Yesteryear

Written by: Caro Claire Burke

First line: This is the last day of the life I imagined for myself. 

Why you should read this book: Natalie has always known that everyone around her is stupid, and that her beliefs about marriage and family and femininity are the only intelligent ways to view those concepts, so naturally, when her marriage falters after the birth of her first child, she focuses increasingly on creating a media empire based on her identity as a "trad wife," showcasing a perfect farm life based on conservative ideals. But Natalie's perfect world is shattered when she wakes up mysteriously transported to some strange nineteenth century farm, held hostage and forced to serve as a wife and mother to a husband and children who are sort of like her real husband and children on land that is a lot like her actual home, but not quite. Told in a series of flashbacks, Natalie's journey exposes the dark side of the lifestyle and the hypocrisy of the young women influencers promoting it. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: Natalie is an utterly irredeemable character, smug and self-righteous with zero self-awareness, an unreliable narrator who absolutely deserves every awful thing that happens to her, which is interesting to read, but an unusual way to write a protagonist. 

A Green Glow on the Horizon: Tales from the National Association of Tourist Attraction Survivors

 Written by: Dawn Burns

First line: This is the story I'm learning to tell.

Why you should read this book: Beneath the structure of these surreal fictions, linked by the premise that  roadside tourist attractions leave bruises upon those who don't have the luxury of simply passing through the amusement, lies a series of hard truths about parents and children, and the disconnect and betrayal that comes from irrational adult beliefs that are too rigid to accommodate "sensitive" children. Metaphorically examining religious trauma through a uniquely American fairy tale lens, these stories showcase the reluctantly expressed pain of those (usually daughters) who feel diminished in the face of others' (usually their mother's) obsessions with strange, unyielding ideals that do not serve unbelieving children. From Roswell, New Mexico to Pedro's South of the Border in South Carolina, Iowa's Corn Palace, Arizona's The Thing to The Fort Wayne Children's Zoo, and even stranger settings, surprising locations lead to surprising maladies, anger, introspection, and sometimes, recovery, and redemption.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You know your teenager is wrong about their own identity, needs, and beliefs, and if you just keep ignoring what she wants, she'll get better. 

Consumed, Reduced to Beautiful Ashes

Written by: Linda Addison

First line: Consumed, reduced to ashes,/beautiful grey,/light as angel wings

Why you should read this book: From the award-winning author, a poetry collection that is equal parts creepy and intense. These poems speak of death, of our fear of it, of the comfort of its inevitability, but also of love, and longing, and the knowledge that from ashes new things may grow. Addison's precise and loving use of language recreates the world in her image, with the knowledge that there is no darkness without light and no light without darkness, a balance that humanity must embrace, because we can never escape it. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You prefer poems that rhyme and paint pretty pictures.

American Oz

Written by: Michael Sean Comerford

First line: Rose Dog's eyes fixed on me as he danced around the trailer in agony.

Why you should read this book: Recently divorced and spoiling for adventure, the author (age 53) resolves to spend a year working as a carnie--building, running, and tearing down rides, sleeping in terrible conditions, getting paid under minimum wage, eating on a dollar a day--in order to write a book about this hidden American culture. Along the way, he meets a fascinating cast of characters, hitchhikes thousands of miles, learns skills and lingo and history that most people will never use, is victimized by criminals, cops, and carnies, and generally Jack Kerouacs his way around the country in a cotton candy fever dream. Anyone who's ever dreamed of running away to a magical and terrible world unlike the place they've always lived will find inspiration (possible to stay home) in this engaging and wonderful memoir.

Why you shouldn't read this book: The life described by the author is magical and also terrible, to the point that it almost feels like he might be punishing himself for some past transgressions related to the end of his marriage, but as the story progresses it become obvious that he is delighted to sleep in the rain on highway on ramps and get hit in the head with giant pieces of hardware and have his life threatened by angry men and be pushed around by cops and so on, and the only person suffering in this story is his elementary-age daughter, who doesn't really understand her dad's journey and only feels his abandonment.  

Dysmorphic Kingdom

Written by: Colleen Chen

First line: She would never be able to look at Nim the same way again. 

