For the most part December was an especially light month. Depending on how the Holidays turned out, I might have been presenting only one new book this month. I was fortunate enough to receive some gift cards for Christmas however, which I have already used quite rigorously. Most of those purchases won’t actually be featured in this post, since they haven’t actually arrived yet. Nevertheless, I did manage one good find in the madhouse that was the Indigo at the Eaton Centre in Toronto before I could stand the crowd no longer, and thanks to a Boxing Day sale at a favourite used store of mine (BMV) I got a couple more.

For the last time in 2018, onto the books!

New Books

The book that stood a chance of being the only one listed this month was Berserk Vol. 17 by Kentaro Miura. It’s a dark fantasy manga series that I used to pick up more regularly years ago. I didn’t start having a problem with it, my interest just inexplicably dropped off. A friend of mine has motivated me to continue on with the series; apparently I left off at the start of her favourite arc. Expect to see more of these, they’re not long reads.

The Man in the Window by Jon Cohen was completely random. Seriously. I found it on the ground outside, fresh snow just starting to cover it. I don’t know what it’s about. I only glanced at the back cover, but who among us could leave the poor thing out in the cold? WHO?

I, Robot by Isaac Asimov is one of the two books I picked up at BMV. My interest in it was sparked by the documentary series James Cameron’s Story of Science Fiction and in looking up copies online I somehow became convinced it was hard to find. Only after getting this copy home and searching the ISBN did I see they are plentiful. I really don’t know where I got the idea. Oh well.

I also bought Alien: Sea of Sorrows by James A. Moore at BMV because I refuse to buy these books brand new. I didn’t hate Out of the Shadows, but the Ripley addition to the story rubbed me the wrong way. I did like elements of it enough to want to read a sequel that doesn’t tie itself so closely to the films though, which this book appears to do. Here’s hoping I have a better time with this one.

The Saturday Night Ghost Club by Craig Davidson I’m excited to read because I love this author and I didn’t realize until months afterward that he had a new book out this year. I don’t know a whole lot about it, except that the protagonist’s uncle is obsessed with the occult, urban myths, and conspiracy theories, and it seems this interest stems from something dark and buried in his past.

Novel Discoveries

The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang I added to my list at the recommendation of a friend. According to him it’s a dark fantasy villain’s quest that combines Chinese history and mythology. I haven’t given it a much closer look than that, but it sounds really good and I trust his recommendation.

Smashed by Junji Ito was shelved for obvious reasons, if you’ve been following my blog over the last year. I just recently heard this new collection is coming out and I’m real excited for it…except that for some reason one of the stories in it was also included in the collection Shiver. Why would you do that, VIZ?

The Power by Naomi Alderman is a book I learned about in another blog’s WWW Wednesday post. From what I understand it’s about a dramatic shift in power dynamics in our society; according to the blurb that involves teenage girls gaining immense physical power. I’m really interested to see the way this develops.

The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan W. Watts is a book I heard about from someone on YouTube named Will Schoder who produces a lot of video essays. In a recent video he spoke about books that changed his life and this one was listed among them. Simply put it seems to be about coping with feelings of instability in an age of anxiety, and the philosophical messages Schoder summarized, though now clouded in my memory, left me curious enough to make a note of this book.

Closing Thoughts

So that’s another year passed (almost). It’s hard to believe this is the twelfth of these posts. I’ve been really pleased with these as something a little lighter to write each month, and I hope those who read them have enjoyed them too. I hope everybody has had a Happy Holidays and has a wonderful New Year.

Thank you for reading!