By Ava Shaffer
The temperature dipped below 70 degrees the other day which means it is indeed time for Fall, at least for me. My mom sent me a bucket of Halloween decorations so my apartment is decked out for the season, so why shouldn’t my TBR be as well? As a mood reader but also a perfectionist Taurus who loves to plan, I have struggled in vain to create a TBR list that I actually want to stick to. So I dedicated myself to just dumping a bunch of my potential reads in one place to organize my thoughts. I love being immersed in a season, so I wanted to create a list of books that will make me feel like I am drinking a grande Iced Chai Tea Latte with Pumpkin Cream Cold Foam as the orange leaves around me rustle in the autumn air. This is that list.
Horror/Thriller
We’re starting off strong with the horror/thriller genre! I used to be quite the scaredy cat, and I suppose I still am, but I’ve started to dip my toe in the realm of horror books. I still can’t handle scary movies, but after reading Misery a few months ago I have really started appreciating and craving books from the genre. I owe pretty much all of that to Stephen King.
The Shining by Stephen King
Jack Torrance's new job at the Overlook Hotel is the perfect chance for a fresh start. As the off-season caretaker at the atmospheric old hotel, he'll have plenty of time to spend reconnecting with his family and working on his writing. But as the harsh winter weather sets in, the idyllic location feels ever more remote...and more sinister. And the only one to notice the strange and terrible forces gathering around the Overlook is Danny Torrance, a uniquely gifted five-year-old.
In my hometown, a new bookstore opened up called Black Cat Books and Oddities. It is a spooky little bookstore nestled in a 100-year-old building, and I absolutely adore it. I bought The Shining the second time I visited from their Edgar Allan Poe-themed room.
Cujo by Stephen King
Cujo is a two-hundred-pound Saint Bernard, the beloved family pet of the Joe Cambers of Castle Rock, Maine, and the best friend ten-year-old Brett Camber has ever had. One day Cujo pursues a rabbit into a bolt-hole--a cave inhabited by some very sick bats. What happens to Cujo, and to those unlucky enough to be near him, makes for the most heart-squeezing novel Stephen King has yet written.
The local library near my university has a fabulous book sale every month and I found an old edition of Cujo! My mom would always call my old beagle Gustav “Cujo” so I just have to read this to see what all the fuss is about.
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
Patrick Bateman is twenty-six and he works on Wall Street, he is handsome, sophisticated, charming and intelligent. He is also a psychopath. Taking us to head-on collision with America's greatest dream—and its worst nightmare—American Psycho is bleak, bitter, black comedy about a world we all recognise but do not wish to confront.
I dressed as Patrick Bateman for a movie character costume party so it’s really only right for me to read this.
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Who are you?
What have we done to each other?
These are the questions Nick Dunne finds himself asking on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police suspect Nick. Amy's friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn't true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches. He says they weren't made by him. And then there are the persistent calls on his mobile phone.
So what did happen to Nick's beautiful wife?
This one has been on my list forever and hopefully, this Fall is when I finally get to it! I have been holding myself back from watching the movie until I read the book, but I really don’t know how much longer I can go hearing the Cool Girl Monologue on TikTok and not knowing the context.
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
In Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. While her work has earned her comparisons to Karen Russell and Kelly Link, she has a voice that is all her own. In this electric and provocative debut, Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women's lives and the violence visited upon their bodies.
I’ve read bits and pieces of this collection and “The Husband Stitch” is still one of the most profound short stories I have read! This collection definitely feels spooky and creepy to me, so Fall is the perfect season to finally get through the SVU story and finish the book.
Dark Academia
Tweed blazers, classical music, poetry lit by candlelight, the smell of parchment, and this Old Book Shop Ambiance Rain and Thunder Sounds Warm Fireplace Sleep, Study, Meditation YouTube video. To me, nothing says autumn like dark academia.
If We Were Villians by M.L. Rio
As one of seven young actors studying Shakespeare at an elite arts college, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingenue, extra. But when the casting changes, and the secondary characters usurp the stars, the plays spill dangerously over into life, and one of them is found dead. The rest face their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, and themselves, that they are blameless.
I’m currently reading this and am loving it!
Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth
Our story begins in 1902, at The Brookhants School for Girls. Flo and Clara, two impressionable students, are obsessed with each other and with a daring young writer named Mary MacLane, the author of a scandalous bestselling memoir. To show their devotion to Mary, the girls establish their own private club and call it The Plain Bad Heroine Society. They meet in secret in a nearby apple orchard, the setting of their wildest happiness and, ultimately, of their macabre deaths. This is where their bodies are later discovered with a copy of Mary’s book splayed beside them, the victims of a swarm of stinging, angry yellow jackets. Less than five years later, The Brookhants School for Girls closes its doors forever—but not before three more people mysteriously die on the property, each in a most troubling way.
One of my good friends Erin who loves a good sapphic, literary, academia setting recommended this book a while ago but I waited to be back in school surrounded by leaves, libraries, and old brick buildings to partake in it. Now’s the time!
The Atlas Six by Olivia Blake
The Alexandrian Society, caretakers of lost knowledge from the greatest civilizations of antiquity, are the foremost secret society of magical academicians in the world. Those who earn a place among the Alexandrians will secure a life of wealth, power, and prestige beyond their wildest dreams, and each decade, only the six most uniquely talented magicians are selected to be considered for initiation.
This is another rec from another very smart friend! My friend Lily raved about this book the other day and I just need some more academic rivals enemies to lovers in my life.
Babel by R.F. Kuang
From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a historical fantasy epic that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British Empire.
I was supposed to read this like 5 book clubs ago, but better late than never!
Cozy Fantasy
Although I feel more in the mood for fantasy books during the winter, there are still a couple of books that I feel embody the season of autumn.
Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree
After a lifetime of bounties and bloodshed, Viv is hanging up her sword for the last time. The battle-weary orc aims to start fresh, opening the first ever coffee shop in the city of Thune. But old and new rivals stand in the way of success — not to mention the fact that no one has the faintest idea what coffee actually is. If Viv wants to put the blade behind her and make her plans a reality, she won't be able to go it alone. But the true rewards of the uncharted path are the travelers you meet along the way. And whether drawn together by ancient magic, flaky pastry, or a freshly brewed cup, they may become partners, family, and something deeper than she ever could have dreamed.
I’ve had this one of my bookshelf forever and will probably read it after one of my unhinged thrillers to cleanse my palette.
Weyward by Emilia Hart
Weaving together the stories of three extraordinary women across five centuries, Emilia Hart's Weyward is an enthralling novel of female resilience and the transformative power of the natural world.
I just love the cover of this so I need to read it soon rather than just staring at it on my shelf (although I’ll probably continue to do that, too).
The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow
In 1893, there's no such thing as witches. There used to be, in the wild, dark days before the burnings began, but now witching is nothing but tidy charms and nursery rhymes. If the modern woman wants any measure of power, she must find it at the ballot box. But when the Eastwood sisters--James Juniper, Agnes Amaranth, and Beatrice Belladonna--join the suffragists of New Salem, they begin to pursue the forgotten words and ways that might turn the women's movement into the witch's movement. Stalked by shadows and sickness, hunted by forces who will not suffer a witch to vote-and perhaps not even to live-the sisters will need to delve into the oldest magics, draw new alliances, and heal the bond between them if they want to survive.
This was a book I bought last October when I was on a witchy reading kick! I’d love to be immersed in the world of witches again, so this is a top contender for me.
Classics
Because my brain hurts too much from college literature classes to read any other classics for fun, Shakespeare is the only one to make it on this list.
Macbeth by Shakespeare
One night on the heath, the brave and respected general Macbeth encounters three witches who foretell that he will become king of Scotland. At first sceptical, he’s urged on by the ruthless, single-minded ambitions of Lady Macbeth, who suffers none of her husband’s doubt. But seeing the prophecy through to the bloody end leads them both spiralling into paranoia, tyranny, madness, and murder.
This shocking tragedy - a violent caution to those seeking power for its own sake - is, to this day, one of Shakespeare’s most popular and influential masterpieces.
Because I’m currently reading If We Were Villians, duh.
Books for School
I’m taking two literature classes this semester: Asian American Literature and Books You Need To Read. I’m really enjoying both classes and our reading lists, which the below books entail for the months of September, October, and November.
