August Reading Wrap-Up and September TBR | 2024

0:00 Intro
0:27 August Wrap-Up
9:18 September TBR

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#reading #wrapup #tbr #booktube

[JasonFuhrman]

Cast your vote below for what my final read for September should be! Don't forget to upvote your picks also.

[Stark-Terror]

So glad you enjoyed The Drop after Britton and I hyped it up so much. Another great video, mate 🤘

[helenasf]

Yay great wrap up! I think I want to try and catch up on the Annihilation readalong. I’m going to try and get into Acceptance this weekend! Fingers crossed!

[SamSepiol]

Your reaction to The Imago Sequence Collection is not an unexpected one. Early Barron is big on extreme surrealism. This collection in particular was a blend of early pulp writing (i.e Black Mask, Fantastic Detective) with the likes of horror writers that dabbled in weird fiction like Robert Bloch, Peter Straub and Michael Shea. Lovecraft is there too. But the clues are there/foreshadowed to what's going but are very abstract and subtle, sometimes obstructed by the surreal elements. Best examples to this are two of my favourite stories within the collection in Bulldozer and The Procession of the Black Sloth.


Spoiler alert
Bulldozer does seem like straightforward cops chasing killer story that started at the started at the end of the story before picking up at the start loops back to the end. But Barron does lay several clues to the Pinkerton's agent fate at the beginning. He died there and then or at least ended being a human there and then and had been merged with the killer he's chasing. It took place in the late 1870s (post Lincoln assassination and the Molly Gang skirmish with the Pinkerton) but alluded to years beyond it (Robert Louis Stevenson's death that happened in 1890s).

Same with The Procession of The Black Sloth. Talks of hell were as early as describing his plane descending and the airplane toilet feeling like coffin.

But if you're afraid of Barron other collection being in the same boat as this, don't be. He doesn't retreat much and every collection does have their own identity.

[Sweet_Z_]

@JasonFuhrman I just came up with the best idea for a novel. A serial novella dedicated to making fun of modern Disney. It's called "I Am Alpha", and it is told through the eyes of one of the animal-human hybrids known as "Deviants". I won't spoil it, but it is going to be one hell of a story told through installments.

[KirkpattieCake]

A few weeks ago I read We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver and it's been one of my favorite reads of the year, so I nominate that book. I also think you'd have an interesting time talking about the concepts and characters of the book. It's not cosmic horror though. lol

[someokiedude]

I'm very glad to hear that you took to Lehane, he truly is one of the best noir has to offer. I await your thoughts on The Drop when it comes out.

Barron's one of those authors I really want to like, but he makes these decisions that leave me cold. I've only read his Isaiah Coleridge series, which I like considerably, so take that what you will. I think if he streamlined some of his ideas, and kept the story focused, he'd really cook. Though I hear his short fiction is some of his best work. I'll give it a try at some point.

I'll recommend my favorite book I've read this year: Kindred by Octavia Butler. It's one of those rare books that's exactly what it's supposed to be.

Good video Jason.

[curtjarrell]

Last month I read and enjoyed A Game of Thrones by GRRM and A Month in the Country by J L Carr. September begins with A Moveable Feast by E. Hemingway, to be followed by The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton. Happy Autumn reading.

[Paromita_M]

The book I nominate (which is also a great book I read in August) is The Failures by Benjamin Liar, Book 1 of the Wanderlands trilogy, published by DAW Books in July 2024.

[THFLCNx]

What I really wanna know is whether the cellphone in Authority was alive? Personally, I recall Acceptance being the weakest of the trilogy. By that point I had pretty much figured that there wasn't gonna be much in the way of answers and it would end vaguely. Which it did. Still, I enjoyed it well enough. I think I'm gonna nominate for the fourth book one of my own personal all-time favorites: Dean Koontz's Intensity. I'd be curious to see how you take to it. :)

[pocketfullofponder]

I vote A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K Le Guin 🧙🏼 (just started it myself hehe)

[doctordonutdude]

This isn't the Acceptance read-along!