While January felt unusually long, February went by perhaps entirely too fast. I am getting sick of all the snow, cold temperatures, and darkness though, so I’m not too aggrieved by it. I think I got so carried away in January with buying books that I could’ve sworn I picked up many more this past month too, but it seems that’s not the case. I definitely indulged a little, but I actually showed some restraint while also taking a chance on some books.

Let’s see what I’ve got for this month.

New Books

This pair of “Olive editions” I picked up while on a trip out of town with my friends. We were on an altogether more serious errand, but on the way back decided to stop at a mall to check things out and experience some levity. I’m quite fond of the cover art on these limited edition books, the first I ever picked up being The Thief of Always by Clive Barker. When the Reckoning Comes by LaTanya McQueen especially stood out to me as a striking cover, and it also served as a read for Black History Month, as the topic of last month’s book discussion at the library was Celebrating Black Authors and I was incidentally lacking in any relevant authors from the recent books I’d read. At the same time I decided to pick up Bird Box by Josh Malerman as well because I simply love the cover and I’ve been meaning to read Malerman’s work for a while now. This book wouldn’t have been my first choice, but a great cover won the day for it in the end (the affordability of these editions certainly helped too).

Vermis III: Old Curses & Buried Horrors by Plastiboo is a books I had preordered a few months ago. I love the Vermis books—art books presented as guides to a dungeon-crawler video game that never existed—so picking up a new one is simply reflex at this point. I don’t know how many more of these Plastiboo intends to make, but I’m still eager for more, though I would respect if a trio of books is where they stop. Also, and I can’t decided if I’m amused or irritated by this, but each volume has had different dimensions from the last. Maybe that means nothing to you, but I’m pretty sure that’s a crime of some sort.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain is a book I never really expected to pick up. I don’t read a lot of American classics in general, to be honest, least of all before 1900. However, it being an earlier literary example of a story where the protagonist is transported from our normal everyday world to an unfamiliar place, or an “isekai” as it is called in Japan and has become a term in use here, made me curious enough to pick it up, especially as I found this copy for only a few dollars at a thrift store.

Novel Discoveries

Diaries of Note by Shaun Usher caught my eye on another blog’s WWW post sometime last month. Essentially, it collects diary entries from various notable figures from history and the modern era, one entry for each day of the year. Feels like it would be a good curiosity as a read that might serve as a launching off point to learn more about these people, their work, and their lives.

Uri Tupka and the Gods by Mike Mignola and Dave Stewart is a new graphic novel from the creator of Hellboy, though I don’t believe this book is connected to that continuity. I believe this is actually the second book in a new series, which I need to start, but seeing this pop up in my feeds had it wind up on my to-read shelf.

The Aleph and Other Stories by Jorge Luis Borges is magical realism collection first published in 1945 by a Spanish author I’d never heard of before. I believe this land in the recommendations tab on my Goodreads. I’ll admit, the cover art on this Penguin Classics edition is what drew me to it, which perhaps isn’t fair because the art probably has no relation to the content, but the summary promises strangeness suitable to my tastes. If I don’t end up picking it up, I’ll at least try to find it at the library.

---

Until next time, thank you for reading!