Howdy friends. Hope you’re all doing well and ready for warmer weather. I am! Here’s a list of the books I read and enjoyed this winter, while the cold winds were blowing.
Stella Maris by Cormac McCarthy — Not as much of a gut-punch as The Passenger, but man there are some moments that stuck with me, such as the protracted meditation on drowning in Lake Tahoe. And the line, “as long as you are breathing, you can always be more scared.”
The Red-Headed Pilgrim by Kevin Maloney — Real fun adventure here. Actually read it back in the fall, but my review for Free Press came out when book dropped late January. Check it out!
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan — Short, haunting novella set in 1980s Ireland. Recommend you pick it up leading up to Christmas come December.
Birds Aren’t Real by D.T. Robbins — A wild little collection of fiction from the editor of Rejection Letters. Highly recommend if you like getting a little weird with your reading. I had a chance to chat with D.T. back in January about his writing journey and more, which you can read here.
Helpmeet by Naben Rathnum — Short, sick, haunting. Great little period horror I’d been meaning to get to for some time.
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler — Classic LA, baby! After reading through his collected short work, and an interesting little treatise on his work by Frederic Jameson, I re-read the first of Marlowe’s adventures leading up and during a visit to California. In the process, I managed to check out a couple spots that feature in this novel and other Marlowe capers, particularly in and around Santa Monica. Such a great voice! Gonna be digging into the rest of these novels over the course of the year, if I can swing it.
Thunder From a Clear Blue Sky by Justin Bryant — A trippy little novel from a fellow Malarkey writer. Very surreal stuff, finished the bulk of it flying from Palm Springs back to Winnipeg. Rather fitting.
Winners & Losers by Travis Grant — This is a shorty, a novellette if you will, by a northern Alberta writer I’ve come to know over the past few months. Work of ours appeared together in a recent edition of Cowboy Jamboree, and we each sensed a kinship. Excited to see what this guy comes out with next.
The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever — Another technicality here, as I’ve been slowly working my way through this fantastic collection for over two years. But I finished it mid-February. It’s been a fixture of my bedside table for so long, I already can’t wait to return it to that spot sometime down the line. For now, though, there are too many other stories to get to. If you’ve never read Cheever, fix that pronto! He’s a master, alright.
I Would Haunt You If I Could by Seán Padraic Birnie — Dreadfully haunting collection of short British horror stories. I came across Birnie by way of Undertow Publications, and the fact we shared a last name (no relation, that I can tell anyhow) caught my eye. The stories here are top notch. Highly recommend.
Golden Rod by Bram Riddlebarger — A real trip, ooh boy!
Aesthetica by Allie Rowbottom — An unsettling, unsparing look at social media, power, misogyny, trauma, and influencer culture. This one gets under your skin!
Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy — I figured I should start a(nother) re-read of McCarthy’s stuff, to prep for an eventual re-read of The Passenger/Stella Maris. Outer Dark is dark alright. Oh boy. Buckle up!