Hello friends! Welcome back to another week of our fancier layout. We are told that if you squint a bit and resize your window down to the width of a grape, it's almost like it was before. In case you were feeling stressed about all this edge-to-edge nonsense that we've started doing.
And speaking of marvelous nonsense, let's start this week off with Ben Bowlin, Matt Frederick, and Noel Brown. These chaps have been producing the Stuff They Don't Want You to Know podcast, and for those of us who haven't been sucking this up through our earholes, there is now a print version of all the stuff they don't want you to know. Who is "they"? What "stuff" are we—or they?—talking about? Which conspiracy is really something to worry about, versus some sort of internet slapfight which will probably dissolve into a strange meme no one will understand in a few weeks.
All of the above will be answered, dear friends. Bowlin, Frederick & Brown are here to set things right. Plus there are illustrations, in case you wanted to know exactly how those cows got lifted into those flying saucers.
And speaking of reasons to go to the liquor cabinet, the fine folks behind The Art of Mixology have expanded your choices with a few new books.
One for bourbon and whiskey.
One for gin.
And one for rum.
These marvelously designed books contain a history of the liquor of note, full-color photography, and lots of excellent cocktail recipes. All at a fantastic price point. Get the set!
And while we're talking about pictures of tasty stuff, here is S. Theresa Dietz's The Complete Language of Food. A "Definitive and Illustrated History," apparently, in case you were wondering about how this "food" thing came to be so popular. If this book looks a little familiar, it's because it is the third in a series that Dietz has been doing for Wellfleet. The first two being The Complete Language of Herbs and The Complete Language of Flowers, both of which have been doing quite well.
And speaking of doing well, Melissa Urban, co-founder of the Whole 30 movement, has a few thoughts about boundaries. In The Book of Boundaries, she brings the same insight to interpersonal relationship as she did to food, which is to say: ditch the processed stuff, keep what is real, and relearn the joy of being present. The Book of Boundaries contains more than a hundred scripts you can customize as you need to re-establish your sense of calm and well-being in a world that is full of, well, too much pre-processed and pre-packaged crap that ultimately isn't good for you.
And speaking of things that are definitely not pre-packaged, here is a collection of fiction from Alan Moore. That's right. Friend of the snake god, frother of sentences, and graphic novel deconstructor Alan Moore. We hesitate to even attempt to blithely summarize Illuminations in a sentence or two, but of course, we shan't shirk our duty. Here's the thing about Alan Moore: the man has—like Saturn snacking on his children—consumed several centuries of fiction, both literary and pulp, and what flows back out of him is likely to be denser than the belly of a black star. Fortunately, he knows how to tell a good story, and like the smoke-eyed raconteur of the dark shadows behind the circus tent, he'll keep you guessing.
And speaking of short fiction collections, Mick Herron's Dolphin Junction is out in paperback this week. Herron, as you recall, is the mastermind behind the Slow Horses series, and Dolphin Junction has a few teasers about the band of misfits who work for Jackson Lamb out of Slough House, as well as a few other stories that are equally filled with Herron's sardonic wit and deft misdirection. Recommended.
And speaking of recommendations, John Connolly is back with a new Charlie Parker novel. The Furies contains two narratives, both seemingly unconnected, but as we all know about the world in which Parker moves, there are darker and deeper designs at work. As Parker tries to protect his clients, he discovers that it may be the rest of the world that needs protecting from them.
Connolly's books exist in a strange liminal space. They have all the elements of a classic crime novel—think Michael Connolly or John Sandford—but there's a darkness to them that sometimes has teeth. Sometimes we'll shelve them in horror; sometimes they'll end up in suspense. Sometimes they move themselves. You might have to keep an eye out.
And speaking of reading with the lights on, Catriona Ward has a new book out this week. Ward has been racking up the awards over the last few years as she's been putting out an impressive body of work, and Little Eve finds her in full-on gothic mode. We've got mysterious siblings, a strange cult that lives on an island, and a foreboding father figure. Things start to unravel with a gruesome death, and everyone starts to wonder who is telling the truth and who is lying. This one will keep you guessing.
And speaking of guessing, the latest buzz-worthy thriller is Adam Hamdy's The Other Side of Night. We're not going to spoil it for you, but we shall say that it presents itself as one thing, but reveals itself to be another. The Other Side of Night follows a disgraced detective who gets involved in the case of a young boy whose parents have died. She has questions, and then more questions, and then things get stalker creepy, and then the book . . . goes somewhere else. It'll make for a fine movie that everyone will talk about for months, and it will eventually end up on a bunch of lists like Favorite Romances That Were Disguised as Something Else. But yeah, in the beginning, it's a police procedural.
And speaking of cryptic things hidden from view, here is J. W. Ocker's The United States of Cryptids: A Tour of American Myths and Monsters. It's basically a trip-planning guide for monster hunters. Do you really need more than that? No, neither did we.
And finally, here are some dragons! A bunch of folks contributed to this collection of writhing, smoking, and fire-belching giant lizards. Complete with backstory, lair actions, and sinister motivations, The Game Master's Book of Legendary Dragons will spice up your Dungeons & Dragons campaign.
And that's the list this week. Books for spooky nights as we lurch our way toward Halloween.
