Hello friends, and welcome to that spot that isn’t the halfway point between fall and winter—in fact, it’s sort of the halfway point to the halfway point, which makes it the quarter way point between . . . hang on, we need to draw a chart.
What? New bookmarks? Maybe . . .
(The next batch will be numbers 78, 79, and 80, if you are attempting to Pokémon them all.)
Anyway, it’s the middle of October and here’s a new James—oh, we can’t. The first rule (or maybe the eighteenth rule) of bookseller newslettering is that you can’t play the same trick on your readers too often, regardless of what Lucy does with the football every year.
We paused for a moment to consider whether this is a reference a modern audience would get, and now we wonder if Rickrolling is merely a new generation's version of Lucy’s yanking the football away from Charlie Brown in Peanuts. In which case, OMG! We really haven’t learned anything in the last 71 years, have we?
It all goes back to November 16th, 1952, by the way, which happens to be the day that Shigeru Miyamoto was born. Miyamoto went on to create Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros., and The Legend of Zelda.
Oh, sorry to keep you waiting (especially if you second-guessed whether that link was a Rickroll or not), but hey, we had to come up with a lead-in for the new Michael Connelly book, which is titled—wait for it—The Waiting.
We know, we know. We’ll go wait in the car.
Anyway, Connelly’s latest crime novel stars Ballard and Bosch (it says so right on the cover), but Connelly is this close to pulling off the great trick of retiring his best-known character and shifting over all his readers to a new generation. This time around, it’s Renée Ballard and Maddie Bosch, who do all the sleuthing. Ballard’s still working the cold cases in LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit, and her new case starts out as a seemingly family affair and quickly gets complicated and labrynthian. Meanwhile, Bosch (the younger) is obsessed with one of LA’s most iconic unsolved cases, and naturally, the two stumble across each other as they search for clues. As always, highly recommended.
And Stanley Tucci is back this week with What I Ate in One Year: (And Related Thoughts). We appreciate the proper usage of the sub-title here, but yes, the colon open paren is a bit awkward on the page. What I Ate in One Year is, in fact, mostly thoughts and some talk about food—which shouldn’t be a surprise, really, as it says as much on the cover. But friends, friends. This is Stanley Tucci, being Tucci, about what he did and thought and ate during 2023. Frankly, the man could put out a new volume of “Stuff I Did (and ate and thought about)” every year, and we’d be happy.
Especially since he's the guy who also reads the audiobook edition. This is as good a time as any to remind you that we have an affiliate program with Libro.fm. Shop with this link, and we get credit. Please, and thank you.
And speaking of memoir and how-tos, Junji Ito’s Uncanny: The Origins of Fear is out this week. For the first time, Ito opens up about his creative process, including some biographical stories about his childhood, the sorts of things that creep him out, and how he creates his truly strange and horrifying tales. If you’re a fan, you’ll want to get this peek inside the mind of the master.
And speaking of going deep in the weeds, there’s a new Neal Stephenson book out this week. Polostan, which clocks in at a svelte 320 pages (making it shorter than this issue of this newsletter [Kidding. Not kidding.]), is the preamble to Bomb Light, Stephenson’s next sprawling epic. It’s the story of Dawn Rae Bjornberg, a child of cowboy anarchists who is raised in Post-Revolution Russia. She gets involved with gunrunners and ultimately winds up a pawn in an emerging game between U.S. and Russian spy agencies. Oh, and we’re sure we’ve barely scratched the surface.
This feels like the opening chapter in something that may ultimately be like Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle, but which encompasses the history of the 20th century rather than the 17th and 18th. We’re onboard, of course.
By the way, Stephenson calls the PWN home, so he's one of our local writers. We grow 'em weird in these woods.
And speaking of paying attention to the details, there’s a new Murdle book out this week. G. T. Karber presents us with Murdle: The School of Mystery: 50 Seriously Sinister Logic Puzzles. Plus deckled edges, cover flaps, and a cutaway bookmark! And a maze! And—oh, let’s just get murdling!
That’s sounds worse than it is, right. We’re not murdering and curdling. We’re not mangling and cuddling. We’re not—oh, this is starting to sound like one of Brynne Weaver’s Ruinous Love books (Scythe & Sparrow comes out in February!).
Right. Middle of October. Before the Halloween candy goes stale.
Hey, speaking of the middle of October, on Sunday, there will be a Halloween Market in Heritage Park from 2 - 7 P.M. Shopping. Food Trucks. Face Painting. Pumpkin Painting. Sporatic trick-or-treating. Followed by a movie at 5 P. M. (weather permitting). More details here.
Also, Pretty Gritty Tours will be offering a ghost tour of Sumner, starting at 6 P.M. Tickets are required, and more details can be found here. [No, wait. 6 P.M. tour is sold out. As is the 7 P.M. tour. Click the link! He's adding more tours!]
Also also, this Sunday will be the third Sunday of the month, which means Write Time at Electric Coffee from 3 - 6. Writers assemble!
And here's a new collection of fanciful stories by Olivie Blake. Januaries: Stories of Love, Magic & Betrayal contains fourteen tales of love, lust, revenge, and marriage vows from the author of the Atlas Six Trilogy. Clever world-building, devious and flawed characters, spicy encounters: this collection has it. Recommended.
And speaking of spicy romance, here is Katee Robert’s Desperate Measures. This one is all fancied up, including stains and edges and art and annotations! A special bonus is an inventory of all the spicy that goes on. What a handy checklist! This one is about a spirited young woman who has entered into a “marriage of convenience” with a man she really dislikes, and who is probably some kind of monster. Maybe literately. We’ll leave that bit for you to discover. Naturally, she’s not keen on being kept, but at the same time, that spicy checklist is pretty hot, you know? What’s an independent, fiery-spirited young lady to do?
And while we’re on the subject of too hot to handle and too close for comfort, here is Colby Wilkens’s If I Stopped Haunting You, which is about two writers who really dislike each other, the haunted house they are trapped in for the weekend, and the hot romance that explodes between them. Steamy, haunty, and enemy-loverly. Plan accordingly.
And speaking of mashing things up, here is The Treasure Hunters Club by Tom Ryan. It’s Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone meets The Goonies meets The Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. Sure, everyone in the idyllic seaside town of Maple Bay knows about the buried treasure, but they know better than to dig for it. Which is why three idiots from out of town are the ones who gather up the shovels and start unearthing all the wrong secrets, including some of their own! It’s twisty. It’s turny! There’s a bit where someone gets wet! The Treasure Hunters Club is a solid ride. Strap in!
And finally, the latest addition to our spooky shelves (which have been relocated between Horror and SF/Fantasy, in case you were wondering) is Phantom Phenomena, a delightful tome of terrifying and mystifying supernatural events. From Darkness Prevails, the minds behind the Unexplained Encounters podcast, Phantom Phenomena collects forty campfire-ready tales to be shared in the dark of the night, as the wind creaks nearby and the wolf howls at the moon.
(Tonight, by the way. Plan your noctural adventures accordingly.)
And that’s the list this week, dear readers. Bundle up. Wear a scarf. Carry garlic. Don’t try to make eye contact with the bats. They can’t see you anyway. Gather up your ghost stories. It’s that time of year.
