Typical Books of Terror: Horror Books and Fiction Discussion Typical Books

What is my style of booktube? A booktube identity, as it were. A really good question to which I ask: is horror a style? I mean, on the surface level you could say there is a horror aesthetic that many fans embrace, and skulls often find their place in our decor. Horror novels and being a horror reader may not, however, be as obvious - especially when our bookshelves when only containing books look a lot like any other genre fan.

So, for a little fun thinkpiece, we delve into six questions about what sort of booktube channel we have here.

Questions discussed here are::

1. What do you want your channel to be known for?
2. What content will people find on your channel?
3. What is the most represented genre of books?
4. What book are you known for championing?
5. What author is regularly featured on your channel?
6. What can people expect in the future? (reveal some exciting plans)
7. Tag people and state 'what you know them for?'. (wherein I just leave this an open tag)

I watched this over at Reading This Life - Revealing My BookTube Identity: What I'm Known For #tag #booktube Revealing My BookTube Identity

✮✮✮✮✮✮

▹ Bookworm decor is here! https://shop.typicalbooks.com/
▹ All socials, the shop and news: https://linktr.ee/LydiaPeever
▹ Read books I wrote: https://amzn.to/3k20OY6
▹ A list of horror books out each month: https://typicalbooks.com/newhorror
▹ Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/shop/typicalbooks to shop local!
▹ Music by ænorex: https://aenorex.com

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases when you use Amazon links here. If you prefer an alternative, try my Bookshop!

Bookworm Central on Patreon ▹ typicalbooks

I talk horror books; extreme horror, classic, slasher, gothic, and everything in between. Helping you find the next best horror book to read is the goal, and sharing new and old horror from my shelves and new releases is how! Horror, nonfiction and even true crime can be found here as I find that human beings are the scariest thing of all.

✮ Thank you! ✮

Twenty-seven books are coming out or are out already!

The list includes two I am reading now, one I will absolutely be buying as soon as it drops in June, and two new books from horror royalty, Stephen King and Joyce Carol Oates.

I will likely do a new partner pick poll in May so some of these will make an appearance! All these and more are listed on https://typicalbooks.com/newhorror so be sure to click through for more after the show.

✮✮✮✮✮✮

▹ Bookworm decor is here! https://shop.typicalbooks.com/▹ All socials, the shop and news: https://linktr.ee/LydiaPeever▹ Read books I wrote: https://amzn.to/3k20OY6▹ A list of horror books out each month: https://typicalbooks.com/newhorror▹ Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/shop/typicalbooks to shop local!▹ Music by ænorex: https://aenorex.com

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases when you use Amazon links here. If you prefer an alternative, try my Bookshop!

Bookworm Central on Patreon ▹ https://www.patreon.com/typicalbooks

I talk horror books; extreme horror, classic, slasher, gothic, and everything in between. Helping you find the next best horror book to read is the goal, and sharing new and old horror from my shelves and new releases is how! Horror, nonfiction and even true crime can be found here as I find that human beings are the scariest thing of all.

✮ Thank you! ✮

Like a dark and twisted Anne of Green Gables, this book was a welcome addition for me; and very well written for a debut novel. I was happily surprised at how much I related to the very odd and “unlikable” main character Ada Byrd. There was a great balance of late-Victorian references and modern sensibility, as well as a cozy atmosphere created by the diary style of the book. The ideas of intimate desire, reckless abuse and longing for friendship were so blurred at times, that there was a lovely sort of delirium created for the reader which mirrored the iceberg tip of the madness forming in Ada.

Absolutely beautiful reading in Grey Dog, by Elliott Gish. I'd wanted to read this and was so pleased when ECW reached out with a review copy ~ thank you, Claire! While perusing catalogs of new books coming out Grey Dog caught my eye because of the contradictory nature of its cover. I was hoping that it would have something to do with sort of a body horror or some animalistic nature transformation and I wasn't exactly right although there is some sort of body horror... if you count the use of dead animals and a little skull within the story. The stark nature of what almost looks like a woodcut lent itself to the description of this book taking place in the 1900s so I caught a “botanical dark academia” flavour just from the illustration on the front.

Much to my delight the author is from the East Coast and did find inspiration in Lucy Maud Montgomery and the Anne of Green Gables, so if you ever wanted that in horror form, this is one for you!

This is the debut novel by Elliott Gish and I am looking forward to more.

Pick up Grey Dog here https://amzn.to/3UgdlXe

From the back cover copy: “The year is 1901, and Ada Byrd ― spinster, schoolmarm, amateur naturalist ― accepts a teaching post in isolated Lowry Bridge, grateful for the chance to re-establish herself where no one knows her secrets. She develops friendships with her neighbours, explores the woods with her students, and begins to see a future in this tiny farming community. Her past ― riddled with grief and shame ― has never seemed so far away...”

✮✮✮✮✮✮

▹ Bookworm decor is here! https://shop.typicalbooks.com/▹ All socials, the shop and news: https://linktr.ee/LydiaPeever▹ Read books I wrote: https://amzn.to/3k20OY6▹ A list of horror books out each month: https://typicalbooks.com/newhorror▹ Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/shop/typicalbooks to shop local!▹ Music by ænorex: https://aenorex.com

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases when you use Amazon links here. If you prefer an alternative, try my Bookshop!

Bookworm Central on Patreon ▹ https://www.patreon.com/typicalbooks

I talk horror books; extreme horror, classic, slasher, gothic, and everything in between. Helping you find the next best horror book to read is the goal, and sharing new and old horror from my shelves and new releases is how! Horror, nonfiction and even true crime can be found here as I find that human beings are the scariest thing of all.

