Valentine's Day Reading List

In the past, I've enjoyed making and sharing playlists for holidays. This Valentine's Day, I thought it might be nice to share a reading list instead. Whether you're in love or heartbroken, romantic or cynical, you can find something to enjoy. 

Classic Love Stories: The Pursuit of Love, Pride and Prejudice, Gone with the Wind, Romeo and Juliet, Breakfast at Tiffany's 

Real-Life Love Stories: Charles and Emma, American Wife

Rock and Roll Love Stories: Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, The Girl in the Song

Erotic: Erotic Poems, The Tropic of Cancer 

Funny: Lysistrata, Bridget Jones's Diary, Just the Tips, The Last Girlfriend on Earth

Heartbreak & Anti-Love: Le Divorce, 101 Poems That Could Save Your Life, The Woman Distroyed

Beyond Romantic Love: Much Loved, The Empathy Exams

December Ins and Outs: What I Bought and Read Last Month

All three books in the inbox this month were Christmas gifts from my dad. He knows me pretty well and is good at picking out books I haven't even seen myself. He also likes to encourage my pie making for somewhat selfish reasons. The candy apple pie I made at Thanksgiving was a particular favorite of his. 

I read Made to Stick for work. It's got really great ideas, but it's definitely overwritten in that way business books often are. Maybe some people needs eight parallel examples of one principle (half of which they've already heard somewhere else), but I'm not one of them. I'm glad I read it, because the ideas really are sound, but it could have easily been condensed down. I understand now that some books are made to be scanned, rather than read closely.

Fictitious Dishes is a fantastic art project, one of those things that so perfectly rings all my bells that it makes me wish I'd thought of it. Dinah Fried styled and photographed all the images in the book based on memorable passages about food and drink from literary classics. 

Everybody's Baby was classic Lydia Netzer fun. An e-book only novella, it didn't have the depth of some of the her novels, but was enjoyable nonetheless. 

Station Eleven was absolutely breathtaking. I read it for book club, and it was unanimously beloved. It's one of those epic stories that mesmerizingly weaves together plots and characters across decades with stories encircling a virus epidemic, an aging actor, a production of King Lear, a reformed paparazzo, a cult leader, and a gorgeous sci-fi comic book. Somehow all the disparate places and characters share similar themes and work beautifully together to tell a universal, human story. 

Four Books to Read if You Love the Podcast Serial

Podcasts are having a major moment right now. At the forefront of that moment is Serial, a This American Life spin-off that has shot to the top of the charts and spawned the first major podcast about a podcast.

It’s a good time to be a podcast nerd. The only problem finding a way to get your Serial fix now that the first season is over. But, as usual, books are here to help obsessive nerds like us. If you’re looking for something to fill the void, you can count on one of these great reads to satisfy your Serial craving. (Looking to satisfy your cereal craving instead? I recommend Honey Nut Cheerios.)

A Case for Solomon: Bobby Dunbar and the Kidnapping That Haunted a Nation by Tal McThenia and Margaret Dunbar Cutright

A Case for Solomon is an expansion of my personal favorite This American Life episode, about a hundred-year-old mystery reexamined. As with Serial, a cast of fascinating people shed light on a puzzling crime and a probably legal injustice. But, in this case, the crime took place generations ago and the question of mistaken identity (one of my personal genre Kryptonites – see also: my second favorite This American Life episode) looms large at the center of the story.

The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm

One of the things that makes Serial so intriguing is that host Sarah Koenig takes listeners along on her journalistic investigation. Beyond being a story about a murder, Serial is a story about a journalist investigating a murder. In The Journalist and the Murderer, Janet Malcom investigates another real-life murder mystery and possible wrongful conviction, but she also examines the ethics of journalism and, like Koenig, lets readers inside her investigative process and comments on her own experience.

The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson

One of the questions that comes up a few times in Serial is the possibility that the man at the center of the story, who seems like very nice person, could instead be a “charming sociopath.” I always recommend this book to anyone with even a passing interesting in psychopathy/sociopathy (the terms are interchangeable). Jon Ronson, himself an occasional contributor to This American Life, explores psychopathy in fascinating and highly entertaining detail. This is one that definitely sticks with year years after reading it.  

