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The week of October 15, 2024 In praise of the books that make us afraid to turn out the light. 
“Am I walking away from something I should be running away from?” — Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House Why do we love books that scare the pants off us? As indie bookseller favorite author Andrew Joseph White said, "It’s messy, and visceral, and gut-churning!…horror infects everything it touches, and isn’t that wonderful?" Horror is one of the most popular and reviewed genres by the booksellers whose reviews appear in The Southern Bookseller Review. There are over 100 books tagged "Horror," Here are some of the most recent ones that have made their readers afraid of the dark.
CJ Leede’s second book is a more emotional, personal take on the horror genre. I really enjoyed the depth of the characters, while also getting the thrill and gore that she writes so well. This was such an inventive way to explore the process of working through religious guilt and shame. 
Don’t Let the Forest In by CG Drews If a hauntingly unhinged fever dream could physically exist, it would take form of this book. This is the type of story I will spend MONTHS thinking about. 
Memorials by Richard Chizmar What a creepy, look over your shoulder, slow burn novel! Three college students set off on a school project to shoot a documentary on roadside memorials. Things start out fairly smoothly, but as they get farther into Appalachia, strange events begin to occur. Angry townies, people lurking and watching from afar, and a menacing symbol drawn at the site of the memorials. Fans of Stephen King won’t be able to put this one down. Warning: It will keep you up at night. 
Sound Museum by poupeh missaghi In Sound Museum, a professional state interrogator addresses a room of journalists at the grand opening of her magnum opus—an interactive monument built to house the recorded sounds of the people her team has tortured over the years. Her speech reads like a torturer TED Talk, weaving pseudo-intellectual references to art and philosophy together with hollow feminist talking points. missaghi is an astonishing writer of social horror. She so deftly captures the voice of evil in the form of self-congratulatory virtue-signaling that it’s actually surreal to read. Bottom line: this book doesn’t feel like fiction. It feels like the grandstanding of every politician, dictator and tech mogul I have ever heard casually brush aside the human cost of their "progress." You will walk away from this book profoundly unsettled, as though you have witnessed something you weren’t supposed to. You can help! 
Independent bookstores in the South are still struggling in the wake of Hurricane Helene, and now Hurricane Milton. You can help: Donate to Binc; a relief organization for booksellers and comic book sellers. Visit the SIBA Hurricane Relief Resources page to donate directly to store fundraisers. And shop online at a store that has been impacted. Read This Now | Read This Next | Book Buzz | The Bookseller Directory |
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Read This Now! Recommended by Southern indies… |
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Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout Adult Fiction, Literary Elizabeth Strout can do no wrong in my eyes and Tell Me Everything is just wonderful! I loved getting to know Lucy Barton’s friend Bob Burgess in this lovely story. Plus, finally getting Olive Kitteredge and Lucy Barton in the same ROOM was perfection! I chuckled because Olive is, well, OLIVE throughout, and I felt the emotions that Strout evokes for all of the characters in this novel. Strout is a singular voice and I LOVE IT! Reviewed by Lynne Phillips, Wordsworth Books in Little Rock, Arkansas |
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Songs for the Brokenhearted by Ayelet Tsabari Adult Fiction, Literary A chance discovery following her mother’s death prompts Zohara Haddad, a young Yemeni-Israeli woman, to explore her family’s history and in the process to reevaluate her own heritage in this absorbing and timely novel. Set in the mid-1990s, during the era of the Oslo peace talks and the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, it’s also a fascinating insight into a little-known (to this reader, anyway!) aspect of Israeli culture. Tsabari writes beautifully, with the pacing of a mystery and the style of true literature, and I raced through it in just a few days. Reviewed by Jude Burke-Lewis, Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi |
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Bookseller Buzz |
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Spotlight on: Two-Step Devil by Jaime Quatro 
Well, one thing I’ve learned is not to over describe. The tendency is to think, the more description, the more clarity. But I don’t think that’s true. Say I want to describe a vision of three green apples floating in mid-air above a sunlit table. Right now, a first-blush image has appeared in my head, and in yours. But if I go on and tell you that the apples are in a black bowl, that the bowl is also floating, that the table is white marble, and that the sunlight is coming from a dormer window above the table… the more I pile on, the more you have to go back and revise your initial image. You want to give just enough detail, then let the reader fill in the rest. You’re trusting your reader this way, giving them agency. Reader, you and I are creating this book together. Too much description risks alienating them. What booksellers are saying about Two-Step Devil 
