What I’ve Read
The Gothic: A Very Short Introduction by Nick Groom – Great Queer Supernatural Re-Watch item – This was a great little book that covered about 400 years of artistic trends in English (and later American) architecture and literature with about 150 pages, and I think it did a really good job! I certainly learned far more about the English trend towards regarding Gothic tribes as somehow “English” came from a need to understand their own culture in opposition to Roman/ Romantic/European values. You can see the roots of English Exceptionalism growing out of the whole thing, and the ties to the Gothic novel – fascinating! I particularly liked the chapter at the end that talked about the ways American gothic movements tend to have different skeletons in their closets than English, which honestly felt like a great discussion element. I ended up being so intrigued that I ordered some collected works of Poe and Lovecraft, both of whom lean into the whole issue of racism as the specter in the soul of American Gothic. Highly reccommend.

Roger Crenshaw: The Wolves of the West by Taylor Titmouse – This is a goofy little porn novella (available on itch.io) about a folklorist who has a fling with a quartet of bandits who kidnap him off a train. It’s delightful and accompanied by some very nice art. It’s set about the turn of the century and the main character is trans. I will probably read the other two books in the series – you don’t quite have to read them in order. This is about 30 pages and very fun.

Roger Crenshaw and the Vampires of New Haven by Taylor Titmouse – I wrote up this journal on Tuesday and then ended up reading the one, too! The first in the series, this one had a little more backstory on our favorite folklorist and also, some vampires at Yale. Pretty sexy, I think I preferred the Wolves of the West but both are great. Content warning: Connecticut

In “Not A Book” news, I finished Season One of Malevolent and really enjoyed it! It’s a dark supernatural gothic horror fiction podcast focused on Arthur, a detective who picks up a cursed book and gets blinded and a new passenger in the form of an otherworldly voice in his head. They fight crime! Or, rather, they are stuck together while they investigate the secrets, cults, and eldritch forces that pushed the voice out of its own world into Arthur’s head. It starts rather inhuman and antagonistic, but resolves eventually into a kind of care for Arthur that feels genuine. I find the “sharing a body” trope compelling – it takes normal human interdependence and intimacy to an exaggerated limit and then pushes it further. If you like Venom (movie or comics), you’d probably find this central relationship compelling. The podcast’s worldbuilding is Lovecraft-based (minus the overt racism) so I’m enjoying the tour around fictional New England towns with dark secrets. There are three finished seasons and the fourth is ongoing, episodes are about 40 minutes. The main podcast is an edited combination of shorter episodes where Patreon members are presented with weekly shorter passages, and a poll to decide what Arthur-and-co should do next. 


What I’m Reading

Babel – Xing Book Club – 16% Moderately devastating.
Dracula Daily is back! Dracula’s “lizard fashion” for going out remains delightful - 8%
Carry On Tamryn Eradani -picked this back up after not touching it for months (since November??) -37%
Post Mortem File 3 by Furiosophie – this is great but I mistimed where I was in the canon reading and I might actually have to watch Rebels and read three other books before I can come back to this. SIGH.
Freefall – Umei_No_Mai – the adventures of their OC Jedi character.

On Hold:
Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn (1991) – 39% - Static
Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection - Julia Kristeva - static
True Colors by Karen Traviss
Beauty by Robin McKinley
What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Monroe (of XKCD fame) – 8% - Static

What I’ll Read Next

Dowry of Blood (Necromancers Book Club)
Watchmaker’s Daughter (Discord Book Club)
Count of Monte Cristo (Discord Book Club)

Owned and need to read: California Bones, Raven Song by IA Ashcroft, Kraken's Sacrifice by Katee Robert, Even Though I Know the End by CL Polk, At The Feet of the Sun by Victoria Goddard, Tamryn Eradani's Enchanting Encounters Books 2 and 3, Like Real People Do by EL Massey, Tom Stoppard, Invention of love, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty, "You Just Need to Lose Weight" and Other Myths about Fatness by Aubrey Gordon, Alisha Rai Partners in Crime, the Right Swipe