Why you should read this book: Part fantasy, part fairy tale, part romance, part adventure, part genre-bending, part sex-farce, constantly surprising, this unusual but delightful story is all about parts: what holds them together, what tears them away from one another. In Vesper's world, women have no rights, and she's finding it progressively more and more difficult to escape an unwanted marriage when she stumbles upon a disembodied penis who can talk and fly as well as perform other tasks more suited to its form. Determined to reunite the member with its rightful owner, Vesper embarks upon a strange journey through a landscape increasingly littered with talking, flying body parts, and she must navigate the confusing obstacles of the royal court, the attentions of men, and her own heart to become the hero scientist she's dreamed of being. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: It's desperately in need of a couple more proofreading passes. 

The Last Unicorn: The Lost Journey

Written by: Peter S. Beagle

First line: The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone.

Why you should read this book: You may have read a book that reminds you of this one, but you've never read anything quite like this, because this is a very early draft of a very popular book, which is not quite as good as the book it eventually became, but stands alone as a story about the confluence of modernity and classical thinking. Our unicorn leaves her forest to search for others of her kind, but she never meets Schmendrick or Haggard or the Red Bull, but instead travels with one or two banished demons, depending on how you count, further and further into the world of men who have no need for or understanding of a unicorn. Although the story sort of fizzles out at the end (Beagle points out, in the afterword, that he was probably trying to write satire despite being anything but a satirist) it takes us to surprising places as it moves with some reckless haste toward its conclusion.

Why you shouldn't read this book: If you haven't read The Last Unicorn you'll likely have no idea what's special about this one. 

The Bye Bye Man

Written by: Robert Damon Schneck

First line: In 1692, while the Devil was leading an assault on the fractious inhabitants of Salem Village, French and Indian raiders were menacing the seaport of Gloucester fifteen miles away.

Why you should read this book: Originally titled The President's Vampire, this book was rebranded after one of the chapters (the least strange and the least true one, in my opinion) was made into a horror film. Otherwise it's a collection of unusual occurrences throughout US history, most of which appear to be simple stories of hoaxes and cons based on some people's inclination to believe in the occult, along with a couple unsolved mysteries. That said, it contains numerous citations, appendixes, and an index, as if it's a real historical work, and, apart from the titular chapter, appears to catalog things that actually happened, reporting both what the gullible believe to have happened and what research suggests realistically could have taken place. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: It doesn't quite cohere; there's not an internal consistency to the chapters, although they are each amusing, standalone anecdotes (except for the last one, which is just silly and made up). 

The Mysteries

Written by: Bill Watterson and John Kascht

First line: Long ago, the forest was dark and deep.

Why you should read this book: With its haunting illustrations and surreal text, it's an allegory about the fear of the unknown, and the respect this fear properly inspires, and the consequences of familiarity replacing that respect with contempt. I think. The main reason to read it is probably the fact that it was written by one of the most popular comic strip artists of the late eighties/early nineties.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Despite appearances, this isn't a kids' book; I'm not really sure what its intended audience is, except for "people who were sad that Bill Watterson stopped drawing Calvin and Hobbes.

Cursed Objects: Strange but True Stories of the World's Most Infamous Items

Written by: J.W. Ocker

First line: I hate to be the one to tell you this, but many seemingly innocuous objects will make your life suck.

Why you should read this book: It's a lightweight and easily consumable catalog of famously cursed items, from the fabulous Hope Diamond to freaky Annabelle doll, along with an assortment of interesting items from around the world. The writing is tongue-in-cheek but the stories are faithfully reported in all their unprovable details, backed up by an extensive bibliography, so you know the author didn't just make this all up. With cartoonish illustrations and healthy skepticism, this book is less creepy and more informative, even if some of the stories are easily tweaked for campfire retellings.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Well, the book itself is also cursed, by the author, but the curse only applies if you steal it.

Buy Cursed Objects here!

Zao Dao Cuisine Chinosie Tales of Food and Life

Translated by: Brandon Kander and Diana Schutz

First line: What? Is something the matter?

Why you should read this book: We are introduced to the numinous and mildly unsettling aesthetic of Chinese wunderkind Zao Dao through six standalone comics that blend the grotesque and the desirable in a world where the line between spirits and humans is thin, malleable, and surprising, and the lines of the brushwork vary in size but are also surprising. As a work translated from Chinese to French to English, there are likely a lot of cultural details that will go over many English readers heads, even with the notes on each story, but with a little thoughtfulness and perhaps a bit more research, many of the ideas become clear. Humanity is revealed in its relationship to other beings, and readers may learn something about their own humanity in their reaction.