Jaime Quatro is the New York Times Notable author of I Want to Show You More, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award and the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize, and Fire Sermon, a Book of the Year for the Economist, San Francisco Chronicle, LitHub, Bloomberg, and the Times Literary Supplement. Quatro’s fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, the New York Review of Books and Ploughshares. She is the recipient of fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, and Maison Dora Maar, and teaches in the Sewanee School of Letters MFA program. Quatro lives with her family in Chattanooga, Tennessee. |
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The Crescent Moon Tearoom by Stacy Sivinski Adult Fiction, Fantasy, Historical
An October Read This Next! Title I loved this sweet cozy fantasy! It had me from the first page with the tantalizing descriptions of the smells and tastes of the tearoom. I was totally invested in the lives of the three sisters. This is the perfect book to distract you from real life! Reviewed by Kelley Dykes, Main Street Reads in Summerville, South Carolina |
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The Wilderness by Aysegül Savas Adult Nonfiction, Biography & Autobiography, Literary Criticism, Memoirs, Women Authors In this slim volume, Savas beautifully explores the “wilderness” of postpartum and the mythologies that surround the first forty days after birth. Each short entry dives deep into the chaos of new motherhood—the newborn days full of paradox and pain, the deep wells of care and emotion that emerge, the mystery and lore of the mother-child bond. Savas argues that we mothers emerge from that beginning inexorably changed; we enter the wilderness and cannot help but emerge a bit wild ourselves. A perfect companion for reading in snippets during nursing sessions or wakeful nights—this is a book for anyone who enjoyed Jazmina Barrera’s Linea Nigra or Rivka Galchen’s Little Labors. Reviewed by Hannah DeCamp, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia |
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Heir by Sabaa Tahir Epic, Fantasy, Young Adult Fiction As a long-time fan of Sabaa Tahir’s work, from her National Book Award-winning All My Rage, to the Ember in the Ashes quartet that Heir follows, I was ecstatic for her newest adventure. Heir did not disappoint. With characters that are somehow even more fearsome than their predecessors, Tahir’s most recent novel is blistering, romantic, and convoluted in a fantastical ode to all of the different definitions of family. Tahir subtly weaves in callbacks to her Ember series that will excite earlier fans of her work, all while skillfully making it accessible to every reader, whether or not they know the haunted halls of Blackcliff Academy. Tahir has already penned her name in the annals of young adult greats, and Heir’s scim-sharp prose only further cements her legacy. Reviewed by Sydney Mason, Epilogue Books Chocolate Brews in Chapel Hill, North Carolina |
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When Black Girls Dream Big by Tanisia Moore African American & Black, BIPOC, Children, Juvenile Fiction, Picture Books We are standing on the shoulders of giants. In the same vein as her glorious I Am My Ancestors’ Wildest Dreams, Tanisia Moore has mixed powerful affirmations with the strength of examples of those who have gone before. Robert Paul has put these children right alongside, holding the hands of, carrying on the work of our mentors and role models. This is a book that makes you feel stronger just by reading it. Reviewed by Lisa Yee Swope, Bookmarks in Winston-Salem, North Carolina |
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Leon: Worst Friends Forever: A Graphic Novel (Leon #2) by Jamar Nicholas Childrens, Comics & Graphic Novels, Juvenile Fiction, Superheroes "Make good Choices, Leon" is something Leon hears on the way to school every morning. As much as he tries, Leon knows he sometimes messes up and sometimes is conflicted about just what the best choices are. Sometimes things are just too much, but maybe figuring it all out is Leon’s superpower. Reviewed by Angie Tally, The Country Bookshop in Southern Pines, North Carolina |
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Decide for Yourself Books that appear on PEN America’s list of challenged books. |
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Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo Banned Books, LGBTQ+, Young Adult 1950s San Francisco is not the safest place for seventeen-year-old Lily Hu to realize she’s a lesbian, and the danger is only amplified by the anti-Chinese sentiment of the Red Scare. It starts with Lily’s infatuation over the male impersonator Tommy Andrews, and the companionship and understanding of Kathleen Miller, a friend from her math class. It coalesces with love found under the neon sign of the Telegraph Club, a lesbian bar that is equally as threatened by the paranoia of the Cold War. Last Night at the Telegraph Club is beautifully written and utterly transcendent, and serves as a testament to the power and necessity of queer love even in times of danger and intolerance. Reviewed by Jordan April, Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, North Carolina |
Southern Bestsellers What’s popular this week with Southern Readers. |
[ See the full list ] |
Parting Thought “Beware the dark pool at the bottom of our hearts. In its icy, black depths dwell strange and twisted creatures it is best not to disturb.” |
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Publisher:
The Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance /
siba@sibaweb.com |
SIBA | 51 Pleasant Ridge Drive | Asheville, NC 28805
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