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
First published in 1905, The House of Mirth shocked the New York society it so deftly chronicles, portraying the moral, social and economic restraints on a woman who dared to claim the privileges of marriage without assuming the responsibilities.
The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui
The Best We Could Do, the debut graphic novel memoir by Thi Bui, is an intimate look at one family's journey from their war-torn home in Vietnam to their new lives in America. Exploring the anguish of immigration and the lasting effects that displacement has on a child and her family, Bui documents the story of her family's daring escape after the fall of South Vietnam in the 1970s and the difficulties they faced building new lives for themselves. At the heart of Bui's story is a universal struggle: While adjusting to life as a first-time mother, she ultimately discovers what it means to be a parent — the endless sacrifices, the unnoticed gestures, and the depths of unspoken love. Despite how impossible it seems to take on the simultaneous roles of both parent and child, Bui pushes through.
White Noise by Don DeLillo
The National Book Award-winning classic from the author of Underworld and Libra, now a Netflix film starring Adam Driver, Don Cheadle, and Greta Gerwig. White Noise tells the story of Jack Gladney, his fourth wife, Babette, and four ultramodern offspring as they navigate the rocky passages of family life to the background babble of brand-name consumerism. When an industrial accident unleashes an "airborne toxic event," a lethal black chemical cloud floats over their lives. The menacing cloud is a more urgent and visible version of the "white noise" engulfing the Gladneys—radio transmissions, sirens, microwaves, ultrasonic appliances, and TV murmurings—pulsing with life, yet suggesting something ominous.
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
Everyone in Shaker Heights was talking about it that summer: how Isabelle, the last of the Richardson children, had finally gone around the bend and burned the house down. When old family friends attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town - and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia's past. But her obsession will come at an unexpected and devastating cost . . .
Trust by Hernan Diaz
At once an immersive story and a brilliant literary puzzle, TRUST engages the reader in a quest for the truth while confronting the deceptions that often live at the heart of personal relationships, the reality-warping force of capital, and the ease with which power can manipulate facts.
Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha
A powerful and taut novel about racial tensions in L.A., following two families—one Korean-American, one African-American—grappling with the effects of a decades-old crime
Puddn’head Wilson by Mark Twain
At the beginning of Pudd'nhead Wilson a young slave woman, fearing for her infant son's life, exchanges her light-skinned child with her master's. From this rather simple premise Mark Twain fashioned one of his most entertaining, funny, yet biting novels. On its surface, Pudd'nhead Wilson possesses all the elements of an engrossing nineteenth-century mystery: reversed identities, a horrible crime, an eccentric detective, a suspenseful courtroom drama, and a surprising, unusual solution. Yet it is not a mystery novel. Seething with the undercurrents of antebellum southern culture, the book is a savage indictment in which the real criminal is society, and racial prejudice and slavery are the crimes. Written in 1894, Pudd'nhead Wilson glistens with characteristic Twain humor, with suspense, and with pointed irony: a gem among the author's later works.
Passing by Nella Larsen
Irene Redfield is a Black woman living an affluent, comfortable life with her husband and children in the thriving neighborhood of Harlem in the 1920s. When she reconnects with her childhood friend Clare Kendry, who is similarly light-skinned, Irene discovers that Clare has been passing for a white woman after severing ties to her past--even hiding the truth from her racist husband. Clare finds herself drawn to Irene's sense of ease and security with her Black identity and longs for the community (and, increasingly, the woman) she lost. Irene is both riveted and repulsed by Clare and her dangerous secret, as Clare begins to insert herself--and her deception--into every part of Irene's stable existence. First published in 1929, Larsen's brilliant examination of the various ways in which we all seek to "pass," is as timely as ever.
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Toni Morrison’s Beloved is a spellbinding and dazzlingly innovative portrait of a woman haunted by the past. Combining the visionary power of legend with the unassailable truth of history, Morrison’s unforgettable novel is one of the great and enduring works of American literature.
So there you have it! A total of 22 books for the next 3 months. Who knows if I will read them all, or any, but it’s nice to have a list in mind for books that fit this lovely season. Now I leave you with an autumnal quote so I can go read more of If We Were Villians:
"I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers."
- L.M Montgomery.
*All blurbs and covers provided by GoodReads