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Though it’s not exactly lacking for press, I couldn’t compile a list like this and not include In Cold Blood. A must-read for fans of true-crime and narrative non-fiction, this pioneering masterpiece defined a genre and continues to enrapture readers today. Also, though it pains Capote fans to think of it, new evidence suggests In Cold Blood may be an example of very bad journalistic ethics indeed, which certainly gives historical context to Koenig’s very careful reporting and how far journalism has come in the last half century.

Don’t despair, Serial-addicts. There’s a book to fulfill your desires, whether you’re interested in submerging yourself in another true-crime mystery, delving deep into questions of journalistic ethics, or even exploring the spin-off subject of psychopathy (a spin-off of a spin-off, a podcast about a podcast – things are getting really meta around here!) As usual, books have your back.

November Ins and Outs: What I Bought and Read Last Month

I read Yes Please for book club and enjoyed it a lot. I actually listened to the audiobook, which was great because it has a lot of fun guest stars. I picked up Station Eleven recently because the ebook was on sale, and then someone happened suggested it for our next book-club book. Score!

Ryan bought Charley Harper: An Illustrated Life while we were in New York and has since developed a fierce passion for the local artist. We barely knew anything about him except that his illustrations are all over our public parks, but this collection really shows how incredibly groundbreaking, brilliant, and diverse his work was. He had such an incredible sense for color as well as for the simple shapes that not only create an image but tell a story.

We also read The Ice Dragon together after Ryan requested it from the library. It's a children's book George R.R. Martin published in 1980, and it takes place in a soft of proto-Westeros. It was cool to see him developing some of the same ideas and themes that he would expand on later.

I started Belzhair while in New York the night before seeing Meg Wolitzer at the Bell House in Brooklyn as part of a live taping of NPR's Ask Me Another. I'd read The Interestings already and loved it, so I was optimistic. I ended up loving Belzhair too. It's definitely one of my favorite books of the year. I deeply related to it personally and I think Meg Wolitzer has such a sharp sense of what it feels like to be a teenager and even to just be a human. She was also insanely funny, smart, and entertaining at the Ask Me Another taping. I'm officially a fangirl.

I've been a longtime fangirl of Meghan Daum. I read her debut collection of essays, My Misspent Youth about eight years ago, and it's still one of my favorite books of all time. Since then I've read every book she's published. I liked her second collection and I thought her novel was okay, but nothing compared to My Misspent Youth. Still, I preordered The Unspeakable the moment I heard about it and abandoned all other reading material the moment it came out. Of everything else she's written, this came closest to capturing what I loved so much about My Misspent Youth. Her voice is so distinct and appealing: funny but insightful, full of cultural references and personal revelations. Reading her books is like having the best conversation you've even had with your most interesting friend.

October Ins and Outs: What I Bought and Read Last Month

Before my Anthropologie discount ended, I scooped up a really cool Scandinavian cookbook and a The Little Prince pop-up book I've thought about buying for years.

The only other book I bought in October was a used collection of Poe stories illustrated for children. It's the perfect Halloween book.

Land of Love and Drowning, and Not that Kind of Girl were both book-club reads. Despite its beautiful language, I found Land of Love and Drowning to be very hard to get through. I think I maybe should have read it more slowly and spent more time just sitting with things, but I had to finish it in time for our meeting.

Lena Dunham's book was about why I expected: very smart and funny in parts and somewhat underwhelming in other parts. 

I absolutely tore through Love Me Back. It's beautifully written, but not for anyone who wants a linear story or a tidy ending.

The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay was hugely enjoyable and quite moving. I'm glad I finally got around to reading this often recommended book. 

Cover, Peter Mendelsund's book about his career designing book covers a big ol' tub of candy for anyone who loves design or books. Since I love both, I absolutely reveled in it. 

This is Where I Leave You was quite funny and moving in places, but left me somewhat unsatisfied. I think it's mainly because none of the female characters felt flushed out well enough. I'm still interested to see the movie. 

The Afterlife with Archie was surprisingly substantive. I knew I'd enjoy the art, but I didn't expect to get so hooked into the story. 

I finally finished Sleep Donation. It's taken me forever to get through this tiny novella because it's only available as an ebook and, for whatever reason, I can't download it on my iPad, which means I had to read the whole thing on my phone. Phone reading has worked for me in the past for simpler stories, but it just wasn't conducive to Karen Russell. But, I really wanted to get through it, so I decided to read in on the plane to New York. It was just lovely: very inventive and thought-provoking, and it put me right to sleep. 

