The Book Snug Podcast
The Book Snug Podcast
S4, Chapter 13: Summerween
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It's the height of summer where we live, but we have an itch for some scary stories. Today we're celebrating Summerween by discussing spooky books that are perfect for beach, cabin or porch reading with our special guest, Mark Yoder. We talk about so many books, movies and shows that we can't stuff them all into the show notes. You'll just have to take your own notes this time.
If you have any suggestions to add to the conversation, hit the Fanmail tab on the Buzzsprout episode webpage or e-mail us. We'd love to hear your summery horror recommendations.
Happy listening!
Podcast episode mentioned:
Chapter 15: 3 Peas in a Pod (Dune by Frank Herbert with Mark Yoder)
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Intro/Outro music: Summer Fling by L-Ray Music
Hello listeners and fellow book lovers. Welcome to The Book Snuck, a bi-weekly conversational podcast about books and the reading life. My name is Julia, and I'm Stephanie. And we're a mother and daughter who love reading and talking about books. The ones we adore and the ones we don't. We're delighted you're here. So grab your favorite hot drink or ice cold beverage and settle in for another cozy, bookish chat.
SPEAKER_03Hi Julia. Hi mom. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. Good. Glad to be here in the book snap. Yeah. Hello, listeners. Hi friends. Welcome to the show. If you're new here, we're so glad that you're joining us. And if you're returning listeners, thank you for coming back. We're so glad you're here. Yeah. I have someone I would like to introduce today. I'd like to introduce Mark Yoder. Yeah. Who is my son, my middle child, Julia's younger brother, but not youngest brother. And he has been on the show before. Yeah, you made us read Dune. I still am bitter about that.
SPEAKER_02Yes, I did make you read Dune.
SPEAKER_03Welcome to the show, Mark.
SPEAKER_02Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's always fun.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I think it'll be a fun discussion today, too. So before we jump into the discussion, why don't we talk about what we're sipping on today? It is summer. It's kind of warm and sticky outside. So what are you drinking, Julia?
SPEAKER_05Water. Though I will say I have a bunch of stuff set in my fridge to make fun drinks. I just didn't get to do that before I got over here. Okay. So like lemonade with a blueberry blueberry syrup or blackberry syrup. Okay. So you just beat me by a couple of hours. So that's what you're looking forward to later in the day. Yes. So now it's just water.
SPEAKER_03What about you, Mark? What are you drinking?
SPEAKER_01I'm just drinking coffee with nothing in it. Coffee. Plain old, plain old. Same, same old coffee. Coffee with coffee.
SPEAKER_03Yep. And I'm having hot tea, just black tea with peach. So that that's what I'm sipping on. Yeah. Not very summery at all. Well, that kind of goes with our theme for today because we are going to be talking about horror stories. And we don't typically think about horror in the summertime. But there is a celebration in the summer called Summer Ween.
SPEAKER_05I don't know if I would call it a celebration. It's almost like a spirit week. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_02Like well, I kind of think of it like Christmas in July, where it's like you're all like halfway, basically. Like it's all yeah. Yeah. Halfway through the year.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Okay. So we have a spirit week. I said celebration, and and what did you say about it? Oh, Christmas in July. Like a halfway there. Yeah. There is a theme called Summer Ween. I know for sure this is on book two. Yeah. But I do believe it's elsewhere as well. Where you take some time in July and you just read horror or thrillers. And I think mystery can even fall under here, but we are gonna focus hard on the horror section of this. Do you read horror? I mean, obviously Mark does because he's our special guest on the show. Yes.
SPEAKER_05What about you, Julia? Well, when I do, it's like not really, is I think my answer.
SPEAKER_03But you like Simone St. James and she does ghost stories.
SPEAKER_05I think what I'm there's a difference between what you read, Mark, and like what I read in terms of horror. And yeah, which I think we'll get into that in our conversations.
SPEAKER_03Okay. I'm the same way. I I mean if horror is a spectrum, the farthest I push it is probably like a little past medium.
SPEAKER_06Okay.
SPEAKER_03I don't like do hardcore horror. I hate body horror. I don't like slasher things. My horror tends to be more on the psychological side.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Let me so when we read What Moves the Dead, that was about that was there were some scenes in that that were starting to push it for me a little bit. And I loved that. So which uh no, I loved it too, but like there were some things. I'm like, this this is as far as I go.
SPEAKER_03Right. That's by T. King Fisher. Yeah. And Mark, if you're not familiar with that, that's a like a play on the fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe.
SPEAKER_05Really good.
SPEAKER_01Okay. What's it called? What moves the dead. Real short moves to the dead. It's a novella. Yeah, keep that in mind.
SPEAKER_03Really good. I have a copy if you want to read it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, probably. Probably.
SPEAKER_03So because this is summer ween time, we thought it would be fun to talk about horror and maybe some of our favorite books to read in the summertime. Because as we were discussing before we started the show, not all horror feels appropriate to be reading in the summertime.
SPEAKER_05Right. Which is what makes my addition to this conversation so minimal. Because a lot of your horror, quote unquote, is fallish. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I definitely have books that I would say are more fall like Dracula won't be showing up on this list for me because that is a fall read. And Mark mentioned The Shining, which is not a summer read either. It's very wintry. So the books that we're going to be talking about, the list that we're going to share with you are going to be books that feel appropriate for the summertime. I'm going to say for me, the setting is summery, it's hot, might be isolated, like desert island kind of things, but you definitely have the feel that it's summertime. How did you pick your books?
SPEAKER_02So mine is a little bit weirder because I have some books in here that scream winter, but for some reason they're just perfect for the summer. Like the I won't I won't get ahead of myself here, but there's a book that I mentioned that the environment is critical to the story. Yes. And it's the antithesis of summer. Okay. And it feels so much better to read it on the beach in the summer than when it's cold outside.
SPEAKER_03I mean, that is true.
SPEAKER_05That is true. Because like I like reading ghost stories on the beach because I'm like, there's no possible way that there's anything freaky behind me because I'm on the beach.
SPEAKER_02That that being said, things I would agree like Dracula, Frankenstein, Gothic horror, stuff like that doesn't feel like it jives quite so well with the summer. But I do think there are times where it's like I I can appreciate reading a cold, scary book in the summer. In the summer.
SPEAKER_03Okay. So hopefully, friends and listeners, this gives you an idea that we're probably going to be all over the place. And our picks are very personal to us, how we view a summer scary book. Before we dive into our list of recommendations, I thought it would be fun just to talk about horror as a genre, give you a definition, and then how horror has progressed across time and how we got to where we are today. So horror is literature, and it is defined as a genre of fiction that should scare, unsettle, or horrify its readers. It often involves a protagonist who faces supernatural or frightening events, along with real life situations that test their courage and knowledge. Horror novels often explore themes such as death, violence, the supernatural, and psychological terror. Fans of horror novels expect certain elements to be present, such as a protagonist who faces a dangerous situation, an antagonist with a sinister motivation, and a setting that amplifies that fear and suspense. And that definition comes from the website The Book Coach, which is a place where you can go if you're trying to be a writer. This person gives you a lot of information about how to write well. I will put a link in the show notes to the website. And then just for history, horror has been around since the beginning of time, basically. The epic of Gilgamesh is considered one of the earliest star stories with horror elements. And then if you just stop and think about it, most of the myths and folk tales that we know have horror elements in them. And I'm thinking specifically of the Greek myths, all the monsters that are well, I would say it's pretty universal.
SPEAKER_02I think a lot of the Hindu myths with like Kali and stuff like that. That stuff is sinister.
SPEAKER_03Yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And that's old. Very old, too.
