Taste")

Percy Jackson Series by Rick Riordan (2/5)

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Lighting by Dean Koontz (3/5)

The Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson (3.5/5)

The Magician's Nephew by C.S Lewis

Discworld Series by Terry Prachet (Haven't read all of them yet)

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

Drama by Raina Telgemeier

Simon vs The Homosapians Agenda (4/5)

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein (3/5)

They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera (5/5)

"The next time someone tells you 'The Government Wouldn't Do That' oh yes they would"

[bracketsoffear]

Other Leitner Reading List

The full list of submissions for the Unaffiliated Leitner bracket. Bold titles are ones which were accepted to appear in the bracket. Synopses and propaganda can be found below the cut. Be warned, however, that these may contain spoilers!

Allende, Isabel: Ripper

Beauregard, Aron: Playground Borges, Jorge Luis: Averroës's Search Borges, Jorge Luis: El Aleph Bosch, Pseudonymous: The Secret Series Breed-Wrisley, Kira and Scott Cawthon: Five Nights At Freddy's: The Silver Eyes Bulgakov, Mikhail: The Master and Margarita Burroughs, William S.: Naked Lunch Byng, Georgia: Molly Moon's Incredible Book of Hypnotism

Carroll, Lewis: The Hunting of the Snark

Denning, G.S.: Warlock Holmes DeTerlizzi, Tony: The Search for WondLa

El-Mohtar, Amal and Max Gladstone: This Is How You Lose the Time War

Fforde, Jasper: Thursday Next series

Gaiman, Neil & Terry Pratchett: Good Omens Grahame-Smith, Seth: How to Survive a Horror Movie: All the Skills to Dodge the Kills Grimm, Brothers: Grimm's Fairy Tales

Holt, Tom: Doughnut Hussie, Andrew: Homestuck

Johnson, Jeremy Robert: We Live Inside You

Langlois, Amelie C.: The Sister Verse Series Lewis, C.S.: The Silver Chair Lovecraft, H.P.: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath Lubar, David: Weenies series Lyons, Steve: The Crooked World

Nash, Ogden: A Tale of the 13th Floor

Osman, Richard: The Thursday Murder Club

Pinkwater, Daniel: Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars Pirinçci, Akif: Felidae

Rix, Jamie: Grizzly Tales For Gruesome Kids

Scieszka, Jon: The Stinky Cheese Man Shannon, David: No, David! Sims, Jonathan: Thirteen Storeys Skipp, John: Don't Push the Button Stine, R.L.: Goosebumps

Theis, Jim: The Eye of Argon Tokuda-Hall, Maggie: The Mermaid The Witch and The Sea Traditional (German): Der Struwwelpeter Trumbo,  Dalton: Johnny Got His Gun

Van Allsburg, Chris: The Mysteries of Harris Burdick Vasquez, Jhonen: Squee's Wonderful Big Giant Book of Unspeakable Horrors

Allende, Isabel: Ripper

Seventeen-year-old Amanda Martin is fascinated by crime. She is currently obsessed with a game called "Ripper" which she plays online with players from around the world. With the assistance of her beloved grandfather, she guides the group (Sherlock, Esmeralda, Colonel Paddington, and Abatha) in their objective of solve crimes inspired by those of Jack the Ripper. When a series of grisly murders starts taking place in the San Francisco area where she leaves, she is fascinated by then and finds herself steering the group toward solving these real life murders.

But the game stops being fun when her mother, free-spirited Indiana Jackson, goes missing.

Beauregard, Aron: Playground

Three low-income families have been given a handsome retainer to join Geraldine Borden for a day at her cliffside estate. All the parents must do to collect the rest of their money is allow their children to test out the revolutionary playground equipment Geraldine has been working on for decades. But there’s a reason the structures in the bowels of her gothic castle have taken so long to develop—they were never meant to see the light of day.

When a band of dysfunctional children is suddenly thrust into a diabolical realm of violence, they must grow up instantly to have a chance at survival. Will they find a way to put their differences aside, or be swallowed up by the insidious architecture all around them?

Borges, Jorge Luis: Averroës's Search

The story very much reminds me of the domain in MAG183: Monument. "The story imagines the difficulty of Averroës, the famed Islamic philosopher and translator, in translating Aristotle's Poetics because he was not able to understand what a play was, owing to the absence of live theatrical performances from Averroës' cultural milieu, in contrast to that of ancient Greece. In the story, Averroës casually observes some children play-acting, then later hears a traveler ineptly describe an actual theatrical performance he once saw in a distant land, but still fails to understand that the tragedies and comedies of which Aristotle writes are a kind of performance art, rather than merely literature.

