Max's picture
Max from Texas is reading goosebumps May 31, 2015 - 10:18pm

A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay (June)

The lives of the Barretts, a normal suburban New England family, are torn apart when fourteen-year-old Marjorie begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia.

To her parents’ despair, the doctors are unable to stop Marjorie’s descent into madness. As their stable home devolves into a house of horrors, they reluctantly turn to a local Catholic priest for help. Father Wanderly suggests an exorcism; he believes the vulnerable teenager is the victim of demonic possession. He also contacts a production company that is eager to document the Barretts’ plight. With John, Marjorie’s father, out of work for more than a year and the medical bills looming, the family agrees to be filmed, and soon find themselves the unwitting stars of The Possession, a hit reality television show. When events in the Barrett household explode in tragedy, the show and the shocking incidents it captures become the stuff of urban legend.

Fifteen years later, a bestselling writer interviews Marjorie’s younger sister, Merry. As she recalls those long ago events that took place when she was just eight years old, long-buried secrets and painful memories that clash with what was broadcast on television begin to surface—and a mind-bending tale of psychological horror is unleashed, raising vexing questions about memory and reality, science and religion, and the very nature of evil.

Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits by David Wong (October)

David Wong is the author of my all-time favorite novel, John Dies at the End, so I'm really looking forward to his third book:

In a prosperous yet gruesomely violent near-future, superhero vigilantes battle thugs whose heads are full of supervillain fantasies. The peace is kept by a team of smooth, well-dressed negotiators called The Men in Fancy Suits. Meanwhile a young girl is caught in the middle, and thinks the whole thing is ridiculous.

Zoey, a recent college graduate with a worthless degree, makes a reluctant trip into the city after hearing that her estranged con artist father had died in a mysterious yet spectacular way. There she finds that her scumbag dad had actually, in the final years of his life, put his amazing talent for hustling to good use: He was one of the founding members of the Fancy Suits, and died in the course of his duties.
Zoey is quickly entangled in the city's surreal mob war when she is taken hostage by a particularly crazy villain who imagines himself to be a Dr. Doom-level mastermind. The villain is demanding information about Zoe's father when she is rescued by The Fancy Suits. She reluctantly joins their cause and help finish what her old man started, tapping into her innate talent for bullshit that she inherited from her hated father. And along the way, she might just have to learn how to trust people again.

Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink (October)

The best goddamn podcast now has its own novel!

Located in a nameless desert somewhere in the great American Southwest, Night Vale is a small town where ghosts, angels, aliens, and government conspiracies are all commonplace parts of everyday life. It is here that the lives of two women, with two mysteries, will converge.

Nineteen-year-old Night Vale pawn shop owner Jackie Fierro is given a paper marked "KING CITY" by a mysterious man in a tan jacket holding a deer skin suitcase. Everything about him and his paper unsettles her, especially the fact that she can't seem to get the paper to leave her hand, and that no one who meets this man can remember anything about him. Jackie is determined to uncover the mystery of King City and the man in the tan jacket before she herself unravels.

Night Vale PTA treasurer Diane Crayton's son, Josh, is moody and also a shape shifter. And lately Diane's started to see her son's father everywhere she goes, looking the same as the day he left years earlier, when they were both teenagers. Josh, looking different every time Diane sees him, shows a stronger and stronger interest in his estranged father, leading to a disaster Diane can see coming, even as she is helpless to prevent it.

Diane's search to reconnect with her son and Jackie's search for her former routine life collide as they find themselves coming back to two words: "KING CITY". It is King City that holds the key to both of their mysteries, and their futures...if they can ever find it.

The Bazaar of Bad Dreams by Stephen King (November)

King's short stories are always fun. This one looks great.

There are thrilling connections between stories; themes of morality, the afterlife, guilt, what we would do differently if we could see into the future or correct the mistakes of the past. “Afterlife” is about a man who died of colon cancer and keeps reliving the same life, repeating his mistakes over and over again. Several stories feature characters at the end of life, revisiting their crimes and misdemeanors. Other stories address what happens when someone discovers that he has supernatural powers—the columnist who kills people by writing their obituaries in “Obits;” the old judge in “The Dune” who, as a boy, canoed to a deserted island and saw names written in the sand, the names of people who then died in freak accidents. In “Morality,” King looks at how a marriage and two lives fall apart after the wife and husband enter into what seems, at first, a devil’s pact they can win.

What are yours?

 

Pete's picture
Pete from Detroit is reading Red Dragon June 1, 2015 - 5:31am

I've tried to listen to Welcome to Nightvale, and just couldn't get into it. I listened to the first couple episodes and nothing really happens. Can you tell me why you like it so much?

Joshua Chaplinsky's picture
Joshua Chaplinsky from New York is reading Library Books June 1, 2015 - 7:08am

Pumped for Ghosts. Sounds great. 

Also, new David Mitchell: Slade House

Margaret Atwood: The Heart Goes Last

And The Familiar Vol. 2

Dwayne's picture
Dwayne from Cincinnati, Ohio (suburbs) is reading books that rotate to often to keep this updated June 3, 2015 - 4:37am

Maybe I'm the bad guy, but unless I know someone there are zero books coming out I care about anymore. Or maybe it just isn't a busy year for writers I'm a fan of. 

Kaci Lamore's picture
Kaci Lamore from Wisconsin is reading I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb June 3, 2015 - 2:16pm

Pete's picture
Pete from Detroit is reading Red Dragon June 26, 2015 - 7:44am

Just saw on Vice that Joy Williams had a story posted there.

http://www.vice.com/read/the-bridgetender-0000670-v22n6

And that's how I found out she has a new collection coming out.

http://www.amazon.com/Visiting-Privilege-New-Collected-Stories/dp/110187...

Her book The Quick and The Dead is one of my favorite books. Her short stories are great as well.

melmurphy's picture
melmurphy from Spokane is reading "Julian" by Gore Vidal July 4, 2015 - 8:42pm

Atwood's got a new book out?

I'm sooo there.

Steven Barritz's picture
Steven Barritz from Long Island is reading Etgar Keret and Robert Sheckley July 8, 2015 - 12:31pm

The Atwood book isn't exactly new, it's been released in serial e-book form under the name Positron starting in 2013.