September Ins and Outs: What I Bought and Read Last Month

So, I seem to have calmed down a bit in terms of how many books I read this month. I did, however, buy more than usual. I picked up Brooklyn at a Half-Price Books (because I loved his Testament of Mary so much) and I bought Land of Love and Drowning for book club, but the other five are the result of a small shopping spree I took just after hearing I'd landed a great new job. 

I've heard amazing things about The Empathy Exams, and it sounds like exactly the kind of nonfiction I like to read: scientific, but not too technical. Not that Kind of Girl and Tiny Beautiful Things are the other kind of nonfiction I tend to gravitate toward: personal, confessional, funny but insightful.

Not gonna lie, the cover of I am China is what drew me to it, but the story sounded really original and interesting. I've been hearing good things about Love Me Back, which also sports a great cover, and I've enjoyed what I've read so far.

The Color Purple and The Handmaid's Tale are both feminist classics, and I thought that they both lived up to everything I'd heard.

Bad Feminist was both enjoyable and challenging. Even when I didn't fully agree with Roxane Gay, I couldn't help but admire and respect her argument.

Orange is the New Black was an interesting read, and it didn't feel completely redundant to the show. In fact, it answered a lot of questions about the penal system that the show had raised for me without ever fully addressing.

Persuasion was, of course, lovely. While it's not my new Austen favorite, as some people claimed it might become, I found it to be very enjoyable in and of itself. I mean, it's Austen, so there's no going wrong.

August Ins and Outs: What I Bought and Read Last Month

Recently, a couple of books about what happens in our brains when we read have been blowing my mind. The first, What We See When We Read, I've just glanced at and haven't delved into just yet, but a glance is all it takes to know it's gonna be awesome. The other is Understanding Comics, and reading it feels like sitting in on a very, very good art history class. 

I've been enjoying Bad Feminist, but taking it slowly. It's nice sometimes to read essay collections because you can pick them up and put them down. 

As for the Archie Comics, I used to read Archie as a kid, and I recently heard that the new experiments they're doing with this series are worth looking at. So far I'm enjoying the cheesy, familiar world. 

I read In Cold Blood for book club. I liked it a lot, and I'm looking forward to discussing it. It's definitely weird, as a modern reader, to read something billed as nonfiction that has clearly taken a lot of liberties with constructing scenes. Knowing that Capote was really treading new ground here and that fact checking as we know it didn't really exist in the early sixties makes the experience of reading it all the more engrosing. Plus the story is simply riveting.

Austenland was just fine. I enjoyed the movie, so I thought I'd give the book a whirl. Longbourn was kind of mesmerizing. Both put me in the mood for more Austen, so I've started Persuasion for the the first time. 

Mr. Penubra's 24-Hour Bookstore was enchanting, Some of the characters were a little flat, but the concept was a lot of fun. Even though it was thoroughly modern, it kind of reminding me of The Night Circus. 

The Leftovers was really good. I've started watching the show now.

I thought Look At Me was just okay. I enjoyed Jennifer Egan's A Visit From the Goon Squad, though I had some issues with it, especially the last story. But, after this experience, I think she may just not be the writer for me. I really love the way she can parody culture so sharply, but then there are all these other nebulous ends of things that I don't enjoy as much, and they fill up so much of the book.

Spike: Into the Light was fun but not that great. I always enjoy the character, but there just wasn't a lot to the story. 

Boy Snow Bird was really interesting. There were definitely some parts that I found more interesting than others. But, all in all, I enjoyed this thoroughly unique book. 

Happy Handmade Home was disappointing. I'm a fan of A Beautiful Mess, and I liked Elsie and Emma's first book about photography, but this one just left me wanting more substance. It was mostly just ideas, a lot of which were variations on the same idea, without a lot of information about how to execute bigger projects. 

Fangirl absolutely roped me in like almost all of Rainbow Rowell's books before it have. If you like smart romantic comedies with realistic and flawed characters, and you're not reading her stuff yet, you need to get on that, stat!

July Ins and Outs: What I Bought and Read Last Month

July was a month of a lot of reading, probably because I've spent a lot of time listening to audiobooks while painting. I've also been tearing through a lot of home decor books lately.