The process of writing the story is meant to parallel the events in the story itself; Borges writes in an afterword to the story that his attempt to understand Averroës was as doomed as Averroës's attempt to understand drama. "I felt that the work mocked me, foiled me, thwarted me. I felt that Averroës, trying to imagine what a play is without ever having suspected what a theater is, was no more absurd than I, trying to imagine Averroës yet with no more material than a few snatches from Renan, Lane, and Asín Palacios.""

Borges, Jorge Luis: El Aleph

I am not sure if this counts as it is a collection of short stories, so I will also submit my personal choice that best fits an unaligned Leitner in my opinion. "The title work, "The Aleph", describes a point in space that contains all other spaces at once. The work also presents the idea of infinite time. Borges writes in the original afterword, dated May 3, 1949 (Buenos Aires), that most of the stories belong to the genre of fantasy, mentioning themes such as identity and immortality."

Bosch, Pseudonymous: The Secret Series

The series is about two children who are not named Cass and Max-Ernest. Cass is a survivalist, while Max-Ernest has a condition (though no one knows quite what his condition is). One day, they are swept into the dangerous world of the Terces Society and the Midnight Sun...and the Secret.

Features alchemy, the quest for immortality, time travel, a very Lemony narrator, and the exploration of all five senses.

Breed-Wrisley, Kira and Scott Cawthon: Five Nights At Freddy's: The Silver Eyes

From the creator of the bestselling horror video game series Five Nights at Freddy's.Ten years after the horrific murders at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza that ripped their town apart, Charlie, whose father owned the restaurant, and her childhood friends reunite on the anniversary of the tragedy and find themselves at the old pizza place which had been locked up and abandoned for years. After they discover a way inside, they realize that things are not as they used to be. The four adult-sized animatronic mascots that once entertained patrons have changed. They now have a dark secret . . . and a murderous agenda.

Bulgakov, Mikhail: The Master and Margarita

One hot spring, the devil arrives in Moscow, accompanied by a retinue that includes a beautiful naked witch and an immense talking black cat with a fondness for chess and vodka. The visitors quickly wreak havoc in a city that refuses to believe in either God or Satan. But they also bring peace to two unhappy Muscovites: one is the Master, a writer pilloried for daring to write a novel about Christ and Pontius Pilate; the other is Margarita, who loves the Master so deeply that she is willing literally to go to hell for him.

Burroughs, William S.: Naked Lunch

It follows Bill Lee through Interzone: a surreal, orgiastic wasteland of drugs, depravity, political plots, paranoia, sadistic medical experiments and endless, gnawing addiction. The book is structured as a series of loosely connected vignettes, intended by Burroughs to be read in any order, and the main character takes on various aliases as he travels from the U.S. to Mexico, eventually to Tangier and the dreamlike Interzone. Burroughs wrote in his introduction that "The title means exactly what the words say: naked lunch, a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork."

Could this book be considered as being aligned to the Spiral? Could it be Flesh? I don't know, but it is certainly something or other.

Byng, Georgia: Molly Moon's Incredible Book of Hypnotism

Molly Moon is a British preteen living in a terrible orphanage. Just before her only friend is adopted and moves to America without saying goodbye, she finds a rare book on hypnotism, and gains the ability to hypnotize anyone through eye contact and make them do whatever she wants. She heads off to America to find her friend, hypnotizing people all the way. Meanwhile, a sinister wanna-be hypnotist stalks her... and he is willing to do anything to get the book in his hands.

Sequels deal with further developing psychic powers, including body-hopping, weather control, and even time travel.

Carroll, Lewis: The Hunting of the Snark

An epic poem which hits quite a few different fears; the Hunt is an obvious one, and given the author, so is the Spiral. The sea voyage has elements of Vast, and various characters can be read as Flesh, Stranger, and even Web. The poem seems to end with the Lonely; " He had softly and suddenly vanished away — For the Snark was a Boojum, you see."

Denning, G.S.: Warlock Holmes

A Sherlock Holmes parody in which the titular detective is a rather abstracted mage, Watson is the brains of the outfit, and Gregson and Lestrade are an ogre and a vampire, respectively. Together, they investigate supernatural crime in Victorian England.

