The Curator: everything I read in Fall

spooky season to sweata weatha book vibes for your TBR

dispatches from my new couch

welcome bienvenidos bienvenue. It’s a new day and we have a new couch and I could not be more excited about that.

After years of suffering stiff backs from a cheapy Offer Up find appropriate for a college dorm, we happened on a Lovesac showroom and never looked back. If you are also in nesting season, I highly recommend turning your living room into a functional bed (photo evidence at the end). The only thing it’s bad for is staying awake while reading.

I had a wonderful time celebrating spooky season with you these last few weeks. Now, as we transition into sweata weatha, it is the perfect time to share everything I’ve read in fall thus far, spooky or not.

If you will recall, I prescribed myself a spooky season TBR eight long weeks ago. As a mood reader, I faired incredibly well. I finished Lolly Willowes, Beloved, The Keep, Stoner, You Like It Darker, Woodworm, and Carmilla. Sadly, I did not make it through The Familiar or The Reformatory. I failed to anticipate how much Beloved would do me in for Southern/racial horror. I was emotionally wrecked and didn’t think it fair to enter The Reformatory in such a state. As for The Familiar, after attempting the first three chapters three times, I gave it up. Life is too short to read boring historical novels.

Here are the fourteen novels, novellas, memoirs, & essay collections I read in September, October, and a bit of November, categorized by the Enjoyability x Quality matrix. There is a LOT here, which was not my intention - in the future, I will be breaking these roundups into smaller bits so your brain doesn’t explode. But for now, grab a holiday mug, fill it with booze, and start reading cuz this one is girthy.

well, I read it…

The Black Spider by Jeremias Gotthelf, translated by Susan Bernofsky (108 pages)

I wanted something old and spooky. I got that, but I also got a bleak Christian allegory about a bunch of Swedish serfs tortured by a psychotic Knight into choosing evil over good. There was quite a lot of direct moralizing and incomprehensible despair. I am sure there is much to recommend to the right reader, but that person is not me.

Rec for: Only the most conservative of classic lovers.

Graveyard Shift by M.L. Rio (144 pages)

This is my second Rio and also my last. It had promise - a group of outcast college-ish kids meet frequently in a defunct cemetery to smoke. One October night, the discovery of a fresh grave and a bunch of strange happenings leads to the group Scooby-Dooing it up. Unfortunately, this shortie offered no character development, very little intrigue, and said nothing about life or society in general. I want my 15 dollars back.

Rec for: Non-horror readers in the mood for a quick spooky season story to snack on

Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner (222 pages)

Written in 1926 as the first ever Book of the Month Club selection, Lolly Willowes is a slow-paced interiority story of a spinster woman looking for her place in the world and finding it in a rural community of witches. I found it tragically slow but an interesting challenge, as it is the predecessor of so many feminist-adjacent modern witchy reads.

Rec for: Classic readers who are not usually into fantasy; feminist idealists

i’m not even mad, i’m impressed

William by Mason Coile (224 pages)

William is a short, closed-door horror story about a guy (Henry) who creates an AI-powered robot in his attic and what happens when the robot (William) gets its own ideas about the meaning of life. Henry’s agoraphobia keeps him locked inside his technological fortress of a home, both metaphorically and physically. When Henry’s wife, Lily, invites coworkers over for brunch, Henry introduces William to the group, unleashing a danger that no one sees coming. Henry’s first-person narrative locks us inside his own mental prison as he attempts to thwart William, mirroring the functions of the home. The story confronts our assumptions about technological progress as morally good (safer, better, more evolved), proving that new technology simply creates new problems, and human nature is at the core of it all. Because this was a short novel with a limited scope, the plot also felt limited, which made it hard to provide more depth (character development, backgrounds, etc.) that I usually look for in a novel. However, the writing was tight, and the ending was an absolute banger.

Rec for: readers who want a little existential dread with their technological horror

Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (115 pages)

This novella was exciting and strange and felt like discovering the origin story of a beloved character. It’s about a young woman, Laura, living a lonely existence in a European forest (it’s always a forest) and her intriguing new visiting friend Carmilla. Carmilla is pure sexual chaos, exhibiting bizarre symptoms and erratic behavior that eventually reveals a monstrous secret. While it may be about vampires, it's also about the vulnerability of loneliness and the horrors that can lie beneath a beautiful exterior. I honestly could have read a couple hundred more pages of this story - somebody needs to get on that stat!

Rec for: vampire completionists, spooky classic lovers

The Third Gilmore Girl: a Memoir by Kelly Bishop

Man, this was the heartwarming treat I needed mid-spooky season! As a Gilmore Girls and Dirty Dancing lover, I snagged this audiobook the day it came out. It doesn’t make any grand statements about life and love, but it is a genuine journey with a lovely person who made surprisingly feminist choices at a time when I didn’t think that was possible. She gives us insight into the real struggles and triumphs of working in show biz and some behind-the-scenes tea that you have to wait patiently for. Read by Kelly herself, it felt like the story I wish I could have convinced my grandmother to tell before she passed.