SPEAKER_03So horror stories have been fascinating people for forever. Then during medieval times, we see this addition of the concept of hell and supernatural forces like demons and the devil and angels. We also see the insertion of dark and eerie settings and then a focus on the macabre. And then in the 18th and 19th centuries, horror actually becomes its own distinct genre. So you don't just have these elements embedded in other stories. The whole point of the story is the scary parts. And we see monsters again coming to the forefront. So Frankenstein, vampires, werewolves, mummies. And then in the 20th century, we're seeing a surge in the horror genre as far as popularity. And then authors like H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King. And then in the late 20th century, we see the introduction of slasher horror. So when I was in middle school, the first horror movie I ever saw was called My Bloody Valentine. Oh man. And that was a slasher movie. So definitely that has come to the forefront.
SPEAKER_02And then it was very there was very much like a 70s and 80s renaissance around horror. And that's where all those terrible horror movies, all those massive franchises of movies come from.
SPEAKER_03And I am blanking on all of them. Freddie Krueger Friday the 13th.
SPEAKER_02Halloween Halloween.
SPEAKER_05Michael Chainsaw Massacre.
SPEAKER_02Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Chainsaw.
SPEAKER_02Pittsal. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Saw.
SPEAKER_02Saw's newer.
SPEAKER_03And it even not that I would really know this, but because I did a little bit of research for the show, that's called Splatter Punk. I did know that.
SPEAKER_02Saw is.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And all those like diabolically horrible body horror things.
SPEAKER_02We'll we'll get into the different types of it. There are, as a fan of horror, I like horror literature much more than I like horror movies. But there are very distinct reasons why. And a lot of those kinds of movies are one, they're not scary to me. And I just don't I don't get the point. I don't understand it.
SPEAKER_03But and they're not visually pleasant to watch. And for me, that's the problem.
SPEAKER_02The other thing that bothers me with them, having watched some of the Saul movies, is there is like basically no story. No, yeah. Like there, like the the the there's no plot, there's hardly a conflict. It's like the whole point is just watching bodies get butchered. Yeah, and it's like I just don't care about that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and then the weirdest piece of trivia I know is that the guy who plays Wesley and the Princess Bride is one of the main characters in the Saul movies.
SPEAKER_02Well, the the guy what's the And that makes me just uncovered.
SPEAKER_05Carrie Ellis, yeah.
SPEAKER_02The guy, the guy that plays Luke in Gilmore Girls is the detective in the Saul movies. Dies a horrible death. Oh yeah. But yeah. Lexi's making me watch Gilmore Girls, and I was like, this guy was in the Saul movies, and it's two completely different types of acting.
SPEAKER_03Oh man. Okay, that's not what we're here for today. I'm just gonna say that, yeah. We we are really not here for the slasher stuff. No. There are now many sub-genres of horror, gothic horror, psychological, supernatural, which would have ghosts, slasher horror, survival horror, splatterpunk, monster horror, cosmic horror, which would be horror that involves space or aliens.
SPEAKER_02Well, it would also be horror. Usually like one of the defining characteristics as a nerd of cosmic horror is like something that's incomprehensible to human beings. That's the point, is like horrors beyond human comprehension. Right. And like people going insane. That's the whole HP Lovecraft. Yes. Like he literally wrote the book on that whole thing. On cosmo.
SPEAKER_05I just read about it. It unlocked a new horror, like a new fear for me.
SPEAKER_03Like yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's like ancient, ancient evil or stuff like that, you know.
SPEAKER_03Or, but that's why space can come into it because you get this alien presence that you don't understand and it can do things you've never seen before. I just read a book called Annihilation by I think it's by Jeff Vandermeer, and that has cosmic horror in it because you have this, you have this area that is doing things that we've never seen before, and things are happening that nobody understands. Yeah. Cosmic horror.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Environmental horror, body horror, and apocalyptic horror, which is end of the world type of things.
SPEAKER_02I would also add in there folk horror.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_02Like the ritual by Adam Levine. Yeah. Like just like horror, horror that's based off of like uh I don't know, very earthen, like pagan. Yeah, that kind of thing. Culty. Yeah. Yeah. I love folk horror.
SPEAKER_03I do too. And it is very horrifying. I remember, okay, here we go. I read a book when I was probably a young adult, and it's called Harvest Home. I can't remember who the author is, but he was an actor and a writer. And it was about this little town in New England, beautiful, quaint, and some very ugly, nasty pagan rituals were going on. And this family moves in and the wife gets drawn into it. And it is what's that called? It's called Harvest Home. Okay, I'll add that to the list. It is definitely worth reading.
SPEAKER_05But so there's a popular book out. I'm gonna say popular because I've seen it many years. Sloughfoot. Yes. For around Halloween. That I know kind of pulls from this idea of folk horror because it's about like things living in the woods that people talk about.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Probably the Beth it's not a book, but the Blair Witch Project is probably the most exemplary thing for me of like folk horror, where it's like they're lost in the woods, there's all this random stuff in the trees, there's dead animals or isn't it? Yeah, that all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. The Harvest Homebook had a lot to do with fertility and rituals around the harvest in the fall time, and it was very spooky.
SPEAKER_05No, thanks.
SPEAKER_03But we aren't talking about fall.
SPEAKER_05Are you adding it right now? Yes.
SPEAKER_03We are talking about the summertime. And do we like to read horror in the summer? And if we do, what kind? So my first question, guys, is why do you like to read horror stories?
SPEAKER_05So I think I should start by saying that for me, horror is ghost stories. Like that's kind of the extent that I do, specifically in the f in the I missed it in the fall, in the summer. And I think that's because summer sunshine, and so I can read without getting scared too much. It stays light longer.
SPEAKER_03So you can read into the evening a little bit more. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mark, why do you like to read horror stories?
SPEAKER_02I I think I like horror because one, it makes you feel things in a different way. Like when you read a romance, it's like you feel happy for the characters, maybe, but horror can be a totally different experience because it's horror.
SPEAKER_03It's intense.
SPEAKER_02I also like reading it and being like, I'm glad I'm not in that situation. I don't know, for me, I just find it to be very entertaining. You know, like I have a very thick skin for actually being scared, and it's just like the stories are interesting. Well-written horror is interesting.
SPEAKER_03I mean you get that adrenaline rush, and then sometimes you get resolutions, sometimes you don't. I I like reading horror. I like that feeling of being unsettled, I like that feeling of dread. I said earlier I don't really like the body horror or the grossness or gore, but I love the psychological type of scariness that you just you just can't believe what's going on, and you would never want to be in that situation.
SPEAKER_02There was like a Stephen King quote before that was something like, My first goal is to terrify you, and if I can't do that, I'll try to horrify you. And if I can't horrify you, then I'll just try to gross you out. And he's like, I'm not above the gross out. Right.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And I could I I could read horror without the gross out parts and be perfectly happy.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02But it just feels like sometimes writing a story that actually like is like the concept is terrifying can be difficult. It can be hard to do, I feel like, to write an actually terrifying story. Yeah. But that's why when you find some that are good, I'm like, that was good. Like it scratches that itch. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I also like horror stories where you're not really, you're not really sure, is this really horror? But you can't stop thinking about how horrible it is or how terrifying that you would never want to be put in that situation or the things that it's making you think about. I think horror does a really good job of like, how do I want to say this? Pressing down on human nature and seeing what comes out of that stress of being in really extreme situations.
SPEAKER_02I I feel like you hit the nail on the head with that. Yeah. And the other thing that I feel like makes really good horror stories is when elements of human nature itself are picked on as being terrifying. Because I think humans are the scariest things ever, you know. And I feel like there are some that I'll talk about in here that are great examples of it of where like pieces of human nature are picked out as being the scary part, you know, whether or not it's it's written as being a monster or some kind of situation or whatever, it's like you understand what the point of it is.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. So I think what I'm finding as you guys are talking is that I don't like reading these stories, but I'd rather watch them as a movie.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_05So like the movie that came out with Harry Stiles and Florence Pugh a couple of years ago.