Why you shouldn't read this book: There is a lot of consumption of creepy-crawly stuff that may not sit well if you have a nervous stomach.

Buy Zao Dao Cuisine Chinoise here!

The Book of Delights

Written by: Ross Gay

First line: One day last July, feeling delighted and compelled to both wonder about and share that delight, I decided that it might feel nice, even useful, to write a daily essay about something delightful.

Why you should read this book: In the tradition of daily affirmations and daily gratitudes, an award-winning poet seeks to catalog those fleeting moments of delight, which bring sometimes unspeakable joy to a moment, but, unrecorded, often vanish with the passage of time. But these delights (high fives from strangers, Botan rice candy, the reactions you observe in others when you board an airplane carrying a tomato seedling) are immortalized in a book that transcends its stated motive and also examines the intersection of these delights with experiences of racism, death, or similarly undelightful concepts. These mini-essays, 102 of them, allow the reader to dip into the book for just the right sized helping of delight to combat difficult times.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You don't believe in happiness.

Buy The Book of Delights now

The Last Halloween 1: Children

Written by: Abby Howard

First line: Did he die?

Why you should read this book: This is another graphic novel that I originally read in webcomic form, and if you like weird-weird-weird and creepy comics, this is the story for you. The boundary between the worlds of humans and monsters has been breached, and 10-year-old Mona finds herself fighting for her life in the company of the undead just to survive the night and potentially put an end to the terror, but mostly just to not die. It's wacky, and contains graphic depictions of many humans, monsters, and undead creatures dying or being horribly maimed, and it's pretty much a very well illustrated and organized nightmare. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're not into dead, dying, and maimed humans, monsters, and undead.

Buy The Last Halloween 1: Children from Amazon here

Dark Archives: A Librarian's Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin

Written by: Megan Rosenbloom

First line: The brass, wood, and glass cases gave the main exhibition hall of the Mütter Museum a warm and cozy feeling—which was odd, considering it was a room full of corpses.

Why you should read this book: This seems to be the definitive work on the controversial subject of anthropodermic bibliopegy: the art, science, and history of binding books in human leather. Rosenbloom, a medical librarian, finds herself in the strange position of collecting small samples of such books for her colleague to test for authenticity, as it is only very recently in human history that chemical tests could distinguish the origin of a tanned sample of mammalian skin. In her journeys, she delves deeply into the past, particularly into the evolution of medicine and medical ethics, and connects her findings to the present and future of medicine. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: A lot of people automatically assume that this is going to be about Nazi atrocities, but Rosenbloom's research never uncovers a single example of a human-bound book from the Third Reich.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Written by: Lewis Carroll

First line: Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, "and what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations?"

Why you should read this book: Obviously, I have read Alice in Wonderland dozens, perhaps even hundreds of times in my life, but not, apparently, once in the last fifteen years since I've been keeping this blog; Alice was such a formative part of my childhood, so deeply embedding in my psyche that I suppose I didn't need to reread it because it existed inside me (although it's perhaps a little weird that I never read it to my stepdaughter, but she had her own ideas about books and gravitated toward more modern stuff). This is the tale of an inquisitive little girl who falls down a rabbit hole and come out in an altered fantasy world to be ordered around and abused by birds, rabbits, playing cards, and various other unlikely creatures while changing size on a regular basis and never quite understanding the rules of this brave new world. Alice is the basis of much children's fantasy literature and a fair amount of adult content generated in the one hundred fifty years since its original publication, and while some of the references that might have made sense to its original readership have faded into nonsense for today's children, the overall balance of sense to nonsense has remained about the same, as some of Alice's stranger experiences have morphed into common tropes in kids' entertainment. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You enjoy remaining completely unconnected to a shared sense of culture.

Never Grow Up

Written by: Jackie Chan with Zhu Mo 

First line: In 2016, I received an honorary Academy Award for my lifetime achievement in film. 

