What's on my TBR list?

Some books on my To Be Read list, and why they're on there

I read 13 assigned books during my graduate school spring semester. Now that I’m on a break before the summer term begins, I have a brief window to return to my TBR (To Be Read) list to pick out some pleasure reading. (Currently: Elsewhere, by Gabrielle Zevin.)

Here’s a sampling from the 201 titles on my full TBR list on Goodreads, along with the reasons why they’re on the list. Maybe you’ll find a book or two that interests you!

The Last Murder at the End of the World, Stuart Turton

The premise of this one intrigued me: a fog has swept the planet, killing anyone it touches, except for those on an island. But a murder on the island causes the security system keeping out the fog to fail, and the clock starts ticking. When I reviewed my TBR list, I saw that I’d added this speculative mystery not once, but three times (not realizing I’d already added it), so I take that as a sign that it really interests me.

Carmilla, J. Sheridan Le Fanu

Though it was written in 1872, somehow I’d never heard of this book until I came across a reprinted edition in a Dublin bookstore last fall. Described as “the original vampire story,” it predated Stoker’s Dracula by 25 years. How can someone truly know the genre without reading this book?

Him, Geoff Ryman

Despite my lack of faith, I’m fascinated by fictional retellings or twists on biblical texts (see, for example, Moorcock’s Behold the Man and Vidal’s Live From Golgotha). Ryman’s novel, if I’m accurately inferring from the synopsis, features a transgender Christ—a premise that sounds utterly provocative.

Horizon, Tabitha Lord

Tabitha is in my creative writing MFA cohort, so that alone got her 2015 science fiction novel on my TBR list. But the book also won the Grand Prize in Writers Digest’s 2016 competition, so it certainly doesn’t need any boost from me.

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, Robin Sloan

I’m a sucker for any novel set in, around, or about a bookshop. There are several such books on my TBR list, in fact, including this one. It blends magical realism, adventure, and mystery, a potent mix; I’ll let you read the synopsis for yourself.

The Daughters’ War, Christopher Buehlman

I’ve never been a huge reader of epic fantasy, but every once in a while, I’ll happen upon a series that I end up really enjoying. Scott Lynch’s Gentleman Bastards series is one such example, but fans have been waiting on the next book in that one as long as they have George R.R. Martin’s The Winds of Winter. In the meantime, I found Buehlman’s book The Blacktongue Thief, which also featured excellent worldbuilding and characters. The Daughters’ War is a prequel novel that I look forward to reading.

Ghost Station, S.A. Barnes

I was a big fan of Barnes’ space horror novel Dead Silence (accurately described as “a haunted house in space,” or Titanic meets The Shining). If this book is anything like the other, then I’m sure to enjoy it.

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