DeTerlizzi, Tony: The Search for WondLa

The Search for WondLa is the first book in a trilogy about a human girl, Eva Nine, in a strange and unfamiliar world.

She actually spends a lot of this book believing she is the last of her species surrounded by all sorts of strange creatures she can never quite feel close to (lonely, extinction) while being hunted by a trophy hunter who wants to give her to a mysterious queen.

On why it's Lonely: a large portion of the book is spent with someone she cannot communicate with and feels distant from, alongside the general Lonely vibes of "last human" stories.

On why it's Extinction: This is earth. A long-destroyed earth, specifically (she visits the ruins of NYC, I have proof), and these alien races have moved in now that the humans are all "gone" (complicated). It's heavily implied the earth was destroyed in some nuclear war or natural disaster, with the alien species having restored the earth from a wasteland.

On why it's hunt: she spends the entire book being hunted and being afraid because of that, what more do I need to say?

On why it belongs here: quite the fear cocktail for a children's book, isn't it?

El-Mohtar, Amal and Max Gladstone: This Is How You Lose the Time War

The novel is about two agents on rival sides of a time war, Red and Blue, who are both working to ensure that their respective futures — the highly technological Agency and the biological Garden — come to pass. Despite their opposing organizations, Red and Blue begin exchanging letters across time and space, and develop affection for each other that threatens not only them, but the entire time war.

Fforde, Jasper: Thursday Next series

Thursday Next lives in an Alternate History. In her world, Time Travel, cloning and genetic engineering are commonplace; resurrected dodos are the household pet of choice. The obscenely powerful Goliath Corporation, which nearly singlehandedly reconstructed England after World War II, now runs the country as a virtual police state. And literature, particularly classic literature, is very, very, very Serious Business. Writers are revered with nearly spiritual devotion, controversial claims about books and authors can be criminal, and an entire police squad, the LiteraTecs, exist to keep the literary scene in order. Thursday works for just such a unit in Swindon, with her friend and colleague, the exceedingly polite Bowden Cable.

In the course of rescuing her Gadgeteer Genius uncle Mycroft from international arch-criminal Acheron Hades, a gleefully evil individual with supernatural powers, Thursday discovers the Great Library, a sort of pocket dimension that exists 'behind the scenes' of all works of literature, where all literary characters live. They're self-aware, acting out their roles when a person reads a book but chilling out and living their own lives as soon as they close it. The Great Library is governed by the Council of Genres and kept in line by Jurisfiction, another police force whose task it is to make sure the plot of every book stays the same every time someone reads it. (Insofar as they can.)

Such is the universe of Jasper Fforde's meta-fictional masterpiece, the Thursday Next series. The author hangs a lampshade on everything and anything relating to classic literature, the tropes of police fiction and spy fiction, and even the relationship between a work of fiction and its audience. Heavy on wordplay and puns, the series deals with the tireless heroine's adventures balancing her work as an agent of Jurisfiction in the Great Library and LiteraTec in the outside world, to say nothing of her responsibilities as a wife and mother.

Gaiman, Neil & Terry Pratchett: Good Omens

Blank

Grahame-Smith, Seth: How to Survive a Horror Movie: All the Skills to Dodge the Kills

Every month or so, a new horror movie hits #1 at the box office no wonder there are dozens of new fright films slated for release in 2007. But if you find yourself trapped in one of these movies, there's no need to be afraid. How to Survive a Horror Movie teaches readers how to cope with every kind of horror movie obstacle, from ax-wielding psychopaths to haunted Japanese VHS tapes. Chapters include:

-How to Survive a Night of Babysitting -How to Convince the Skeptical Local Sheriff -How to Perform an Exorcism -How to Tell If You've Been Dead Since the Beginning of the Movie -How to Vanquish a Murderous Doll

Full of illustrated instructions on avoiding ghosts, serial killers, haunted cars, murderous pets, telekinetic prom queens, and countless other hazards, How to Survive a Horror Movie is essential reading for movie buffs of all ages!

Grimm, Brothers: Grimm's Fairy Tales

Can't beat the classics, especially when the original versions feature cannibalism, murder, mutilation, and torture!

Holt, Tom: Doughnut

Multiversal travel is made possible through mathematics and fried dough.