The month's highlights include The Goldfinch, which I read for book club and which I thought was just amazing. The character Boris definitely gained entry to my list of favorite characters of all time.

I also finally found the time to sit down and tear through the first trade of Sex Criminals, and I was just blown away by how smart, funny, and sexy it was. I can't wait to see more from this series.

All My Friends are Superheroes was another highlight. It's hard to explain this poetic, funny, haunting, romantic, beautiful book. It's not like anything I've even read, and I kind of want to read it again just to spend more time in that world.

Landline was just a perfect romantic comedy of a book. Rainbow Rowell is really killing it. I'm glad I decided to stick with her after my lukewarm reaction to Eleanor and Park because I've liked all her other books much more.

An Untamed State was a real powerhouse. It's got a lot of tough stuff in it, but it was riveting, so I ended up reading it too fast and really messing myself up for a few days.

I got my nonfiction fix from Bonk and Smarter Than You Think, which were both entertaining and informative, exactly what I want nonfiction to be. 

The Magician King was even better than The Magician. I don't want to give anything away, so I'll just say that Lev Grossman once again asks questions and goes places that I've just never seen done before. He's opened so many cans of worms with this series, and is really treading brave, new ground. He explores meta questions of genre in a way I haven't really seen since Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which is not to say it hasn't been done since then, just that I haven't seen it), and I've just been eating it up.

I finally read Interpreter of Maladies, which has been on my TBR list since I read Unaccustomed Earth in college. Now that I've read both short story collections of Jumpa Lahiri's (and loved them), it's time to tackle the novels. I guess I feel the need to take my time with her because I know that I'll love all of it, and I'm comforted by the fact that it's still out there waiting for me. Sometimes you want to gorge yourself of things you love and other times you want to savor them.

Minor disappointments include The Woman Upstairs, The Fever, and Little Failure. The first two had their moments but I've found them to be pretty forgettable in retrospect. The third I read on a whim after enjoying a Fresh Air interview with the author. It was disappointing in that it just wasn't as funny as I expected, and it was kind of meandering in that way memoirs can often be. I'm not giving up on Shteyngart, though, as I suspect I may still enjoy his fiction.

June Ins and Outs: What I Bought and Read Last Month

June reading was full of both triumphs and disappointments.

Dark Places was extremely engrossing; I liked it even better than Gone Girl, which so many people raved about, and I'm eager to read Gillian Flynn's other novel, Sharp Objects.

Nick Hornby's A Long Way Down was every bit as good as About a Boy and High Fidelty (which is to say awesome) with the bonus that I hadn't already seen the movie so I didn't know where the plot was going.

I tore through Astonish Me faster than I've torn through anything in a while. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in ballet and anyone who loves a good multi-generational, multi-narrator story.

I listened to Meryl Streep read The Testament of Mary. It might be the world's perfect audiobook. Her performance is incredible and the language of the book is so poetic and arresting. Plus, the whole thing is only three and a half hours. I listened to it one morning at work while prepping for inventory, and I've been re-listening to it as I fall asleep most nights since then. I keep picturing Streep performing it was a one-woman show. Now that would bring down the house!

Shine Shine Shine, a very strange and strangely beautiful book made me realize that one of my favorite "cross-genres" is "science-fiction-romance". Her and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind are two of my favorite movies, and Shine Shine Shine shares their strange loveliness and sense of futuristic intimacy.

Attachments is a sweet and breezy love story. I really liked how, just as in Rainbow Rowell's Eleanor and Park, the main characters aren't typical romantic-comedy-leading-man-and-woman types. The woman is described several times as having "very wide hips" which the man finds attractive, and his social life is mainly comprised of playing Dungeons and Dragons.

Since Catherine Called Birdy is still one of my favorite books of all time (and another that I like to listen to, tuning in and out, as I fall asleep), I've made an effort lately to check out Karen Cushman's other work. Unfortunately, I found The Midwife's Apprentice to be so boring that I didn't even finish it. Figuring that it might be because that book was aimed at an even younger audience than Catherine Called Birdy, I decided to give Matilda Bone a try. It was better, but it just didn't hit me the way Catherine Called Birdy did. Maybe it's simply because I'm an adult now. But, since I still get a kick out of Catherine Called Birdy, I think it's more likely because Matilda Bone isn't as funny and because the main character struggles to overcome piousness and narrow-mindedness, which isn't as interested as watching Catherine strive to find her place in the world, tempering her wildness without losing herself.