Why you should read this book: Smart but uncomplicated, fun but meaningful, this is the autobiography of Jackie Chan, martial artist, stuntman, actor, comedian, singer, kidult, everyman, and all around decent human being doing his absolute best and usually succeeding. Arguably the greatest stunt man of his time, almost certainly the most well-known, Chan shares the highlights of his life from his early years at home, through his decade in a strict martial arts boarding school, and following the highs and lows of his career and his personal life, including his hopes, fears, and most dangerous feats. While casting his story in an uplifting light, Chan manages to share both his strengths along with his flaws, pass judgement on mistakes he made as a younger man, and spread his overwhelmingly positive worldview and character with his fans and readers in an eminently readable and enjoyable format. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: Chan is forthcoming about his own foibles, including sexual mishaps, alcohol-fueled mistakes, and other youthful indiscretions. 

The Gift of Fear: Survival Signs That Protect Us from Violence

Written by: Gavin de Becker

First line: He had probably been watching her for a while.

Why you should read this book: Published almost a quarter century ago, this is still the definitive work on the subject of protecting oneself from violence by learning to recognize indicators that a person intends to enact violence upon your person before you get hurt. With detailed explanations of how to assess and evaluate threats on the fly, anecdotal examples from de Becker's years as a security expert, and a clear writing style, he conveys the importance of understanding and trusting ones own instinct and prizing personal safety. An extremely important book, recommended to anyone with any experience of violence in their lives, which is likely the vast majority of the population.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're prone to violence but you don't want anyone to know.

 

VALIS

Written by: Philip K Dick

First line: Horselover Fat's nervous breakdown began the day he got the phonecall from Gloria asking if he had an Nembutals.

Why you should read this book: It took me 30 years and a pandemic to finally get through the first book of this trilogy, in which we meet a depressed, suicidal addict called Horselover Fat (who is also Philip K Dick, who is a character in the story, the narrator of the story, and the author of the story) yanked from his downward spiral by the delivery of a blast of superconcentrated information in the form of a pink light. Despite knowing that it was a science fiction novel, my brain kept insisting that it was merely the narrative of a man's descent into schizophrenia, up until the moment that other characters started to affirm Horselover's "delusions." While it's an unconventional read that makes the reader work hard to follow the arc, the payoff of this story is tremendous.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Without a grounding in world history, world mythology, and psychology, along with a passing knowledge or alchemy, gnosticism, mysticism, and philosophy, it might be hard to follow this narrative.

Hello, My Name Is Octicorn

Written by: Kevin Diller and Justin Love

First line: Hi, everyone, I'm Octi.

Why you should read this book: For everyone who is sui generis but also just like everyone else (or for people who don't know how to handle people like that) a story about a unique being, the product of a loving relationship between an octopus and a unicorn. Octi explains how he is different from unicorns and octopodes, but also how is the same, and why he is, as he is, a great friend. He just wants love and the simple pleasures of life, like cupcakes and a jet ski.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You conform and so does everyone you know.

Nobody's Fool: The Life and Times of Schlitzie the Pinhead

Written by: Bill Griffith

First line: Gather round, folks, gather round!!

Why you should read this book: Here is the never-before told life story of Schlitzie the Pinhead, a microcephalic individual who was sold to a sideshow manager as a child and spent nearly his entire life working as a circus freak. Schlitzie's immortality was cemented by his turn in the 1932 cult classic, Freaks, a film that decades later stirred the imagination of author Bill Griffith, inspiring his popular comic, Zippy the Pinhead (as well as the imagination of the author of this blog, some decades later). Schlitzie's story, reconstructed here through Griffith's research and in the words of those who knew him, is by turns inspiring, heartbreaking, hilarious, and provocative.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You find the very idea of a freak show "loathsome, obscene, grotesque, and bizarre" and would prefer all human anomalies to be safely ensconced within the very high, very thick walls of an asylum.

The Last Temptation

Written by: Neil Gaiman and Michael Zulli

First line: Autumn leaves, yellow and orange and red, tumble down the empty street, blown by a sudden chill gust of October wind.

Why you should read this book: Alice Cooper commissioned Neil Gaiman to write a story for a concept album, which Cooper used as a scaffolding for Lost in America, and which Gaiman then used to write this book about an ordinary boy, Steven, who finds himself in the landscape of Ray Bradbury's October Country. Through the device of a magical theater, Steven finds himself tempted by the devil, who is pretending to be a vaudevillian but who looks an awful lot like Alice Cooper. Promising freedom from fear and boredom and change in exchange for children's lives, the antagonist seems ubiquitous and omnipotent, but, like most Hollywood monsters, he's mostly special effects and optical illusion.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Like the Grand Guignol itself, the story is mostly smoke and mirrors.