Hussie, Andrew: Homestuck

This thing is a tome of madness, chaos, and early 2000s Internet culture (oops, tautology!)

***

you know why

Johnson, Jeremy Robert: We Live Inside You

"We are within you, and we are growing. Watching. Waiting for your empires to fall. It won't be long now. We are the fear of death that drives you and the terrible hunger that reshapes you in its name. We are the vengeance born from senseless slaughter and the pulsing reptile desire that negates your consciousness. We are the lie on your lips, the collapsing star in your heart, and the still-warm gun in your shaking hands. The illusion of control is all we'll allow you, and no matter what you do... WE LIVE INSIDE YOU"

This book is one of those story collections that everybody should read. In turns fascinating, poignant, scary and all too human, Jeremy Robert Johnson taps into the nightmare psyche that threatens to eat you every moment of your life. Each story highlights another gremlin that snacks on your nerves, tells you things you don't want to hear.

Langlois, Amelie C.: The Sister Verse Series

John, an unstable detective living in an alternate future, is plagued by hallucinations of a malevolent, shapeshifting entity, known as the Lord in White, that haunted his childhood. While he struggles to maintain his grip on reality, he soon discovers that his world is a terrifying illusion designed to make him suffer. Surreal, horrifying, and unflinchingly brutal – enter a world of blood and fear. Enter the Sister Verse.

The series reads like a fever dream. The world reflects the fears of all the characters in the most bizarre way possible, and things continue to unravel the further they go, typically ending in a forest made of liquid meat that surrounds a black hole shaped like a willow with teeth. It is revealed in the first book that the whole reality John and the rest of the cast of characters live in and themselves was created by the Lord in White for his own amusement. The Lord in White is completely aware that it’s in a fictional universe, and is implied to have the power to rewrite parts of the story, being the avatar of the Sister Verse. It often refers to the reader directly, as well as real world occurrences and future in-universe events, to the point that it literally recites lines from the book. And that's just the first book in the series, with the Lovecraftian horror continuing further in the sequels as the past of the Dreadlands is revealed, along with the past of its characters.

Lewis, C.S.: The Silver Chair

"Eustace and Jill escape from the bullies at school through a strange door in the wall, which, for once, is unlocked. It leads to the open moor...or does it? Once again Aslan has a task for the children, and Narnia needs them. Through dangers untold and caverns deep and dark, they pursue the quest that brings them face to face with the evil Witch. She must be defeated if Prince Rillian is to be saved."

Lovecraft, H.P.: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

Uncelebrated writer and illustrious dreamer Randolph Carter dreams three times of a majestic sunset city, but each time he is abruptly snatched away before he can see it up close. When he prays to the gods of dream to reveal the whereabouts of the phantasmal city, they do not answer, and his dreams of the city stop altogether. Undaunted, Carter decides to use all his talents in the dream-world to find the legendary mountain Kadath, where the wiser Earth Gods live, in order to ask them for the location of his beloved sunset city. He initiates a quest through the depths of the Dreamlands, finding the weirdest things and meeting the strangest friends and foes.

Unknowingly to Carter, a powerful entity is bent on making him desist of his quest...

Lubar, David: Weenies series

A series of horror story collections for kids which range from the funny to the weird to the outright twisted.

Lyons, Steve: The Crooked World

Synopsis: The people of the Crooked World lead an idyllic existence.

Take Streaky Bacon, for example. This jovial farmer wants nothing more from life than a huge blunderbuss, with which he can blast away at his crop-stealing nemesis. And then there's Angel Falls, a racing driver with a string of victories to her name. Sure, her trusted guardian might occasionally put on a mask and menace her for her prize money, but that's just life, right? And for Jasper the cat, nothing could be more pleasant than a nice, long nap in his kitchen — so long as that darn mouse doesn't jam his tail into the plug socket again.

But somebody is about to shatter all those lives. Somebody is about to change everything — and it's possible that no one on the Crooked World will ever be happy again.

The Doctor's TARDIS is about to arrive. And when it does... That's all folks!

Propaganda: okay. okay okayokayokkay. I can be normal about this book (a lie). The TARDIS lands on a planet that operates on cartoon logic. The Doctor immediately gets shot in the chest and everyone is very confused when he doesn't immediately heal. The travelers have inadvertently introduced the real world into this Saturday Morning fantasyland, with concepts like death and sex and social inequality. For the first time, people can die permanently. The two-bit villains unite to nuke the heroic characters. The Scooby gang actually do discover the flayed corpse of God. In the middle of it all is the Doctor at maximum Nyarlathotep, fomenting revolution and drastic metaphysical upheaval in his strange, too-real clothes. If nothing else, vote for this book for actually making me cry over the death of Scrappy Fuckin' Doo!