SPEAKER_02Don't worry, darling.
SPEAKER_05Yes. I loved that movie. But I think if I'd picked that up as a book because it was psychologically unsettling, I would have put it aside and said, I don't like how this is making me feel. Same with like None of This is True by Lisa Jewell. I think if that was a movie, I would enjoy that better than listening to it as a book because that feeling of I don't know what's going on stresses me out to the point it messes like mentally. Yeah. And that's boundaries I don't cross. So it's really interesting how there are stories that I'm okay to watch, but I don't want to read, even if it's like the same thing.
SPEAKER_03Do you think it's because you have to live in the story longer that you can get over all of it quicker with a movie? All that that feeling of dread or unsettledness.
SPEAKER_05I don't I don't know because like if I think about The Woman in Black, like that was one of the scariest books I've ever read. But much like a movie where I can pause it, I can close the book and walk away.
SPEAKER_06Okay.
SPEAKER_05So like I don't, I don't, I don't know what it is. Maybe it's that somebody has already done the imagining for me and I don't have to pull it out of my own head. Okay. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02See, I kind of feel like that books are never as in the moment terrifying as movies are, because with the the visual element for some reason kind of hits that emotional chord a little bit more than reading it. And it's like when you're reading it, things are happening a little bit slower.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And not that books can't be scary, but I don't think that they ever quite hit that that peak that you can get from movies. I agree.
SPEAKER_03Because of the visual aspect. And you have no control over that. You're taking in whatever is given to you.
SPEAKER_02And I said, like I I enjoy some horror movies, but the vast majority of them are so poorly written that it's like that ruins it for me.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Whereas I can read a book that's not as scary, doesn't have the same visual effect that a movie will, obviously, but the story's much better. And I appreciate that more as horror than a movie that is written terribly but has really good special effects or whatever.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah. We've been kind of circling around this next question. We're just gonna flat out say, what are the types of horror that we each gravitate toward? Mark, why don't you go first?
SPEAKER_02I I'm a massive fan of folk horror. I'm a massive fan of cosmic horror. I've read all of HP Lovecraft's writings, which if you know HP Lovecraft, that's a feat because he's not a good writer. He's it's true, he's he he is very creative with his stories, but he he dude cannot write. And Stephen King says that he's like one of my favorite horror authors is HP Lovecraft. He cannot write a scene. It's the most eye-numbingly boring stuff to read.
SPEAKER_03So it's con the concepts.
SPEAKER_02Yes, it was like if you could have taken his stories and had someone actually write them in a way that was intriguing, they would be unbelievable. But so now it's like we have these awesome stories that someone imagined, and it's like these are so good, but he just didn't write them in a way that keeps them interesting. But the concept of cosmic horror I love. I tend to not really be into like body horror as much. I've read it and it's fine, but it it like it's gotta be done in a way that's the best. But I would say cosmic folk and psychological, supernatural, that kind of stuff tends to be what I gravitate towards. Yeah. But I like I really, really like horror stories that have a combination, like where there's elements of multiple different kinds of horror that are in one story.
SPEAKER_05What about you, Julia? I mean, if we're th talking strictly in the summer, it's the ghost stories. So supernatural. Yeah. But if I'm thinking about as a whole and including the fall, I mean I like the werewolf, the vampires, like The more traditional kind of stuff. But yeah, if we're talking about the spectrum again of horror, I'm I'm here on the vanilla side of things. Like a little bit of a ghost story, and that's about it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I I definitely like psychological. I like gothic horror. I like the dark, creepy feeling, the decrepit buildings, the young, innocent protagonist who just blindly walks into this horrible situation. Supernatural. I do like a ghost story now and then. And survival horror. I like that. Monster horror cosmic. So I I read pretty widely. I don't like body horror. I don't want to watch or read anything that's just chopping bodies up. No. But yeah, I I have a pretty wide palette when it comes to horror. Well, why don't we jump into our recommendations? Mark, I I'm looking at our list and I see that you have Stephen King at the top. Obviously. So why don't we just talk about Stephen King? Because I have some books too that I would like to mention.
SPEAKER_01Sure.
SPEAKER_03What do you like about Stephen King?
SPEAKER_02Well, he unlike HP Lovecraft, he knows how to write a scene. And he writes books that you just fly through.
SPEAKER_03He does. He's a good writer.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And he has he had comes up with some very interesting very interesting plots for horror, which I love. Or he he has a really great way of making normal situations horrifying. Like my great example, not maybe not normal situations, but seemingly unsupernatural. Like the book Cujo is a great example of that because it's just a mother and her son that are stuck in a car because a rabid St. Bernard won't let them get out, and it's the hottest weekend of the year.
SPEAKER_05What a unique situation.
SPEAKER_02And they can't, like their car's broke down, it won't turn on. They can't roll the windows down, they can't open the door because the thing is like trying. And that's that is the story. That's an entire book. And you'll read it and go, Wow.
SPEAKER_03That is horrifying.
SPEAKER_02It's horrifying and it's not boring.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_02You know? But so that's one of the things I like about it. But really, it's just that you can like you can pick up a book that looks huge, start reading it, and be like, wow, it's I'm already 600 pages in and I started it yesterday. Yeah, we're disattified. One of the things I like for sure.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, he's definitely an easy read. He's a very skilled writer, and I think people forget that because of the types of stories he writes. Yeah, they just forget that he's a really gifted writer.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So what books of his would you recommend?
SPEAKER_02Number one, first and foremost, for summer, I'm gonna say it, because it has that whole like boyhood friendship summer vacation kind of vibe, which is great. And I think it's one of the I think it's one of the best horror stories ever written. But one of the things that sticks out to me about it is it's kind of like supernatural, cosmic, like monster horror. But some of the most frightening scenes in that book are the depictions of bullying that the kids face from the older kids at the school. And there's I can't remember the one's kid's name, but there's one one of the bullies is just literally a psychopath. And that's like stuff that's the kind of thing where it's like, yeah, the pennywise the clown is the big bad monster, but every scene that has the bullies in it, I'm like, I'm more frightened from that, you know.
SPEAKER_03I remember too, there's a scene, there's child abuse in that book. And I the first time, the only time I read it, I was a teenager, and I just remember reading one particular scene, and it's stuck with me out of that whole book. That scene right there is the one that stuck with me.
SPEAKER_02So I guess in the in the book, the the thing is that Pennywise is kind of this ominous cloud on this town, dairy main, you know, that makes everyone act crazy, which is why the bullies are so bad, why the parents are abusive or whatever else. But it's all the stuff where it's like, this is totally believable for any town. Yeah. And that's part of what makes it so terrifying to me. So that's that's the first Stephen King book. Salem's Lot, it's a vampire story, but it takes place during summer. And it's just a good, it's a good modern vampire story, I feel like. And I just I enjoyed it. I read it very quickly. He writes good characters.
SPEAKER_03I know that gets mentioned a lot as people's favorite Stephen King book.
SPEAKER_02I don't know why. I can't pick out a particular reason why I would think it's a good summer horror book, but uh then again, I don't have stringent criteria. I just thought it's a good Stephen King book, and there's nothing about it that screams like you have to read it in winter or October. And then uh I also have 1922, which is a short story, which is about a man and his wife and son who's like 12 or uh no, he's older than that, he's like 14 or 15, something like that. And they have a farm in the Dust Bowl, and the woman's father dies and leaves her the farm, like they were living on it. And she says, I'm selling it and moving to the city because I don't want to have this farm anymore. And the dad is very much like, you know, all a man has is his land, all this or whatever. So they have they have this big argument or whatever. He ends up him and the son, he gets the son to go along with him, and they kill her. So then he can have the farm, and there's all this stuff that happens. They like throw her body in the well, and then he goes insane, the son does some stuff. Yeah, it's a great, it's a great short story. You will read it's like 150 pages, but you'll read it in a day. It's so good.
