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September TBR Round Up

Ah the TBR or rather To Be Read Pile, the bane and reason for the avid readers existence. Like many avid readers I start out with grand plans at the beginning of a month to read a crazy number of books but plan to read and actually read are very different categories. As such, here's the round up of what my TBR pile has in it for the month of September.
The excellent reissues of American Supernatural and Hill House
Poor Penguin's American Supernatural Tales and Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson they have yet to be read by me. To be fair American Supernatural Tales was planned by me to read over at least 2 months since it chronologically covers America's supernatural short stories from the 1800's to the present. But unfortunately, I haven't found a spare moment to start it. I'm hoping to at least read the opening story before month's end but we'll see. As for Hill House I honestly, put it in the pile to read something classy. The last few books I have read have been part of what Grady Hendrix refers to as Paperbacks From Hell or the crazy genre and horror paperback originals of the horror boom. Which there is nothing wrong with them but for variety's sake I wanted to read something more people consider "classical." That's also the reason why I haven't read it yet. I'm scared I will be disappointed by it the way I was disappointed by Turn of the Screw by Henry James. Essentially, it was talked up to the nines as super scary and super influential so when I finally read it although I could see why it was influential, it just didn't scare me. I wasn't even creeped out by it. I was just left feeling meh and wanting to punch the governess character for being so obnoxious. So I will try to get to it and at least toss it in October's TBR if I don't.
Get ready for crazy with these paperback originals
I'm currently reading John Saul's Cry for the Strangers which is the classic story of unfriendly locals and a possibly, seriously cursed beach that hungers for the blood of outsiders. It's a great B movie of a book which I'm coming to expect from John Saul who wrote prolifically during the horror boom. A small warning for anyone wanting to read John Saul he has a serious vendetta against children and they die frequently in his books, most often violently. As for The Sendai by William Woolfolk it's a classic science gone amok scare tactic horror novel about test tube babies. I haven't read it yet but I found it completely by chance and was intrigued by how bonkers it sounded. It's fairly short so I'm hoping I can read it before the end of September. Well that's my TBR in a nutshell. It's not crazy big but I seem to be extra busy this month. Do any of these books look like something you'd want to add to your TBR or are some of you saving horror for October? The comment section is always open.



 
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