As you can see, I’m getting this post for June up a little late. I had the opportunity to go home and visit my family for a few days for Canada Day weekend, so I haven’t really had the opportunity to get it done until now. As usual, I’m somewhat wracking my brain wondering if I’ve forgotten something, but I’m fairly certain I only picked up a couple of books this month. (Upon finishing this sentence, I remembered a third book, so sometimes you should trust those feelings.)

It’s late as is, so let’s move on to the books!

New Books

Vermis I: Lost Dungeons and Forbidden Woods by Plastiboo is a guide book for an old-fashioned dungeon-crawler game that never existed. I learned about this book not too long ago, and as it turned out a new printing was coming out at the end of May. I liked the visual art style and the very idea of it as a work of art too much, so I decided to order one as soon as they became available so I wouldn’t miss out. It includes character classes, lore, level layouts, breakdowns of encounters, and more. It should make for a very unique reading experience, and I really hope they make further volumes.

I also bought a copy of The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, which I mentioned in Novel Discoveries last month. I found a paperback binding of it on Amazon for $6, so I decided to pick it up. In hindsight, I probably should’ve just gone digital with it. The binding is honestly really cheap and feels amateurish. I’ll still happily read it in this form, but if you ever find yourself tempted to buy a single short story as a book, make sure it’s not slapped together like this one.

The book pictured above is Frankenstein: A Cultural History by Susan Tyler Hitchcock, which was actually the first book I picked up in June (then apparently forgot about). I came across it in the book section of a thrift store and decided I was too interested to pass it up. My experience with Kong Unleashed has me feeling like books like this are a bit of a mixed bag, but I’m willing to give this a shot considering Frankenstein is one of my favourite novels and this book at least has the appearance of being more considered, rather than a cash-in on a new movie or something.

Novel Discoveries

Continuing the trend of novels about Greek mythology catching my interest, Ithaca by Claire North is about Penelope’s time in Ithaca while Odysseus is away fighting at Troy, where she is left waiting for him for a long time. A closer look at what she was dealing with while trying to keep her husband’s house together sounds really interesting, especially as it seems that it takes place well after the end of the Trojan War, but still a few years out from Odysseus’s return. I don’t believe I’ve heard of Claire North before now, but I’ll definitely be keeping this book in mind.

Last Days by Adam Nevill is a book I believe I heard about on TikTok. I can’t remember why it was brought up, though it was probably “something, something, the most disturbing book what I ever read”. Nevertheless, the premise of a documentary crew investigating a cult that met a bloody end being plagued by paranormal incidents sounds interesting enough to me that I’d like to keep it in mind.

Paperbacks from Hell by Grady Hendrix is about the history of horror fiction from the 70s and 80s, with their wonderfully pulpy cover art and racy, often gruesome content. Some of these books I’d love to pick up just for their covers alone, though they seem rather hard to find these days. It’s easy enough to watch old horror films, great or otherwise, but it seems fiction like this just falls out of print. I hope this book will be a great way to learn more about them.

This is Where We Talk Things Out by Caitlin Marceau is another horror book I learned about on TikTok, though I’m a little more intrigued by this one, exploring a rocky mother–daughter relationship that runs into trouble of some kind in a remote cabin. I believe this was talked up for being really good as well short (readable in a sitting), so that captures my interest as a relatively slow reader.

Closing Thoughts

I’m finding I have oddly fluctuating feelings about “BookTok”, as sometimes there’s some legitimately great commentary and recommendations, and other times I feel like a book that catches on becomes entirely too over-hyped. Case in point, some buzz about the horror aspects of the original Jurassic Park novel appeared on my feed a while ago, which got me interested in rereading it. I have no regrets about doing that, but that was honestly really played up for effect in those videos; Jurassic Park is a darker novel that its film adaptation, but it is not nearly as close to horror as those videos were making it out to be.

Until next time, thank you for reading.