SPEAKER_03And it sounds like just what we were discussing, most of what's happening comes out of human behavior.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, yeah, there's nothing supernatural about it. Yeah, there's not no, it's literally just people being terrible. And do but the other thing that's terrible about it is that the like the woman was being terrible, and then the husband was being terrible. It's just like all the you know, it's it's hard to feel bad for one or the other in a way.
SPEAKER_06Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_02Like you're almost rooting for the husband through the book, even though he murdered this woman whose farm it was to begin with. I yeah. Yeah, it's you know, but it's so interesting. But the yeah, the scary part is just people being selfish people, yeah, you know, and then doing horrible things because exactly and dragging their son along into it.
SPEAKER_05Wow. And I would I would definitely agree with that, that some of the scariest scenes I've ever read in books are not something else, not your typical heart, like your monster heart. It's the people doing things to each other. Like that tends to be the freakiest part of any story.
SPEAKER_03Have you ever read any Stephen King Julie? I read Joyland. Oh, you did? I did. Okay.
SPEAKER_02And that's like the least scary one. It is.
SPEAKER_03But you know why? But it's a great one. It's a great one. I actually put it on the list because it is a great summertime read. There is a supernatural element to it, and there is some really creepy stuff that happens. So if you are someone who is not like you don't read horror, but you're open to a mystery. And if you like a spooky mystery, and if you like the aspect of Stephen King of writing coming of age stories, he does this so well. He does coming of age stories for usually young men. And this one is just an excellent example of that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's takes place on the like a beach town.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, beach town in a little like amusement park on the beach. It's a it's an amusement park on the boardwalk. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But Joyland is one of those books that I don't even I don't think I would classify it as horror.
SPEAKER_03No.
SPEAKER_02And when I read it, I was like, Yeah, this is a fine book. And then for some reason, I just can't get it out of my head. I'm like, that's was such a fun story. Like it was so good.
SPEAKER_05It is, it's a good story. I will say, so I have never seen The Shining, but the that book has always been one that's been interesting to me. So if anything of Stephen King, that'd probably be one that I read. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I have it and you can borrow it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I'll let you know when I decide.
SPEAKER_03That would be jumping into the deeper end. I would recommend it. I am gonna recommend a collection of short stories by Stephen King called Skeleton Crew. I forget when it was originally published, it was uh published under another title. But two years later, they came out with the version Skeleton Crew, and I think that's what it's been known by ever since. So there is a what I would call a novella. It's not just a short story, it's almost 200 pages long. It's called The Mist, and it's about this small town in Maine, which is where Stephen King writes frequently. It's the summertime, a big storm has just come through, people are without power, and they need food. So this man and his son go to the grocery store to get food, and while they're there, this mist moves in and you can't see. It's so thick you can't see, and there is more than just the mist in the mist. And when I said about horror taking a situation and like putting pressure on people, and then this extreme situation takes place, and then you see how people react. That's really what this story is about. And it takes on almost like a Lord of the Flies kind of situation where you get these factions and plus they're battling stuff. Yeah. It's a great summer read. And then the other one I recommend is really short. It's called The Raft. It's about these four college kids who go to the lake, they miss a sign, and they get in the water, and there is this oily thing on the surface of the water. Very beautiful, kind of hypnotizing, and stuff happens. So those are my two stories. It's so short, I can't tell you anything else.
SPEAKER_02Talking about that reminded me of I watched an interview of Stephen King with George R.R. Martin, and they were just talking about writing, and they brought started talking about short stories, and Stephen King was talking about the many thousands of short stories that he's thrown out because he couldn't figure them out or whatever. And he's talking about this one where he brought up there's a bathroom in an airport because he says every time you get off a plane, the man always stands there with the baggage while the woman goes to the bathroom because she has to go to the bathroom. And he said, I thought it would be funny if it was like a woman goes in the bathroom and doesn't come out, and the man's just standing there, and then another man shows up, his wife goes into the bathroom, and then she doesn't come out, and then before long there's like 15 guys standing there.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02They're like, What's going on? Another woman goes into the bathroom, the door open, there's there's like a random scream in there or something. And he's like, Sounds good, but I just couldn't figure out what was going on in the bathroom.
SPEAKER_03He couldn't come up with a good enough reason.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I thought that was funny.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I if you have never read Stephen King before and you want to get a taste of what he does, I would recommend one of his short story collections because you'll get a really good feel for how he writes and the types of things that he writes, and they're always entertaining. They're not always scary, but they are always interesting. And I I don't know, I just really enjoy his short stories. I think his skill is highlighted in his short stories.
SPEAKER_02I would agree. The night shift is another good recommendation for short stories.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03So I think that's somebody we all could talk about. They're already on somebody's list. Okay, so you want to just hop in when we get to them? Yeah, I can do that.
SPEAKER_02All right, Mark, why don't you give us another author or why don't we do Shirley Jackson since I saw that was another one that you had listed.
SPEAKER_05And that one I can join in. Okay.
SPEAKER_02So the only Shirley Jackson book that I have read is The Haunting of Hill House, but that's put her on the list. But I'd like to read her other books. Yes. So The Haunting of Hill House to me, I don't know that it necessarily feels summer. I read it during the summer. It's almost like a more modern gothic horror in a way, with the whole uh, you know, isolated house and all that. But it's an interesting crazy people. Yeah, crazy people. Definitely unreliable narrator is the key to that whole story. Yeah. But yeah, I Shirley Jackson would be she's a good writer, tells a good story.
SPEAKER_03She is a good writer. I think that she is an excellent writer and she is someone. Now, the Haunting of Hill House is different because there is a supernatural element going on, but she is a writer who will oftentimes take people and situations and make them horrifying, and nothing out of the ordinary has happened, or something weird has happened, but you just can't figure out why it is upsetting you so much. So I'm gonna talk about a short story, and then did you want to talk about we have always lived in the castle? Okay, so I'm gonna talk about the short story, the lottery. This is like five pages, and it is set in this small New England town. Shirley Jackson does a lot of writing because she lived in New England, so a lot of her stories take place there. And school has just let out and the whole little town is gathering together for this ritual that they do every year. And the little boys are gathering stones and they're putting them in piles, and everybody in the town has to show up and they do this lottery. And if your name gets pulled, then something happens. And I can't I can't tell you anything more than that because this is such a short story. There's no supernatural element, there's no monster, there's no, there's nothing going on here that anybody reading the story would not understand. And it is so unsettling. I forget which paper it was first printed in, but that paper had the most response to any article ever printed, and it was almost all negative. Like 90% of it was how much they hated this story. And I think it's just I I would love to talk about it. Like I would love to read it and talk about it on the show because there's just for five pages, there is so much to discuss. So I highly recommend you both read it because it's not a it's not a on the page scary story. Yeah, it's what's yeah, going on in your head while you're reading it and what's happening with the people. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05On that note, of you saying people doing kind of normal things but just being weird about it. Yeah, I was reminded of a book that we read in elementary school, I think, called The Children's Story by James Clavell. Have you guys heard of this at all? Yeah. Of it's a class that is supposedly occupied, like America is supposedly occupied by whatever. And a teacher comes in and convinces the seven-year-old students that they don't need to be doing the Pledge of Allegiance, that they can get away from the city. They don't have to listen to their parents. Oh, yeah. Yes. And how it that I think is tying into this because of getting people to think like, well, that okay, that would fit, that would be a good companion story to read with us.