Nash, Ogden: A Tale of the 13th Floor

A poem which warns against murderous retribution and illustrates the hellish fate of killers tied forever to their victims in the afterlife. Link: https://allpoetry.com/A-Tale-Of-The-Thirteenth-Floor

Osman, Richard: The Thursday Murder Club

“In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved murders. But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves. Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before it's too late?”

While it seems like a shoe-in for the Hunt with tracking down who did the crime, the book goes in areas that could consider being touched by the Lonely, the End, and the Eye. After all, this does take place in a retirement village — people die, people are lonely and these four senior citizens want to get to the bottom of this mystery.

Pinkwater, Daniel: Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars

Leonard Neeble has been unhappy since his parents moved from the big city to suburban Kangaroo Park, New Jersey. His new school, Bat Masterson Jr. High, is terrible, and he has no friends since his classmates are snobbish louts who won't be friends with him because he's portly.

Things change once a new student shows up from The Bronx: Alan Mendelsohn, a trollish student who shuts the school down by telling everyone he's from Mars. After they both get suspended for acting out, the two boys journey to Downtown Hogboro, where they start a Mind Control course that teaches them telekinesis and, eventually, how to travel between dimensions.

Pirinçci, Akif: Felidae

Francis is a cat who has moved with his owner to a city in Germany. There, he comes across a mystery involving the murders of several neighborhood cats. Think Warriors, but it is a murder mystery written for adults. It has a lot of Slaughter and Hunt going on, but the killer's motives and backstory would honestly make him a prime Avatar for the Extinction.

The serial killer, Claudandus aka Pascal, is purely motivated by a deep hatred of humans after a traumatic past as the victim of some truly sadistic animal experiments in which he and other cats were used as lab rats, which leads him to try to create a race of "genetically perfect" cats while murdering those he considers to be inferior. He dreams of a future in which humans have been replaced as the dominant species by this future breed of cats, the narration even including an imaginary scenerio of the very last human trying to hide in the ruins of civilization before being hunted down like prey.

Rix, Jamie: Grizzly Tales For Gruesome Kids

A series of cautionary tales for lovers of screams! Getting a haircut? eating spaghetti? Having a birthday party? You may think these all sound like very ordinary things to do. But read on and see just how grizzly they can be!

Scieszka, Jon: The Stinky Cheese Man

it scared the FUCK out of me as a child, I have no idea why and I don't remember what it was about, and just its art style still creeps me out and I'm in my thirties now. That's got to count for something, yeah? ...okay this prolly isn't a great one for the tournament, but if you're struggling to fill in the brackets.

Shannon, David: No, David!

When David Shannon was five years old, he wrote and illustrated his first book. On every page were these words: NO, DAVID! . . . and a picture of David doing things he was not supposed to do.Now David is all grown up. But some things never change. . . .Twenty years after its initial publication, No, David! remains a perennial household favorite, delighting children, parents, and teachers alike. David is a beloved character, whose unabashed good humor, mischievous smile, and laughter-inducing antics underline the love parents have for their children -- even when they misbehave.

Sims, Jonathan: Thirteen Storeys

"You're cordially invited to dinner. Penthouse access is available via the broken freight elevator. Black tie optional.

A dinner party is held in the penthouse of a multimillion-pound development. All the guests are strangers - even to their host, the billionaire owner of the building. None of them know why they were selected to receive his invitation. Whether privileged or deprived, besides a postcode, they share only one thing in common - they've all experienced a shocking disturbance within the building's walls.

By the end of the night, their host is dead, and none of the guests ever said what happened. His death remains one of the biggest unsolved mysteries - until now.

But are you ready for their stories?"

Skipp, John: Don't Push the Button

We all know horror. It's in our face every day. You can try to negotiate the nightmare but total chaos and destruction is just one button-push away.

In this intensely personal collection of short stories, screenplays, and essays, the author walks you through the light and the dark with an unflinching eye. Revealing both the best and worst of us, one laugh and scream at a time.

It ain't pretty. But it's beautiful. Once you go all the way.

