I’ve managed to show a fair amount of restraint again this past month. There’s even a book here or there that I almost picked up impulsively but managed to return to the shelf without buying. Alas, I couldn’t help myself in some other cases, but that’s all right. I’m hoping I can get myself in a more comfortable place financially soon such that I don’t have to agonize over buying a brand new book now and again.

Let’s see what broke through my ironclad resolve.

New Books

The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld is a book I’d never heard of before. This is a bit silly, but what actually drew me to it was that it is an Olive Edition, which has them published with similar cover and spine designs so otherwise unrelated books look as if they fit together on a shelf. For some arbitrary reason I can’t quite pin down, I’ve found that I really enjoy the designs of these editions, so when I found one in a thrift store I immediately gravitated toward it. What sealed the deal, however, was learning that the book is a psychological tale about a man imprisoned in an ancient stone prison who finds solace by retreating into his imagination. It’s labeled magical realism, so I’m curious how much his personal fantasies may come to reshape reality.

The Little Book of Dinosaurs by Chys Charles is a book in a series about the natural world that I’ve been passively collecting; at the start of last year I bought one volume about spiders and another about beetles. I’ve been meaning to pick up others, though not very urgently, and my local bookshop happened to have this one in stock, which has had a chokehold on my interest over any of the others. I’d never actually seen it stocked at this shop before either, and there was only one copy, so with some apprehension I decided to pick it up. Who knows when I’d have seen it there again?

Novel Discoveries

Mestra by Madeline Miller is yet another short story by the author being published in a small hardcover edition after Galatea was given the same treatment back in 2022. Unlike Galatea, however, this is a new story by the author and the first new work of fiction she’s put out since Circe back in 2018. I’m not much familiar with Mestra as a figure from Greek mythology, but looking into the myths I’m really intrigued about how this father–daughter dynamic will play out. Besides, I love Miller’s work, so I anticipate enjoying it very much.

The Nudge by Joseph Fink was another book I shelved in the virtual TBR out of a sense of obligation. I’m a big fan of Fink’s work as the co-creator of Welcome to Night Vale and have enjoyed some of his other work outside of that, so I’m happy to read more from him. The story follows a man on the run who is convinced a subtle, malignant force in his life is pushing him and those around him into acting out their worst impulses.

These Lifeless Things by Premee Mohamed is a post-apocalyptic horror novella I recall learning about from a slideshow of book recommendations on social media, but for the life of me I cannot remember where exactly I saw it. There was something about the way this post specifically presented it that caught my eye, but I can’t find it again. Nevertheless, it follows an anthropologist sent into the ruins of an old city that was destroyed during an alien invasion to find out what happened. In this city, he finds the journal of Eva, a survivor trapped without the blockaded city 50 years earlier who details her struggles with survival. Colour me intrigued!

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Until next time, thank you for reading!