I knew Dead Until Dark would be trashy, but I thought it would be more fun. The camp wasn't tempered with anything more substantial like it is in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and, while I liked the setting, I didn't find any of the characters to be very interesting.

Them was good but didn't blow me away like Ronson's The Psychopath Test did. I'm really looking forward to the book he's working on now about public shaming. I think that topic is right in the zone of what he does really well, and the specificity of it will keep it tighter that Them, a book about extremists (defined as anyone who has been called an "extremist").

While I enjoyed the photos and doodles in Alexa Chung's It, I didn't enjoy the meandering substancelessness. I did, however, enjoy the opportunity to use the word "substancelessness" just now.

We closed on our house on June 25th, so I bought a few decorating books and I've reaquested about 20 more from the library. More to come soon on what our new house and this new stage of life will mean for the blog. I'm excited!

Yummy Recipe: Peanut Butter and Jelly Pie with Saltine Crust

I recently got this book, and I've been really inspired by all her ideas for creative pie flavors. Last week, I made this peanut butter and jelly pie for a family birthday dinner, and it was a big hit.

I only strayed from Allison Kaye's recipe in a couple places: using strawberry jam over her preferred grape and decorating the top of the pie with a drizzle of melted peanut butter instead of chopped peanuts. I think the drizzle looks really cute.

Ingredients:
about 30 saltine crackers
8 tablespoons butter, melted
3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
6 oz. cream cheese
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter (plus another 1/4 cup for garnishing)
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 cup strawberry jelly (or your preferred flavor)

Step 01. Preaheat the over to 350ºF. Grind the crackers to smooth crumbs in the food processor and mix with melted butter. Pat into the bottom of a pie pan. Chill for 10 minutes and then back for 10 minutes.
Step 02. Whip the cream until stiff peaks form. Set aside. Mix together cream cheese, peanut butter, and powdered sugar. Combine with whipped cream until fully blended.
Step 03. Spread peanut butter mixture over crust and chill.
Step 04. Melt jelly in a saucepan over medium-high heat until it is a consistent, liquidy texture throughout. Pour melted jelly over peanut butter mixture and continue to chill pie.
Step 05. Melt remaining 1/4 cup peanut butter until it is a consistent, liquidy texture throughout. Pour into a measuring cup on any vessel with a spout. Drizzle slowly over jelly-covered pie. Continue to chill pie until set. Serve chilled.

May Ins and Outs: What I Bought and Read This Month

This month, I tried to keep my spending in check and read the books I already own, so I only bought a few comics and some audiobooks. Gotta love that Audible subscription. 

I've really enjoyed branching out into comics (beyond just Buffy), and this month I read the first trade and bought the second trade of Y the Last Man. I also read Evelyn Evelyn, the first issue of Saga (which everyone raves about), and the first two trades of Fables, and soon I'm going to read the first trade of Sex Criminals (which I've peeked at enough to know I'm going to really like it).

This month also marked a foray deeper into the works of Mary Roach and John Green. While Roach's Stiff delighted me even more that Packing for Mars and Gulp had, I thought Green's Looking for Alaska was noticeably a first novel. I liked it, but it just wasn't as polished as The Fault in Our Stars. The humor and the heart weren't completely there yet. He's definitely developed as a writer in the last few years. Have read his first and last novel, I'm curious now to see what the ones in the middle are like. 

I finally read The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I liked it, though probably not as much as I would have if I had read it as a teenage. I wouldn't say it's over-hyped; it's just maybe not the perfect book for me at this moment in my life. 

The Magicians has hooked me into a spiral that can only mean more Magicians books and Narnia books to read. I love how Grossman brings a dark nihilism to the question of what real magic would mean in a really unique way that I haven't seen explored in fantasy before.

The Secret History and Skippy Dies were both five-star books for me. It's rare that I discover more than one book I absolutely love in a month, but these both nailed it. They both were suspenseful and had lots of twists and turns as well as unique characters. I couldn't put down The Secret History while I was reading it, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about Skippy Dies since I finished it. I think both make for compelling examples of why some books totally need to be 600 pages long. 