SPEAKER_03I think that's the thing. They're not doing the same thing, right? But they are addressing the underlying issues differently, but it's the same like human nature issues that are going on.
SPEAKER_05I think about that book occasionally, and it still makes me really like yeah, upsetting.
SPEAKER_03And then finally, we're gonna talk about we have always lived in the castle. To me, this is quintessential summertime, scary story reading.
SPEAKER_06Yep.
SPEAKER_03It feels like Southern Gothic to me. I think the first time I read it, I felt like this is happening somewhere in the South. Yeah, but it's not, it's New England. You have an extremely unreliable teenage narrator, Mary Kat. His name is Mary Kat. And immediately in the story, there you sense the antagonism between the community and this family. This family. Something horrible has happened in this family. You kind of get bits and pieces as you go along through the story. Shirley Jackson a lot of times writes about mob mentality and what happens when mobs get worked up, and that's a piece of this story. Yeah. And it is just, I just think it's wonderful. It's a wonderful, creepy story filled with dread. It's incredibly claustrophobic. You think everybody is bananas. Yeah. Yeah. And there's not a single like supernatural thing that happens. It's all human behavior, the horrible parts of human behavior. So I highly recommend. We have always lived in the castle. Have you read it, Mark?
SPEAKER_02I have not. The Haunting of Hill House is the only Shirley Jones.
SPEAKER_03You need to read it. I have the book. You can take it home. It's on my list.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's on my list.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah. I just think it's so good. Okay. What do we want to talk about next?
SPEAKER_02I have tons.
SPEAKER_03Go ahead.
SPEAKER_02Well, let's talk about Dan Simmons.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_02So anyone who's a science fiction fan would know the name Dan Simmons because he wrote Hyperion, which is widely considered one of the best space opera scientific science fiction books ever written. But he's also a phenomenal horror writer. So the first book I want to talk about is called The Terror, which is probably one of my favorite, like pure horror books I've ever read. It follows the Franklin expedition. They have these ships that are steam powered that they're like, we're gonna they're they're British. That everyone died, right? And Dan Simmons is like, well, I'll take this and I'll write a story about how everyone died. And that'll be the that's the story.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So what makes this story so horrible is thinking about the fact that there was 130 some guys that went through this. Yes, there's there's a monster that is in the story, but that's not even the worst part. It's like being frozen in this in the ocean, being like, we can trudge 3,000 miles to this place, and maybe there will be people there. Or we have to stay another winter. Everyone has scurvy, they're running out of food. It's like, you know, one of those kind of situations. And then it it it's as people start dying, it like splinters into these factions that kind of war with each other, and the whole time there's this giant, like it's called the Toonbach, it's like an Eskimo monster, but it's based like the abominable snowman that's just like killing them at random. Yeah, I think it has a phenomenal ending too, which is a rarity in a horror book, but I can't recommend it enough. And I read it at the beach. This is doesn't sound like a summertime horror book because it's taking place in minus 40, the winter night, you know, of the of you know, but for some reason reading it on the beach was perfect because I was like, thank goodness that I'm sitting here with my Swedish fish and it's 85 degrees out there.
SPEAKER_05Sunburned everywhere, yeah.
SPEAKER_02While he's describing these people cutting off their hands because they're frozen while they have skirts and it hasn't they haven't seen the sun in three months.
SPEAKER_06Oh gosh.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so it's it's uh it's the most depressing, most abysmal. Like the outlook is so abysmal. And you know the ending because it's an actual thing that happened, but it is so good. I can't recommend it.
SPEAKER_03I don't know if I could do it.
SPEAKER_02If you're you have to be into that kind of thing. If you're not, you're gonna read it and go, This was terrible. But if you are, it's like it yeah, it gets it. And then so that one, I can't recommend that one enough. And then Carrying Comfort is another Dan Simmons book that I really enjoyed that is kind of also doesn't really fit a mold. It's about like a group of people that have an ability where they can like go into someone's mind and control them.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02And these people have been like playing games where they like try to control as many people as possible or like cause these things to happen, and then like they get points based off of it. It has ties back to World War II where there's I don't even know how to describe it. It's a it's a massive book. But the main character is this guy named Saul Lasky, who was a who's Jewish, who survived a concentration camp in World War II, and he met a German that was playing chess with like Jewish prisoners. Like they would come in the middle of the night, they would there was two of them, and they would round up a bunch of these prisoners, go to this place in the woods, and they would play chess with them, where they would like control them and make them move. And if a piece took another one, they would make them kill each other.
SPEAKER_03So the the Jews were the pieces, the pieces for the chessboard. Okay.
SPEAKER_02So eventually Saul Saul Asky survives and he's like, I am going to kill this guy because he does not deserve to be alive. The bulk of the story takes place in the 80s years later, and Saul has spent all this time trying to find him, but he's like a ghost and he can't find him. Turns out there's more than just one, and they're like this hyper society of like incredibly influential people that use their abilities to influence world politics and things like that. And they play these large-scale games of like chess, basically, but with people that really don't know it or don't suspect it. And it's just that it's there are so many different elements of it that are horrifying. But the concept of the story is so interesting and the scope of it is so big that if if you like horror, I think you have to read Carrie in Comfort. Okay. But yeah, I probably did a horrible job of describing it, but it is, it's just it's a little too massive to really, you know.
SPEAKER_03Complicated books can be really hard to summarize. I I have an author I want to recommend, and that is Ray Bradbury. He does a lot of short story collections. Even his novels tend to be inter-related short stories instead of one long novel that has a through plot line. The only one I can think of that I've read that has a plot line is Fahrenheit 451. Yes, which is a good book. It's a good book, but that's not what I'm gonna recommend here. I'm actually gonna recommend some of his short stories, two of his collections The Illustrated Man and then The October Country, which kind of sounds funny for summertime. But in the October in the October country, there is a short story called The Next in Line. This takes place in Mexico in the summertime. A couple is on vacation and they are doing all the sightseeing stuff. And one of the things that you can go and take a look at are the catacombs. And this story focuses on their experience with the catacombs. And it is just creepy. Ray Briberry does creepy so, so well. And then the second story is called The Velt, and that is in The Illustrated Man. This is about an a smart home. We're in the future, it's a family of four. They live in this smart home and they have a room that is like a virtual reality room. And their kids love to play in there, and their favorite place to go is called the Velt. Well, the kids are a little spoiled and they don't like being told what to do, and their parents make them mad. And the velt becomes very important to the plot of the story. And that is that's all I'm gonna say. It's good for the summer because it's hot, the velt is hot, there are animals, lions, giraffes. Yeah. So it's just a good story. I can't like short stories you can't really summarize much because you give the whole story away. But I just recommend both of those. If you like dread, if you like creepiness, if you like feeling unsettled, like you're not really sure what's going on, but you feel like it's gonna be bad. These are stories, definitely, to read.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Well, I have Stephen Graham Jones. I thought he would show it. Yeah. I I enjoy Stephen Graham Jones's stories. His writing it can very much be like stream of consciousness, and it can sometimes be a little bit of a challenge to decipher.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02He's Native American, and a lot of his stories have a lot of Native American elements to them with a lot of terminology and stuff that sometimes takes a little bit to figure out. But he is a great writer and he tells a great story. Two books that I wanted to recommend for summer. The first one is Only Good Indians, which is a it's a very simple monster horror story where there is an Indian man and three of his friends, and they poach a herd of elk. Like they are elk hunting, they can't see anything, they're just driving in the truck, they see a whole herd and they just shoot all of them. And one of them remembers a calf elk that they saw and shot, and it stuck with them for a bit. But it turns out the calf elk that they shot was some mysterious, you know, folk horror entity or whatever that begins hunting them down.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_02And that's that's the story.