Rec for: GG fans, cultural zeitgeist enthusiasts, theater lovers, people with a heart

The White Album: Essays by Joan Didion

I have a mostly written essay on this sitting in my drafts, so I won’t go into a lot of detail, but I love Didion’s writing. She writes about the American Experience, and more interesting to me, the California one. Perhaps it is because of the current State of Our Disunion, but I feel a kinship to Didion’s brutal California malaise in this 1979 collection of essays. I do not have a romanticized view of the 1960s or 70s, perhaps because I’m haunted by the homeless Vietnam vets on my freeway exits and the aftermath of mass incarceration thanks to the war on drugs. Didion weaves the personal as political and the political as narrative with an undercurrent of what is it all for. Her strong narrative voice is invigorating, even if, at times, that voice is problematic. Joan Didion is certainly the main character, and these are her [American] stories.

Rec for: those interested in exploring American culture, the personal essay form, being just a little bit smarter

The Keep by Jennifer Egan

I raced through this early 2000s edgy, strange meta-novel about one man in prison writing a story to stay near his lovely writing teacher and another man who meets his cousin at a medieval castle renovation in Europe. At the castle, the cousins reenact a seminal moment from their childhood as they attempt to wrestle control of the property from the witch in the keep, a tower fortress meant to protect the family from invaders. At the prison, the storyteller falls for his teacher while planning an escape with his eccentric bunkmate. The two stories couldn’t be more different, and yet here they are intertwined in the same novel. While the castle may be haunted by visions and strange old crones, the real horrors stem from what we do to survive. Egan’s narrative voice is singular, blending a modern sensibility with gothic traditions. She interrogates the stories we tell and who is allowed to tell them, and how generational history becomes a part of our physical being. A favorite quote:

I mean that before my time there were eighty generations of von Ausblinkers whose blood now runs in my veins, and they built this castle and lived and fought and died in it. Now their bodies are dust - they’re part of the soil and the trees and even the air we’re breathing this very minute, and I am all of those people. They’re inside me. They are me. There is no separation between us.

I never knew where this was going, but I enjoyed every part of the ride.

Rec for: readers who want a twisty thrilling mystery that also makes you think, gothic vibes mixed with modern problems

You Like It Darker by Stephen King

Classic King. I struggle with short stories because I often struggle with the start of things, and reading this collection means twelve new starts. Yet each time I would think the next story was not going to grip me, within a few minutes, I was hooked. The stories tend towards aggressively masculine but with a heart, grounded but with a metaphysical element. The audio enhanced my reading, as the narrator was perfectly suited to the rugged male outsider vibes. My favorite story was no surprise the longest, “Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream,” which explores who gets believed and why in the face of unexplained phenomena. This is a very accessible collection of horror stories.

Rec for: King lovers, readers who want to dip a toe into King stories without falling into the pool just yet

Jawbone by Monica Ojeda, translated by Sarah Booker (272 pages)

Was desire something like being possessed by a nightmare?

Yes, yes it was, this book was like being possessed by a nightmare thank you for asking. There is a deep layer of appreciation for what this book was doing and then another layer of actually having to read it that didn’t always align for me, and I attribute that to my teenage girl aversion - one that I didn’t know I had until I read Eliza Clark’s Penance, solidified by Jawbone. It takes the girlhood essay to another level. It’s about a group of teenage friends who dare each other to complete increasingly terrifying rituals and their new teacher, a woman consumed by becoming her own dead mother. The two narrators, Fernanda and Miss Clara, are formed each by their tragic, isolating mother-daughter relationships, with their violent collision serving as the climax. I appreciate how Ojeda creates a duality of experience, both characters becoming their own mother figures in shockingly gruesome ways. It’s also about how a lack of maternal love can send girls into the depths of toxic friendships. This novel is heavy on the body horror, which I struggled with at times. Thematically, Jawbone is dense and creates tension from perhaps the most horrific thing of all - absence.

Rec for: readers looking for seriously messed up teenage girls to teach them about obsession, jealousy, mental illness, and all the problems with mothers and daughters.

the audacity [to be this good]

Woodworm by Layla Martinez, translated by Sophie Hughes & Annie McDermott (144 pages)

I will say it up front - this was my favorite read of the season. Even though the next few on this list might be objectively better, Woodworm is everything I want from a spooky read - a haunted house, a weird narrator, generational trauma, revenge, sex, death, and poetic justice.

Rage and a place to lay your head, that’s the most you’ll be left around here.