Stine, R.L.: Goosebumps

It is a series of horror novels written for very young audiences. The protagonists in these stories are teens or pre-teens who find themselves in frightening circumstances, often involving the supernatural, the paranormal or the occult. The best way to describe these books is that they are The Twilight Zone for pre-adolescents, with a twist at the end of every book (sometimes cruel, sometimes not, sometimes non-existent, which is a twist in and of itself given the series). It has spawned a pair of television series, a video games series, a comic series and merchandise, as well as a pair of feature films.

While the books are written for children and so they might not be that scary, they can still get quite creepy, and you might find one book for every Entity if you search hard enough. The book covers can also get really creepy to look at, too.

Theis, Jim: The Eye of Argon

Described as "the worst fantasy novella ever", The Eye of Argon is a story by then 16 year-old Jim Theis. It's the tale of Grignr, a foul-mouthed barbarian warrior who is trying to escape the dungeons of Evil Overlord Agaphim and rescue a young woman named Carthena from a pagan cult who want to sacrifice her to their idol — a statue with one eye called "The Eye of Argon". (A "scarlet emerald", complete with some interesting plumbing.)

Published in the fanzine OSFAN 7 in 1970, the story is well known for its abundant cliches, shoddy spelling, flat characters, wooden dialogue and overly colourful writing. Every woman is a "wench", eyes are "emerald orbs". Almost nothing is ever "said" — instead it is "queried" or "ejaculated" or "husked" or "stated whimsicoracally". There's an extended scene involving elderly cult priests groping Carthena, and she is described earlier as a "half-naked harlot… with a lithe, opaque nose".

The most widely-known and circulated copy of the story comes to an abrupt and unsatisfactory halt, and for many years it was believed that the ending was lost forever (or even, in some quarters, that the story was never completed). Recent years have seen the separate discoveries of two intact copies of the fanzine in which The Eye of Argon debuted, so it is now known how the tale ends. (With multiple exclamation marks, it turns out.)

At science fiction conventions, The Eye of Argon is now a sort of parlor game. All participants sit in a circle with a hard copy of the story, and the first one starts reading aloud — pronouncing every word as it's misspelled, and including every adjective. When they finally burst into laughter, the copy is passed to the next person. If a person manages to make it through more than a page, the copy is sometimes passed anyway, on the grounds that the reader must have special training as a news anchor.

Tokuda-Hall, Maggie: The Mermaid The Witch and The Sea

Follows mainly two characters – Evelyn, the daughter of a wealthy family, sent off on a ship to an arranged marriage, and Flora, known by the alias Florian, a pirate on said ship. This ship is a conship, as it takes people on long travels only to sell them as slaves. Themes of the vast, stranger, the end, the slaughter, and the desolation are commonly present throughout the book

Traditional (German): Der Struwwelpeter

1845 German children's book filled with cautionary tales. These cautionary tales are more grim than others, however — they often end in death or dismemberment for the child. They are a source of plenty of nightmare fuel, too.

Notable examples: The Dreadful Story of Harriet/Pauline and the Matches - Desolation, she plays with matches and burns to death. The Story of the Wild Huntsman - Hunt, a hare steals a hunter's rifle and eyeglasses and hunts him. The Story of Little Suck-a-Thumb - Flesh(?), Conrad is warned by his mother not to suck his thumbs, but he does anyway. So a tailor appears and snips them off. The Story of Flying Robert - Vast, Robert goes outside during a storm and the wind picks up his umbrella, carrying him off never to be seen again.

Trumbo,  Dalton: Johnny Got His Gun

It follows a young man named Joe Bonham, who, after becoming grievously injured during World War I, is left deaf, blind, dumb, and without any limbs. Throughout the novel, Joe reminisces about the life that he's lost, waxes philosophical about war and conscription, and tries desperately to communicate with the doctors keeping him alive.

The novel is heavily about the horrors of war, which would make it Slaughter, but in Joe's plight there's also another sort of horror: He can't move, he can't see, he can't speak. He is effectively trapped in his own body, a torment that could be but it's not quite Buried. There's also some argument for the Spiral to be there as well, as his condition makes it hard for him and the reader to know when he's awake or when he's dreaming, to say nothing on how the horrible situation he's in affects his sanity.

"I don't know whether I'm alive and dreaming or dead and remembering."