SPEAKER_03That's basically it.
SPEAKER_02That's the story. Then the other one is the Buffalo Hunter Hunter, which is a vampire story. Okay, but it's told in such an interesting way, and there's so many cool little elements in it that make it so engaging to read. So that's all I'm gonna say about it. So I I recommend you read it. It's a little harder to find now than I thought it might be, but it's it's a good book if you can find it.
SPEAKER_03Is it a full novel?
SPEAKER_02Yes, it's yeah, it's it's definitely a full novel.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_02But Stephen Graham Jones, I think, is worth a look. If you're into that, and if you like Native American stuff, culture, that kind of thing, that's he's big with that.
SPEAKER_03Okay. I have heard of him before. I've also heard of the two books that you suggested. And I know he's he's very well liked as far as a horror writer.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_03The next book I want to recommend is The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas. This is a haunted house story. It is based at the time of the Mexican War of Independence. A young woman and her family are on the side of the insurgents, and her father is taken and executed after the war. She and her mother have to live with relatives who do not want them. They're poor, they live and sleep in the kitchen. And so to save her mother and to live a life that she wants to, this young woman marries a man because he's wealthy. And he takes her to his hacienda out in the country. And when she gets there, she realizes that not all is as it seems. For one thing, this man was married before, and this first wife's persona is everywhere, so it almost has like a Rebecca feeling from Daphne Dumourier. And then the house is a character, and the house is haunted by a very malevolent spirit. So most of the story is about this haunting and how they're trying to exercise the ghost. And it's just scary. Scary and good and hot because you're in Mexico. So uh it's one of the best hauntings I've read. It's probably similar to Simone St. James as far as the evil that happens in the house. And this young woman is often left alone. Her husband is a politician, so he is in town a lot, and she is in this house by herself. She asks a young priest to come and help her. And then this is one part of the book I didn't like. There's like a forbidden relationship that starts. Nothing, nothing sexual, like there's nothing physical in the book, but it's just a little bit uncomfortable what's going on there. But if you like a haunted house story and you like historical fiction and you like things happening outside the US, this is a good one.
SPEAKER_02My next recommendation is The Fisherman by John Langan, which is a like folky cosmic horror with a lot of like human elements in it. It's about a man named Abe, who he kind of it's narrated through his point of view, and he kind of gives you a little bit of like his backstory. It's like he's he's telling the story after it's all happened. So basically he gets married and he's like, This is the best thing that's ever happened to me. His wife gets sick and dies, and he becomes incredibly depressed. But he finds like relief from his depression through fishing. At his job, someone he knows, his wife and kids die in a car accident. So he's like, I'll take him fishing. So they strike up a relationship and they start going fishing. This guy someday goes in and he's like, We should go fish at Dutchman's Creek. And Abe is like, I've never heard of Dutchman's Creek. Why would we do that? And he was like, It's a great spot to go fishing. So he's like, sure, whatever. I don't care, I'm not doing anything. We'll go on Saturday. So on Saturday they leave to go fishing there. They stop at a diner, and the guy is like, Where are you guys going? And we're like, he says we're going to Dutchman's Creek to go fishing. And he goes, I don't know if I would go to Dutchman's Creek to go fishing. And then the entire book is a giant backstory about why you would not want to go to Dutchman's Creek to go fishing.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02Which basically is a like it it's in New York, and there was a large like dam building stuff that was going on in a bunch of the creeks around the finger lakes in the at this in in like the 1800s.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_02And apparently there was a man from Hungary during like some war in Europe or whatever, whose family died and got displaced, and he comes over here for a reason that becomes obvious later on. And he's basically like an esoteric magician, you know, like black magic type of almost like sorcerer or something. And a bunch of weird stuff starts happening after he shows up. And I really don't know how much more I can describe without saying it. But basically, this whole yeah, basically, this whole area is a little tainted in a way. Okay. Yeah. But it's a great book.
SPEAKER_03It sounds good.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's very, very intriguing. Yeah. It's very, very uh it's it's I consider it to be cosmic horror. It's there's there is some real spooky scenes in it, but I don't think that the point of it is to be like horrifying. I feel like grief is the point, like that picking on that human part of it.
SPEAKER_03I feel like a lot of horror comes out of grief and strike.
SPEAKER_02For sure, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05That's interesting. Like, I wonder when you think about the stages of grief, like where, like how how those things are working together.
SPEAKER_03I think a lot of times it's people not dealing with their grief well and what happens with that.
SPEAKER_02Well, and one of my like, especially in horror, for sure, a lot of stories come out of people not dealing with their grief well, and it becomes part where it's like you can hardly blame them for the things that they do, but in the end, it's horrible. Yeah. You know.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Well, I know, Julia, that you can talk about this with me. We as a family, although Mark has told me just recently that he doesn't remember this at all. We listened to The Girl with All the Gifts by M. R. Carey several years ago on a trip to the Adirondacks. I'm bringing this book here because it it's a zombie book. Okay, so it fits the horror bill. It feels summer to me, and I don't know if it's just because we listened to it in the summertime. But this is this is a zombie book with a very unique twist. And it also forced me or got me thinking about a lot of philosophical things because of what's happening in the book. Just about human nature, and especially as a Christian, I believe that we all have a dark side, that we have a sinful nature, and that to overcome that, it can be very difficult for us sometimes. And there are a lot of parallels with that in this story. It's I keep saying I don't like body horror. There's a lot of gore and like gross things that happen here. But they're not big. Like there are certain scenes, but it's not bad. But it's just a really good, it's just a really good, unique take on zombies.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Is there anything you wanted to add to that, Julia?
SPEAKER_05No, I mean I know that we've talked about this book a few times here on the show anyway. I was gonna say, I think there is a difference between like zombie vampire body horror and like true slasher body horror. Yeah. So I I agree with you that there are some things in this book where I'm like, that was a little much. I don't need to see like, yeah.
SPEAKER_03I just remember listening to it all together and I was like, oh, I did not know this is what was gonna be in this book.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. I think that there's also something to be said too about like books that maybe don't have a summer setting, but because we read it on a road trip or because we read it during the summer, that it just automatically pairs together that way. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Mark, do you have any other books or authors you want to recommend?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So there is an author named Nick Cutter that has wrote some books that I think are pretty good. The two I'm gonna talk about are the Troop and the Deep. The deep is a good summer one because it takes place in the ocean. There's there's like a disease, like an apocalyptic disease that's causing human beings to just forget everything. Like forget, it starts off like you forget to pay your credit card and then it ends with you like forgetting how to breathe. Okay. Right. And there's apparently this cure at the very bottom of the ocean. So you follow this guy. I can't remember what his name is because I read it a little while ago. He's the main character, and his brother is like this leading biochemical researcher or whatever, but he's also like a sociopath, and this guy does not have a good relationship with his brother. But this guy's down, his brother is down in this like deep sea research thing because they think there's something there that will help them solve this disease. But they can't contact his brother at all. Like he's gone completely radio silent, so they're like, We'll get this other guy here, and maybe he can talk to him and figure this out. And then it gets very weird from there. But it's pretty good. I enjoyed it. And then the troop is body horror, which we don't like.
SPEAKER_05Well, we really don't like hold on. I need to pause because I zoned out for a second. The previous book you were just talking about was Deep Water. No deep. Yeah, no thanks. Big pass.
SPEAKER_02That's the other thing. The setting of that, the setting of that book is like they're in like a like Marianna's trench depth like research center, and the whole thing is like it's all compressing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's that claustrophobic feeling that you can't escape.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, the like hatches that are like two feet wide that you have to shimmy through and listen, Ben, so we're going to Braz Brazil in February, and Ben is looking at scubaing in the blue hole. Do you know what I mean? So we were watching videos about that. You mean Belize?
