A visit to the october country — 2021

*a door creaks open*
*footsteps across wooden boards*
*the skittering of small creatures away from sudden light*

It’s been a while, friends. And in all likelihood, it will be a while again. The sudden explosion of newsletter culture over the past year has made me unwilling to take up too much of your inbox, too much of your time.

But some traditions must go on.

I write to you now from my desk in the October Country, having arrived here last night. I came quietly this year, no big fuss, no big rush — but with a steady approach, like a storm coming over the mountains. Inexorable, as the passage of time always is.

I brought with me a stack of books. Would you like to know which ones?

The 2021 October Country Reading List

  • The Green Man by Kingsley Amis

  • Clay’s Ark by Octavia E. Butler

  • Devil House by John Darnielle

  • The Enchanted by Rene Denfield

  • At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop, translated by Anna Moschovakis

  • Ghosts of the Missing by Kathleen Donohoe

  • The Beast in Aisle 34 by Darrin Doyle

  • The Between by Tananarive Due

  • Contagion by Brian Evenson

  • Strange Beasts of China by Yan Ge, translated by Jeremy Tiang

  • Come Closer by Sara Gran

  • The Return by Rachel Harrison

  • In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes

  • Later by Stephen King

  • Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan le Fanu, edited by Carmen Maria Machado

  • Goblin by Josh Malerman

  • Reprieve by James Han Mattson

  • The Gold Persimmon by Lindsay Merbaum

  • This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno

  • After Me Comes The Flood by Sarah Perry

  • The Rim of the Morning: Two Tales of Cosmic Horror by William Sloane

  • To Drown in Dark Water by Steve Toase

  • The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward

  • The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld

  • We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, translated by Bela Shayevich