✮ Thank you! ✮

While I am not in the habit of posting poor reviews, I wanted to talk about these three books - even if I didn't like them much. I’ve rarely posted reviews of books that were not for me mostly because I chose narrowly from a narrow genre: horror. It is not to say they were poorly written at all, they are all good. I had waited for Waif and am so happy to own a copy; Nineteen Little Stab Wounds was a delightful find; My Throat an Open Grave is just a wonderfully complete package from pillar to post and beautifully written.

They are all dark, twisty, horrific or weird. But... They were just not for me at all.

Before I get too deep into that: here is the link to the radio drama version of Sticks by Karl Edward Wagner https://www.zbs.org/audio/Sticks.mp3

Now, be it the recency, or the fact that I wanted to like these books so much - I also still want to share them because I know they do and will have fans!

Especially My Throat and Open Grave. Biblical connotations of the title aside, it was a Puritan nightmare! It's a really beautifully written book and beautifully bound.

The one review I did edit heavily was for My Throat an Open Grave where I felt I was reading a subtweet for a hundred pages or heavily disguised Christian propaganda. It was a strange feeling because they have teen troubles that are not resolved in a wholesome way, the outcome is the opposite of an after-school special, and the whole problem started because of a cult-like Christian town. I am still not sure why I felt I was being sold snake oil throughout. On the other side of that, I felt the pandering to angsty teens was a little over the top and something I thought we had left behind over a decade ago. I will say the twist was unique and I loved how revenge played a big part in the first big resolution here, but I still felt at odds with the central theme as I came away with ‘women are bad and you should feel bad’ when I am sure the opposite was intended.

Anyhow! I'll be reading a few great books to come, and The Haunting of Velkwood! Thank you to everyone who voted!

✮✮✮✮✮✮

▹ Bookworm decor is here! https://shop.typicalbooks.com/▹ All socials, the shop and news: https://linktr.ee/LydiaPeever▹ Read books I wrote: https://amzn.to/3k20OY6▹ A list of horror books out each month: https://typicalbooks.com/newhorror▹ Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/shop/typicalbooks to shop local!▹ Music by ænorex: https://aenorex.com

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases when you use Amazon links here. If you prefer an alternative, try my Bookshop!

Bookworm Central on Patreon ▹ https://www.patreon.com/typicalbooks

I talk horror books; extreme horror, classic, slasher, gothic, and everything in between. Helping you find the next best horror book to read is the goal, and sharing new and old horror from my shelves and new releases is how! Horror, nonfiction and even true crime can be found here as I find that human beings are the scariest thing of all.

✮ Thank you! ✮

My preorder, book of the month, and review copy horror novel stash had built up to eight books since November. So, here we are at the end of the month with a little unboxing. This also marks the end of my read-what-you-own challenge. I'll be updating that more deeply in another video as I did learn a lot over the last few months. I hope to incorporate more reading from my shelves and less book buying going forward, for sure, but in a subtle way.

Here we have some excellent books! A patron pick that bookworms voted on - thank you, everyone! That is 'My Throat an Open Grave' by Tori Bovalino and is available here : https://amzn.to/3ThO4LR

✮✮✮✮✮✮

▹ Bookworm decor is here! https://shop.typicalbooks.com/
▹ All socials, the shop and news: https://linktr.ee/LydiaPeever
▹ Read books I wrote: https://amzn.to/3k20OY6
▹ A list of horror books out each month: https://typicalbooks.com/newhorror
▹ Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/shop/typicalbooks to shop local!
▹ Music by ænorex: https://aenorex.com

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases when you use Amazon links here. If you prefer an alternative, try my Bookshop!

Bookworm Central on Patreon ▹ https://www.patreon.com/typicalbooks

I talk horror books; extreme horror, classic, slasher, gothic, and everything in between. Helping you find the next best horror book to read is the goal, and sharing new and old horror from my shelves and new releases is how! Horror, nonfiction and even true crime can be found here as I find that human beings are the scariest thing of all.

✮ Thank you! ✮

Disturbing books are so often synonymous with horror fiction. While there are classics, nonfiction, memoirs and other genres that are 'disturbing' I've found horror tends to populate the tops and bottoms of these iceberg images that are popular online. Is there a level below, sinking deeper than the murky depths? I would say there is...

I recommend In A Lonely Place https://amzn.to/3OXLDM5 for those who want to remain in the top two levels of books like this.

There is the original version (I finally found it again!) of the image here https://imgur.com/a/3Y6UB5L as was posted by one 'shyplasterlord' on reddit a few years ago. It was in a thread on hundreds of them, but this iceberg floated to the top as it were :)

For those interested in the PDF that goes along with the Degree of Horror video, it is here: https://nightface.ca/Peever-Writing-Horror.pdf and the video  itself is here: https://youtu.be/vdt9il9zoks

✮✮✮✮✮✮

▹ Bookworm decor is here! https://shop.typicalbooks.com/
▹ All socials, the shop and news: https://linktr.ee/LydiaPeever
▹ Read books I wrote: https://amzn.to/3k20OY6
▹ A list of horror books out each month: https://typicalbooks.com/newhorror
▹ Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/shop/typicalbooks to shop local!
▹ Music by ænorex: https://aenorex.com

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases when you use Amazon links here. If you prefer an alternative, try my Bookshop!

Bookworm Central on Patreon ▹ https://www.patreon.com/typicalbooks

I talk horror books; extreme horror, classic, slasher, gothic, and everything in between. Helping you find the next best horror book to read is the goal, and sharing new and old horror from my shelves and new releases is how! Horror, nonfiction and even true crime can be found here as I find that human beings are the scariest thing of all.

✮ Thank you! ✮