SPEAKER_06That's what I meant. Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_05And even those videos freaked me out. So this idea of like being deep in the Mariana strep. Oh no, dude, I'm gonna have nightmares.
SPEAKER_02The ocean is terrifying. That's the whole point. Yeah, this yeah, in this book, that was the scary part. Yeah. But no, yeah, the other book, The Troop, is about uh this Boy Scout troop that's going on like a camping retreat to this island. So they get on this boat and they go out to this island and they're just like camping there, whatever. At the same time, a research patient escapes from a facility that's researching a weight loss drug, which which is basically just this like parasitic worm that just causes you to waste away. Sure. Yeah. This guy, and it's the the it's like the research was very unethical, obviously, highly illegal. And this guy like escapes. He ends up on the island and he's like, Do you have anything to eat? And they're like, Yeah, like no one knows. So obviously, we know where it goes.
SPEAKER_03Bad things are gonna happen.
SPEAKER_02But that's yeah, that is another book where it's like, yeah, that's all like all of that is scary, but one of the boys in the troupe is not a very nice boy, and that is another one of the real spooky parts. Yeah, where it's like, I feel like that that element is so prevalent in horror. I feel like where it's like everyone is normal, right? Until things aren't normal and then they're not normal. Yeah, yeah. You know, yeah. So that I think that's I like that one. That was actually one that me and Lexi read together, and she absolutely hated it. Did she? Yeah, absolutely hated it. But I liked it. And Nick Nick Cutter is a very gifted writer. Like his prose is very fun to read.
SPEAKER_03I feel like we could summarize every book that we're talking about with and bad things happen.
SPEAKER_05I mean, honestly, and bad things. Hold on. If it's a horror story where bad things don't happen, it's still horror.
SPEAKER_03Like that's it, yeah, that's a good question. Because you were talking about the Marianas Trench. Yes, I also have a horror book called Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant. No, mom, this is a book out of my nightmares. This is a story about a second expedition that is sent out because the first one just disappeared from the face of the earth, and it was a ship that was in the Marianas Trench, and they were they they found something interesting. And before they could give any of the information to the people that should know, the whole boat just disappeared. So the second expedition goes out, and on this boat is a sister to one of the people that was on the original boat, and they get to the place where the boat went down and they encounter some unique creatures. And you the rest of the story is just the interplay between this boat and what might be living in the Marianas trench. It's it's spooky, it's a little bit scary. I just felt like it was the perfect combination of all of that for a good beach read. You're sitting right by the ocean, you're talking about these creatures in the ocean.
SPEAKER_05So here's my question: how do you read that on the beach and then get in the water? In the water. I was just thinking, you know what? Maybe you wouldn't want to get in the water. I'm the person.
SPEAKER_03The only thing I can say is these are deep sea creatures.
SPEAKER_05They don't live at the edges. I can't see my feet in the water and something touches me, I squeal against the end of the world. There would be no.
SPEAKER_03I will say, I listened to a podcast, and I am a part of a book group for a blog called Modern Mrs. Darcy. And she recommended this one summer. This has been out for a while. And people who don't read horror enjoyed this book. So take that as you will. Um, maybe it's not as scary as some other things, but it is certainly entertaining.
SPEAKER_05They must all be in landlocked states, I'll say that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. It was there were jump scares in this book, though. I will tell you. And yeah, descriptions of like maybe creatures uphanging in the ceiling that you can't see that jump down on you. No, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_05I like going to the beach. It never no.
SPEAKER_03So that was Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant. Okay, Mark, are we almost done?
SPEAKER_02We are almost done.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_02The next one I want to talk about is a short story by William Gibson, who wrote Neuromancer, which is like the original cyberpunk series. But he also writes some short stories, and this one's called Hinterlands from the book Burning Chrome. And Hinterlands is kind of like a sci-fi cosmic horror. It's real interesting. So it's like in the future, there was this Russian cosmonaut that just disappeared. Like the their her ship just disappeared. And then she returned seven years later. And everyone's like, that's crazy. So her boat's her ship's out in space, her boat, it's funny, but is out in space. So they go and they board it, and she's in the ship, dead, but she's holding a seashell. That's obviously alien in origin. So what they determined is where she disappeared, there's a wormhole that goes to who knows where. So human beings with their endless curiosity continue to go through the wormhole. But the only catch is that everyone that comes back is either dead because they killed themselves, or they are completely insane and kill themselves in a week. It would never be able to say what's on the other side of the wormhole. So in the story, you follow this main character who is it's a man, I can't remember what his name is, and he works at a station that's set up near this wormhole, and his job is to be like a therapist for returning astronauts because he wanted to go through the wormhole, but not everyone's ship is like goes through it. Like sometimes it's like you're rejected or whatever. So his way of being involved in it is through you know doing this worm. So it's like him and his he has a girlfriend on the station, they both do the same thing. And it's the the way that William Gibson writes can feel a little bit disjointed. It takes a little bit to get used to, but he's it's almost like he doesn't he doesn't give you information until it's necessary. So sometimes you might have questions, but you have to forget about them until they're answered in a way. But that's basically the story. It's just an odd, you know, it's about like like human sacrifice for knowledge or curiosity or whatever, but there's some disturbing aspects of it that make it like a horror book. But when I was reading this short story collection, I wasn't expecting it. And then I knew that we were doing this horror podcast. I was like, I have to throw that in there. It's interesting. It was an interesting little story.
SPEAKER_03Sounds like it would be a good book to discuss with other people.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it would be for sure.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Do you have any other books, Julia, that you want to share? I know when we did this episode, we knew that you probably would not have like a list of books that you wanted to put out there.
SPEAKER_05I mean, I don't have anything different than what we've talked about on the show before, right? So I could say the Simone St. James, I could talk about it.
SPEAKER_03Do you have a Simone St. James that you would recommend specifically for summer?
SPEAKER_05Completely would be the Sundown Motel. Yeah. That one is about it's a not necessarily a split timeline, but it tells two different stories. Somebody, a young girl works at a hotel where she works overnight shift and then goes missing, and then decades later her niece in the pursuit of trying to find her feels the same shift. And then there's a ghost story, and it's the whole thing. But there are spectacular scenes of this motel being haunted in the middle of the night, in the middle of the woods, in the middle of nowhere.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah, that was creepy too.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. That book, I remember reading that book on vacation. I finished it like the second to last day, and it was like two o'clock in the morning when I finished it. The closet in the bedroom, this is important. The closet in the bedroom in which we were staying, there was space between the closet and the and the wall. And so I'm reading this school story. It's late at night, and I just kept feeling like there was somebody watching me between that crack in the wall. And the and at one point I had to physically tell myself, I have been safe in this room all week.
SPEAKER_06Just go the freak to sleep.