April Ins and Outs: What I Bought and Read This Month

April was a month of varying obsessions for me. The books I read seemed to come in pairs as each lead me to the next.

Oddly, Mary Roach's Gulp, an exploration of the digestive tract, put me in the mood to read about the extreme foodie-ism Dana Goodyear covers in Anything That Moves.

The Dinner, a story of parents dealing with the horror of their son's violence reminded me to read We Need to Talk About Kevin, which has been on my TBR list since I became obsessed with psychopathy after reading The Psychopath Test a couple years ago.

On a lighter note, Sarah Vowell's Hawaiian history, Unfamiliar Fishes put in in the mood to tackle another novel that has long been on my list, The Descendants.

While I was at it, I read Sideways which, like The Descendants, was a movie I enjoyed so much I thought I should give the book a go. This is the reverse order of how I prefer to enjoy film adaptations, but it works almost as well. I went ahead and rented the movie We Need to Talk About Kevin as well as the movie version of Never Let Me Go, both of which I'd been putting off seeing until reading the books.

Never Let Me Go was my book club book last month, and I think I enjoyed it more than anyone else in our group, though not so much as I expected to, given all the raving I've heard from friends who've read it and various voices around the bookternet.

Of the books I acquired last month, I've only starting The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Sex Criminals. So far I'm enjoying both quite a lot.

My Spring Wish List

It feels absolutely nothing like spring outside. March has made this Very Hard Winter, if anything, even harder, with temperatures plunging below zero yet again. And so, even something as small as the scent of a honeysuckle candle gets my thoughts turning to the sunny days that must be ahead.

Still, I find it hard to even think about spring clothing right now. I don't think I can remember a time when I wasn't wearing wool socks and a thermal every day.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Our Christmas Recap (in Photos)

On Christmas Eve, we went to the Fohl Christmas party with Ryan's extended family on his father's side. We did a white elephant gift exchange, played games, and even got a visit from Santa! Ryan spent most of the evening throwing Owen into the air and helping him rescue my Grumpy Cat from a Christmas tree. Oh, Grumpy! He just kept getting stuck in that tree.

When we got home that night, Ryan and I opened each other's gifts in bed. He gave me an amazing plush Vampy Cat that he'd commissioned his brother's girlfriend to make for me months ago. It was so unexpected and thoughtful and perfect! I knitted him some fingerless gloves. It was really hard to find the time to knit them in secret, but I managed to finish them just in time by getting up at 5:00 on Christmas Eve to knit for an hour before work as well as knitting all through my lunch break and rest breaks that day.

On Christmas Day, we visited my grandma in the morning, and then my immediate family came over to our apartment for presents and way too much food. My family gave me a bunch of books from my to-read list as well as a great tribal-print coat, and both seasons of Pushing Daisies on DVD, among other treasures. I felt incredibly spoiled. This was our second year hosting Christmas at our place, and I really enjoyed it. We're hoping that, by next year, we'll have a place big enough that we can host Ryan's family and mine all at once.

For those of you doing the math, yes, I did get two plush cats for Christmas. I also got a thermal hippo in the white elephant gift exchange. I'm pretty excited about it.

All photos by me except group shot. Photo credit: Eric Villegas 

My October Reading List

01. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, 02. Dracula by Bram Stoker, 03. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, 4. Carrie by Stephen King, 05. The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike, 06. Coraline by Neil Gaiman, 07. The Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe

* * *

With my new position at work, I can listen to music, podcasts, and audiobooks all day. Since Ryan works in a medical lab, he's been listening to podcasts at work for years and I've always been jealous. Now that I finally have time consume all the auditory media I want, I've set myself an audiobook-listening project for October.

First, I thought I'd read and reread all the classic horror I can get my hands on. I've never read Dracula, nor have I read Frankenstein in full. While I've read a lot of Poe stories, I haven't read all of them, and there's also The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, an old favorite that I've wanted to revisit for a while now.

If I get through all of those and still have time, I'd like to read a few more-contemporary titles as well. But, if I can't fit them all in, there's always next year.

Is it strange that I don't like horror movies at all but I like classic pieces of horror fiction? I think it's all about the style of the writing; I have such an admiration for the writers on this list. Somehow they can make the horrible beautiful, and that's what makes gothic fiction so special I think.  

Do you like reading scary stories around Halloween? What are your favorites?