1 Oct // got me hooked on medicine
1 Oct 2024
weather: perfect
mood: excited
music: Matt Berry, “Medicine”
He is waiting.
Sitting in the station, on one of those long wooden benches, he is waiting—but his mind isn’t on the task at hand. In a sense, he isn’t really waiting so much as he is thinking about or doing a hundred other things to fill every possible second while he ‘waits’ and gods it is all so exhausting, isn’t it? To fill every tick of the clock with a thought or an action, to be too-present in your own mind.
He wants to be impressive, he wants to be assured of his usefulness, and mostly he just wants to leave it all behind. Ticket in his pocket, he’d rather leap onto the back of the train and pretend that none of it was planned, that he is escaping and that to escape would feel good.
This isn’t to say that he doesn’t want his life and the things happening in it. It’s an exciting time, hope continues to linger in the air in more than the turning of the leaves, and yet…
He looks up at the old split-flap departures board, waiting for the rolling rattle of information. But the sign does not move.
Some years it is harder, he thinks, to pierce the veil. Imagination is all well and good, embracing your personal joy and all that—but what about work? Family and work and bills and weddings and concerts and parties and friends and the garden and love and dinner and the endless return of laundry and all those words he’s meant to be writing and the things he wants to do and the places he is meant to see and the wants that he has!
He closes his eyes and takes a breath.
Rustle-rattle, rustle-rattle.
The board is turning over, a letter at a time, wiping clean and renewing itself and he sees the track number appear, sees BOARDING roll to a stop, and he gathers his things. Some years are the rush and roil, others are the rest and relaxation. Maybe this one is the former now, maybe it will end that way too, but who can say? Time only rolls forward, like the train soon will, bearing him on into the October Country. He finds his seat and pulls a book from his bag…
The 2024 October Country Reading List
Coup de Grâce by Sofia Ajram (Titan Books)
The Thief of Always by Clive Barker (Harper Perennial)
The Forgery by Ave Barrera, tr. by Ellen Jones & Robin Myers (Charco Press)
Not a Speck of Light by Laird Barron (Bad Hand Books)
TRVE CVLT by Michael Bettendorf (Tenebrous Press)
The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty (Harper Perennial)
It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over by Anna de Marcken (New Directions)
Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito (Liveright)
Revelator by Daryl Gregory (Vintage Books)
The Black Lord by Colin Hinckley (Tenebrous Press)
Starve Acre by Andrew Michael Hurley (Hachette)
The Eyes are the Best Part by Monika Kim (Erewhon)
Hampton Heights by Dan Kois (Harper Perennial)
House of Windows by John Langan (Diversion Books)
Schrader’s Chord by Scott Leeds (Nightfire)
The Cthulhu Casebooks of Sherlock Holmes (various) by James Lovegrove (Titan Books)
Woodworm by Layla Martínez, tr. by Sophie Hughes and Annie McDermott (Two Lines Press)
The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohammed (Tordotcom)
Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor (William Morrow)
Suburban Death Project by Aimee Parkison (Unbound Edition Press)
Haunt Sweet Home by Sarah Pinsker (Tordotcom)
Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo, tr. by Douglas J. Weatherford (Grove Atlantic)
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab (Tor Books)
A Questionable Shape by Bennett Sims (Two Dollar Radio)
Model Home by Rivers Solomon (MCD)
My Death by Lisa Tuttle (NYRB)
The City in Glass by Nghi Vo (Tordotcom)
The Echoes by Evie Wyld (Jonathan Cape)
The Psychographist by Carson Winter (Apocalypse Party)
AND (books reads before October but worthy of seasonal inclusion):
American Rapture by CJ Leede (Nightfire)
Crypt of the Moon Spider by Nathan Ballingrud (Nightfire)
Absolution by Jeff VanderMeer (MCD)
Rise and Divine by Lana Harper (Berkley)
A Spectre is Haunting Greentree by Carson Winter (Tenebrous Press)
Private Rites by Julia Armfield (4th Estate)
A Sunny Place for Shady People by Mariana Enriquez, tr. by Megan McDowell (Hogarth)
For those of you new to this -- well, first of all, welcome, hello, thanks for reading. What a pleasure to see you all in this passenger car as well, as the train bears us on into the October Country. This list happens once a year, more books than I could possibly read in 31 calendar days—but it is nice to have choices, isn't it?
The October Country is, yes, a state of mind / a place for spooks and scares and all that—but it is also more, and more interesting. It is, to my mind, the 'place' on the calendar that is the most liminal. Nothing feels more temporary than autumn, and inside of autumn nothing is more temporary than October, when the mood can shift (sometimes irrevocably!) in the space of a mere day. You don't really get that in winter, spring, or summer -- there is more of a stretching out, or settling in. Nothing's ever quite the same as it was a moment before, in the October Country, and that is worth celebrating.
Also, I just love reading spooky/spooky-adjacent books, and I take it many of you do as well. I hope your TBR stacks have something a little chilling on them for the weeks to come, and I'd certainly love to know about it if so.
BUSINESS
The Lit Hub Podcast is rolling along! We launched a few weeks ago and this little labor of love is, I hope, going to run forever. Hosted by me, editorially driven by me and Jonny Diamond and Calvin Kasulke, highlighting the incredible work coming out of all aspects of Literary Hub… it’s a strange beast that we’re figuring out how to make as we make it, but I hope you’ll listen and leave a review and all that good business.
Two stories coming out soon-ish: one later this month, I think, with Club Chicxulub and one in the early new year in a very cool new magazine. Fingers crossed I land another one or two before the year’s end?
Voyage Into Genre also rolls on: we’ve got two more episodes to come this season, both spooky, both amazing. Plus, rumor has it we might be making an appearance at NYCC……
I know this is burying the lede a bit but… I got a new job. After three years at The Golden Notebook bookstore in Woodstock, I’m heading up the road to Kingston to step in as bookstore manager at Rough Draft Bar & Books. I’m of course a little sad to leave the cozy confines of TGN but so excited for the possibilities at Rough Draft—come see me, I’ll be in the store five days a week, we can get coffee, I’ll sell you a book or three!
Alright, well, as this year’s palate-setter implied, there’s lots going on and I feel a bit insane about it all… but so it is, in this time of human existence, I think. Try to take a deep breath and I’ll try to do the same. See you before year’s end, I’m sure.
xo
D