Bonding with your children over books is a magical thing. The Broken Blade – My youngest daughter was reading this for school, and it was short, and about French-Canadian voyageurs (from which I am descended), so I figured, why not. I remember reading a sample and becoming intrigued by the style and knowledgeability of the 1980s horror genre. But it must have caught my eye because I like eighties horror movies and I’ve read “The Last Final Girl” by Stephen Graham Jones and (unsuccessfully) “Final Girl” by Riley Sager. The Final Girl Support Group – Again, I cannot remember. I think it was sitting on my old Nook, and when I converted all those books over to my Kindle I found it again.Ī Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot #1) – I cannot remember, but I think Amazon recommended it because I read “A Long Way to A Small Angry Planet”, which I liked just fine. The Invention of Hugo Cabret – For the life of me, I cannot remember why/how I got this. The Kaiju Preservation Society – John Scalzi’s latest book, and I read all his stuff

I have since found that his tastes and mine do not run together. The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle – Justin McElroy, one of the McElroy brothers (My Brother, My Brother, and Me, The Besties) mentioned this a few times on his podcast and recommended it. I figured in for a penny, in for a pound. The Psychology of Superheroes: An Unauthorized Exploration – Amazon suggested this when I bought The Law of Superheroes.

Usually that means it appears on either my Twitter feed or Amazon recommendations. I finally bit the bullet and bought it because my next novel was going to deal with superheroes and the legalities surrounding them. The Law of Superheroes – Also had been on my Amazon wish list for a long time because I couldn’t get it at the library. I think it had been on there for years, back when I was still a pup and needed to read more “how to write” books. The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller – I had this on my Amazon wish list for a long time and finally got it for Christmas. The idea of non-Japanese written J-Horror appealed to me. Nothing But Blackened Teeth – a Big Idea on Scalzi’s site. I don’t remember where I became aware of the original book.

The Big Idea is a type of featured post where authors of new works can talk about what inspired them to write the book.Īll These Worlds (Bobiverse #3) – The third book in a trilogy, and I liked the first two well enough. Swashbucklers – a Big Idea on John Scalzi’s site. So I looked back over 2022’s books I read and tried to remember how/why I added them to my “to be read” list. I thought it’d be interesting to see how I pick books to read, if there’s a pattern.

Nothing but blackened teeth amazon