Van Allsburg, Chris: The Mysteries of Harris Burdick

Downloadable PDF: https://mrsgraveswebsite.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/6/8/12686140/the_mysteries_of_harris_burdick.pdf

The Mysteries of Harris Burdick consists of a series of images, ostensibly created by Harris Burdick, a man who has mysteriously disappeared. Each image is accompanied by a title and a single line of text, which encourage readers to create their own stories.

Vasquez, Jhonen: Squee's Wonderful Big Giant Book of Unspeakable Horrors

Squee (named after the sound he makes when he's afraid) is a little boy whose short life is an unending parade of horrors. His parents outwardly detest him to the point where his father watches footage of his birth played in reverse for amusement, and the only kid in school who likes him is the Antichrist, who Squee is terrified of. He has never, ever, ever, had a good dream. Through the course of the book, he is visited by aliens, ghosts, zombies, time travelers and the serial killer next door.

Though Squee is as frightened by all this as anyone else might be, he takes it in his stride with a passive resilience that only a child could possess and the help of Shmee, his teddy bear and 'trauma-sponge.' He gets through the horrors just by being a simple-minded kid. Adults dwell on the past and the future. Kids live squarely in the present, daydream about flying and drink Tang until they forget it all. He takes for granted that the world is scary and just goes to school each day, provided he hasn't been abducted by aliens.

[mmt1983]

Only do what your heart tells you.” ―Princess Diana

“If it’s a good idea, go ahead and do it. It’s much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.” ―Grace Hopper

“I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took an excuse.” ―Florence Nightingale

The most important thing is to try and inspire people so that they can be great in whatever they want to do.” —Kobe Bryant

“Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.” —Helen Keller

“If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more.” —Oprah Winfrey

“If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not doing anything. I’m positive that a doer makes mistakes.” —John Wooden

“Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.” —Lyndon B. Johnson

“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” —William James

“Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” —Theodore Roosevelt

“If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.” —Martin Luther King Jr.

“When you have a dream, you’ve got to grab it and never let go.” —Carol Burnett

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” —C.S. Lewis

“Try to be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud.” —Maya Angelou

“Inspiration comes from within yourself. One has to be positive. When you’re positive, good things happen.” —Deep Roy

“The most wasted of days is one without laughter.” —E. E. Cummings

“It isn’t where you came from. It’s where you’re going that counts.” —Ella Fitzgerald

“Stay close to anything that makes you glad you are alive.” —Hafez

[mediaevalmusereads]

Interesting Retellings

Here's a list of books that are retellings that don't just superficislly tell the same story. These do more interesting things with setting, form, etc.

Greek Myth

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood - inspired by the murdered handmaidens in the Odyssey. Plays with form and explores female rage and pain.

Never Look Back by Lilliam Rivera - YA retelling of Orpheus and Eurydice where Orpheus is an Afro-Latino Bachata player and Eurydice is a Puerto Rican hurricane survivor who can see spirits.

Everything Under by Daisy Johnson - retelling of Oedipus Rex set in modern-day Oxfordshire.

Til We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis - retelling of Cupid and Psyche

Fairy Tales (not fairies - see my separate post)

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter- collection of short stories that puts a feminist spin on classic fairy tales

The Girl in Red by Christina Henry - post-apocalyptic retelling of Red Riding Hood

The Crane Husband by Kelly Barnhill - contemporary retelling of the Crane Wife.

Other Works of Literature

What Moves The Dead by T. Kingfisher - retelling of Edgar Allan Poe's "Fall of the House of Usher"

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver - retelling of David Copperfield set in 1990s Appalachia

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau - retelling of HG Wells's The Island of Doctor Moreau, set in 19th century Mexico

If We Were Villains by ML Rio - various allusions to Shakespeare's plays

Bea Wulf by Zach Weinersmith - retelling of Beowulf but the conflict is between children and adults

A Spark of White Fire by Sangu Mandanna - a sci fi retelling of the Mahabarata

Grendel's Guide to Love and War by AE Kaplan - contemporary YA retelling of Beowulf

The Mere Wife by Maria Dahvana Headley - contemporary retelling of Beowulf

The Refrigerator Monologues by Catherynne Valenti - a bunch of comic book heroines talk about their deaths from the afterlife

Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff - some Lovecraftian retellings from the POV pf Black folks, but also includes references to other lit

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys - imagines Rochester's first marriage from Jane Eyre

Railsea by China Mieville - Railpunk retelling of Moby Dick