I found this to be a very powerful example of a novella that says so much with so little. We hate what reminds us of ourselves. Poverty is catching, and poverty is desperation. Power is built on the bodies of women.

I am very eager to deny the poverty of my lineage.

Like Merricat in We Have Always Lived in the Castle, our two unnamed narrators are unreliable, fickle, and desperate to escape the generations of ghosts living within their ancestral home. When the granddaughter loses the child of her rich employer, the two women are forced into a reckoning with their past and the secrets buried in their own walls. I loved it.

Rec for: readers who like their haunted houses with a side of feminist revenge

Stoner by John Williams

The newest edition to the list of my favorite campus novels. The story follows a young midwestern man, William Stoner, as he leaves farm life behind, enters academia, becomes a husband, a father, and a lover. The confluence of these roles forces Stoner to slowly come to terms with his life decisions, limitations, and eternal solitude. It’s quietly beautiful but also slightly dark, even though Stoner himself appears satisfied with his small life. Perhaps that’s because it forces the reader to consider our own smallness and mortality. Quite the existential experience, but I truly, truly loved it.

Rec for: quiet story lovers, dark academia but make it classic vibes, introspective thought seekers

Beloved by Toni Morrison

This book is a testament to craft and language. It’s complex and gorgeous and heartbreaking all at once. There is no question Morrison is a genius, and her writing is layered and creative.

In the lamplight, and over the flames of the cooking stove, their two shadows clashed and crossed on the ceiling like black swords.

She creates a sinister world for Sethe, an escaped prisoner of slavery, and her last remaining child, Denver, living in a home haunted by the ghost of a lost child. As the depths of human depravity are revealed, there is small hope in the facing of your own personal demons. I feel it is best to go into this story lightly prepared, so make sure you are emotionally sturdy before attempting - I certainly sobbed a few times.

Rec for: those wanting a deeper, more complex look at the legacy of American slavery,

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

I wrote a full review of The Haunting of Hill House here (partially paid). What I will say, is that if a book is not resonating with you, put it down immediately and come back when it calls you again. The first time I read The Haunting of Hill House, I got about 60% of the way in and felt I’d had enough. It wasn’t “scary” - all they seemed to do was go down to the study and eat. At the encouragement of many of you readers, I let go of all my expectations and started over on page one. Armed with annotating supplies and refreshed close reading skills, I would let the book do its thing, no judgment. I read the whole shebang in a single weekend. I could spend an entire review just quoting passages. The sentence-level writing is immaculate. The characterization and dialogue are brilliant and strangely hilarious. This is one of those novels that I am positive only gets better with a reread.

Rec for: haunted house lovers, getting lost in a labyrinth of the mind and the soul

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reading 📖→

• oh my god are you tired me of saying The Historian yet because I am!!! When I tell you I have fallen asleep within 15 minutes of reading lately, I mean it. I need an energy drink and some sunlight to wrap this one up.

• Orbital because I have to know about this 2024 Booker winner. I am 25% in and think it’s gorgeous, plot be damned. We will see if anything goes wrong in the next 150 pages.

• Taking my time with Say Nothing, which is getting a lot of attention right now re: the new TV series. I am finding the best reading experience is a combo of the audiobook and then returning to the physical copy to skim the chapters to see what I missed - it is so dense, and his Irish accent is a bit of a trial.

• Starting my Crime and Punishment buddy read with the wonderful

  Martha
  ! My intimidation comes not from the text itself but from my self-perceived inadequacy to contextualize and properly criticize. I may just decide to enjoy it anyway (radical!).

consuming📽️🎧→

• On this week’s episode of Movies I Cried Over as an Adult: Father of the Bride and Father of the Bride Part II. Goddamnit I sobbed over the beauty but also my personal losses. Catharsis is good for you.

• The current season of The Great British Baking Show is keeping me alive to see every new Friday. I love Georgie, but it’s really hard not to root for Dylan I mean COME ON.

book news and restacks📰→

• Laurel
  ‘s perfectly diverse Fall book report (Substack).

• The one time I really want to run around screaming, I liked it first, because as an Irish descendant, I have always been an Irish lit stan: 25 of the best books by Irish authors (Vulture).

• This brutal takedown of Kushner’s Creation Lake - I only take my book criticism from Brandon Taylor now (London Review of Books).

• I live for best-of-the-year photos, and these from Nat Geo are especially moving.

and cats 🐈‍⬛→

the author, her cat, a couch, and some reading beans. we still haven’t figured out the pillow vibe yet.

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let’s chat 👻→

• Have you read anything from my fall list? What did you think?

• What’s the best purchase you’ve made in the last year?

• What are you reading currently, and is it any good?

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in case you missed it 🖤

The Curator: a book for remembering this is all made up

the Subverse fall book preview

The Curator: welcome to the 8 Weeks of Spooky Season

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See you around the bookshelf!