August was a fairly standard month for buying books; I didn’t get carried away, but I got a fair few more than in July. What’s notable about this past month though is that it includes the biggest plunder of a purchase I’ve ever made. Isn’t that exciting?

Enough suspense, on to the books!

New Books

A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay is a horror novel I’ve been meaning to pick up for a long time. Sometimes, I thought I’d just borrow it from the library; at others, I wanted to buy the full paperback with a nicer cover than this. Thanks to a sale at a thrift story, however, I got this for only a couple of dollars. Will I continue to procrastinate reading it? Only time will tell.

I bought I Wear the Black Hat by Chuck Klosterman on the same thrift store trip. I’m going to be reading this book next, but goodness do I regret the state of it. There was a horrible old sticker on it’s cover, and as you can see it was too stubborn to go quietly. Ironically, I’m now considering covering it up with a more suitable one, but I have no idea what should be on it. Anyway, this book is a bunch of essays about our cultural fixation on villains; it should be quite interesting.

The Adventure Time Encyclopedia by Martin Olson was an impulse purchase from a separate thrift store on a separate day from the above books. I may never read it through all the way, but after rewatching the series this year I’m feeling more strongly about Adventure Time, so I’m happy to have this on my shelf.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas was quite impulsive as well, but it’s a classic I’ve heard a lot about, so I decided to grab this copy with a fairly nice-looking cover; I’ve heard it’s a great revenge story. “It’s not even that thick, really”, I thought to myself, remembering it’s supposed to be quite long. “It’s only 600 pages or so, this isn’t too intimidating” What a fool I had been—A FOOL. This is an abridged copy, and I can’t be having that. I will read the whole, original text or I won’t read it at all. Into the sea with this book. I have no use for it.

Novel Discoveries

I’m going to include The Haar and Maggie’s Grave by David Sodergren together; I learned about this author on TikTok, and it sounds like these books will be a lot of fun. I get the impression that there’s a good pulpy quality to them, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I’m utterly enamoured with the covers. This is what I want to see more and more from horror fiction, please. Of the two, I think it’s likely I will pick up The Haar first to see how I like his work.

I can’t quite remember where I learned about Of Time and Turtles by Sy Montgomery, I only remember that it’s not out just yet. Still, I’ve enjoyed a few nonfiction books about nature now, so I’d really like to check this out, especially since I love reptiles. I recognize this author from a book about octopuses that I’ve been meaning to read too, so that’s a nice connection to a book I already had my eye on.

Closing Thoughts

How do you feel about abridged versions of books? I generally wouldn’t judge somebody for wanting to read one instead of a loftier commitment; I’m just too bothered by the idea of not reading the full text, myself. That’s just not how I want to do things.

I won’t really throw it into the sea (or lake: no seas here). There is a shelf for people to lend each other books at my work. It’s going to go live there from now on.

Until next time, thank you for reading.