SPEAKER_05But that one's really good for the summer because all of all of the things. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03Well, I'm going to share one more book. I have several books more on my list, but I think what I'm going to do is talk about the Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix. This is about a very suave vampire that invades a town in the south. I don't remember where in the south. And there is a group of women who are in a book club and they love to read like true climb true crime murder books together. And they quickly figure out that this guy is a vampire. And the story is how these, I think it's four women, get this vampire and get him away from their families. But there Grady Hendricks is a guy, but he writes very well. One scene with bugs that's just kind of icky. But Grady Hendrix always also talks about a lot of other things. Like for this, it's motherhood. He addresses the misogyny in the South. And I know that word is overused. But there is a sense of men knowing best and women just doing what they're told. And then just all the tropes that go with a vampire. So it's fun. It's not your typical vampire story. It's certainly not a glamorized vampire story. This vampire is nasty, just like Dracula. He can make himself look very appealing. And it's interesting. In the beginning of the book, the women are attracted to him. By the end of the book, he's using his glamour on the men to trick them into thinking that he's okay. So it's it's just a fun story. I listened to this on audio, which I would recommend. And I just felt like I had to put a vampire book in here. So and the South, hot, sticky, summertime, it just feels appropriate to read during the summer. So that's my that's my final recommendation. So I think I think we have a pretty good list of books to pick up for Summer Wee. Mark has one more book he wants to share.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's not a book. I just wanted to say that if you're into horror and you haven't read any HP Lovecraft, you should read some. I know we spent the beginning of this podcast talking about how his writing's not all that interesting. And while that's true, I still think there are some worthwhile short stories that he wrote that would are especially would be good for summer. Like one example is the Call of Cthulhu that takes place in well one, it's classic. Everyone knows Cthulhu. The guy with uh the tentacles on his face, yeah. Yeah, cosmic horrors beyond human comprehension. But take it takes place in there's a there's a lot of uh ocean going and takes place around the ocean. So that one's a good one. The curious case of Charles Dexter Ward is very interesting, and one that's actually kind of fun to read for Lovecraft. And then two more The Thing on the Doorstep and The Shadow Over Innsmouth, which both take place in like ocean towns. Okay. And they're kind of interconnected, but they're interesting stories and actually kind of really kind of frightening. But yeah, just not Lovecraft can be difficult, but I do think he's worth it if you like horror.
SPEAKER_03I was gonna say, and if you are really interested in horror, it feels like you should read him just because so much of our modern horror comes from concepts that he came up with.
SPEAKER_02It's the same thing with Edgar Allan Poe, right? Like no one will say that the fall of the House of Usher is like the most fun thing ever to read, but so many elements of modern horror come from Poe and Lovecraft. And also it's like if you're a fan of it, you should read some of it, right? Even if it's not that fun.
SPEAKER_03And Poe, I would definitely recommend for horror, but definitely fall time for him. Like he is.
SPEAKER_05Looking at and then like adding like racial elements to it. So they're taking the regular like sci-fi stories, etc., and then layering all these other things onto it. Ben and I watched the first season and started on the second season, but that might be a toe dipper into some of these. If you're like, oh, I wanna like I don't want to read a boring writing story, I want to hear the story first and then go from there. Yeah, I'm that might be something I recommend.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I've never read Lovecraft, so maybe I should give a couple of these stories.
SPEAKER_02If you want to watch one, he has another good short story called Dreams in the Witch House. And it's gonna bother me. I can't remember his name. There's a director that did a like a mini-series on Netflix. It's like 45-minute episodes, but it's like horror each one, and he did a Dreams in the Witch House. It's gonna bother me that I can't remember his name.
SPEAKER_03We'll look it up and see if we can get a link and put it in the show notes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Guillermo del Toro.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Guillermo del Toro has a lot of yeah.
SPEAKER_02He did he did a in that in that miniseries, I can't remember what it's called, Cabinet of Curiosities or something. Yeah, he did a Dreams in the Witch House, and then he also did a Pikmin's model, which is another Lovecraft short story, which is also really good. It's about a an artist that draws paintings that makes you go insane.
SPEAKER_03Oh, okay. Okay. Kind of like the picture of Dory and Gray.
SPEAKER_05Oh, that's a whole other conversation.
SPEAKER_02That's not horrifying. That's just the fact that infuriating.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. We covered a lot of ground. We did. There was a lot of horror talked about.
SPEAKER_03I didn't even talk about all of that.
SPEAKER_05I know, I know. And we did cover a wide range of the spectrum of like we have always lived in the castle to like it. Like there's quite a problem in between.
SPEAKER_03I even went softer than that and said Joyland, which isn't really even. This is true. This is true. Joyland is. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. I don't I don't know. I think whenever I hear horror, I always think of like horror horror movies. Like I think of like the far end scary stuff. So this was even though I didn't have anything to add to the conversation much, it was still really fun to be able to see that there's more than just the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Like there's there's a full range of other stuff in between. Yes. And that even if for our lovely listeners, if they didn't think that they would ever touch horror, to see that there's all these other options too to be able to pick and choose from.
SPEAKER_03And some of these writers like Shirley Jackson and Ray Bradbury, they're just they are fun writers to read. Yes. And Ray Bradbury is a beautiful writer. So if you like writing that's really evocative, Ray Bradbury is definitely the writer to pick up. And not all of his stories are spooky. So that that's an option for sure.
SPEAKER_05Absolutely. Well, listeners, if you do summerween, we'd be curious what you would add to this list or if there's other ways that you would do summerween with spooky stories. Movies. Yeah. Mark, I don't know if we asked you at the beginning, but what draws you to horror? Like what got you interested in horror in the first place? Because you had mentioned about the emotional part of feeling the other stuff.
SPEAKER_02Well, I guess maybe, maybe something is I like like I like to feel something from reading, you know? Like I like to get an emotion, like to feel an emotional response from it. And a lot of other books that you read aren't like you'll feel emotions that you feel in every day, but most people aren't terrified. All the time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So it's like you know what I mean? It's like it's a little window into something different. I don't know. It's interesting. Yeah. I can't I guess I couldn't really pinpoint why I read that. And I guess maybe something I also like I tend to think about like the darker aspects of human nature where it's like you have to wrestle with what you're capable of. Yeah. You know? And I think that horror horror books are an a way that I do that, I guess.
SPEAKER_03What situations would actually bring those aspects of the city. Exactly. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. Or like how would I be in that situation?
SPEAKER_05Well, it makes me ask the question of whose poor, deranged brain is coming up with these ideas and are they okay?
SPEAKER_03Like oh I think they're doing what Mark said, but they're taking it and they're writing it down and giving us possibilities. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Well, thanks for the conversation, Mark. Yeah. I'm glad it wasn't Dune or Dune 2.
SPEAKER_02We'll just read it the next time I come on.
SPEAKER_05You know what? I it's probably something I should do at some point. I don't know if I'm that kind of reader. We'll do the stand. Yes. Okay. I was gonna say apocalyptic horror.
SPEAKER_03Or I don't know if I am the it kind of reader anymore. There was a time in my life where I read horror like Mark, but I don't as much anymore.
SPEAKER_05Well, if we ever have you on the show again, I guess you pick. So I don't know.
SPEAKER_03Julia's not reading books, so it won't be for a while.
SPEAKER_05I am. I have started two in the last week. Wow.
SPEAKER_02Well, you gotta finish one.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. One is Project Hail Mary. So I'm listening to that. That'll go fairly easy. Yeah. But yes, there's that. Up next, listeners, we have no idea what we're doing.
SPEAKER_03It's gonna be kind of like blind date with a book. You'll know it when you open the episode. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05I feel like that has just been what our show is at this point. As we always say, listeners, if you are interested in letting us know your feedback, you can rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and on Spotify and share us around with your group.
SPEAKER_03If you have any comments with your friends, you can text us through fan mail on BuzzSprout. Or email us. That's always fun too. We love getting email from people. Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_05Thank you for spending part of your day with us today. And thank you, Mark, for joining us again. Yes. Of course.
SPEAKER_03It was a pleasure. Anytime.
SPEAKER_05Yes. And we'd love to have you, listeners, and Mark, join us again in the Book Snug at another time.
SPEAKER_03Yes. Bye, friends. We'd love for you to continue today's conversation with us at the Booksnug underscore podcast on Instagram and at the Booksnug Podcast on Facebook. All of our episodes can be found wherever you listen to podcasts, as well as at our website, the booksnugpodcast.budsprout.com, where show notes for every episode can be found. We'd love to hear from you. Email us at the booksnugpodcast at gmail.com.
SPEAKER_04As C.S. Lewis, one of our favorite authors, so famously said, you can never have a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me, and we wholeheartedly agree.