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Dear readers, there is a time for expanding your comfort zone, and a time for curling up in the middle of it with a cozy blanket.  We like to do both in turn, for example, last time at Virtual Book Club, Ashley and I stepped out of our comfort zones with The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix, and next time, on Friday, December 11 at 7:30 p.m. CST, we’re going to be settled into our comfort zone with Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women and we’d love for you to join us.  Read, watch, or listen, (or all three!) and click right on to an evening of conversation with bookish friends!

Now, about these comfort zones, this past weekend, Ashley and I had a conversation wherein I confessed I needed to revisit mine a bit.  We’ve been reading some books with hard themes (note: not hard books) and camping out in the 1870s and I realized I was in need of a dose of modernity.  You know the kind of modernity where women are treated like people (most days) and get to vote and shatter glass ceilings and such?  That’s what I was needing after hanging out with Annabelle, Lucie, the suffragettes, Alva Vanderbilt née Smith, and Enola Holmes.  I adore them all, but am exhausted by the efforts each woman has to go through to get treated like a person (we talked some about Annabelle, Lucie, and the suffragettes here, and Alva and Enola will be coming to a post near you very soon).  All that to say, when the books get tough, balance them out.  A dear reader and darling friend slid into our DMs last week to ask how to balance a lengthy finale to an epic series.  Having known this reader for…decades and having also read this series, we commiserated and then gave her some ideas, both general and specific.  If you need help with that sort of balance, consider this your open invitation to our DMs or comments with your questions!  Also, if you’re a person who needs to feel like they have permission, consider this your permission slip to read hard books, comfort reads, rereads, and books that are just plain fun all mixed together.  All things in moderation friends, and, as I recently found out, that does include horror novels.  Shoulding on yourself is for eating protein before opening a box of truffles (just me?  whatevs), not for your reading life.  Self care dear readers, please practice it!

So, remember several weeks ago when I said I like books, lots of them, and all kinds, except horror, which is off the table, except Anne Bogel (specifically starting about the 52 minute mark) and Ashley talked me into horror for last month’s book club?  Well, Anne and Ashley did well because I’m convinced that there is a place for horror novels in my reading life.  Don’t expect to see Stephen King in my Reading Life Review anytime soon (although 11/22/63 and On Writing are on my TBR), but an emphatic recommendation from a trusted source will be given due consideration.  Horror isn’t likely to become one of my go-to genres, but thanks to being willing to stretch my comfort zone, I got to read a really fun, creative book and have a lively interesting conversation about it.

About the conversation, dear readers if you have not yet joined us for a book club, please consider it.  We have such fun talking books and life with you every six weeks!  We had a small but mighty group last month and had such a fun chat about The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires.  None of us are regular horror readers, but we’re convinced that there are horror books that are for us.  Let me be clear dear readers, I was reading along, thoroughly enjoying myself and at about 20% I wondered why the book was classified as horror.  A while later, I hit a scene and thought, oh, that’s why it’s horror, and I’m not reading this book after 8 p.m. anymore.  It took a bit longer for me to read and I had multiple books going at once, but it was worth it.  I’m definitely interested in Hendrix’s backlist, even though I may skim through the “horror” scenes because eww y’all.  Perhaps younger (than me) readers may not find this title as appealing as it is set in the late 1980s and early 1990s and the main character is a housewife.  For me, having grown up in this time, it was a nostalgic blast (but really, I would have enjoyed more nostalgia as it was very understated).  Another point in it’s corner is that this book was set in the past, but not the distant past.  It did involve a familiar fight for women to be seen, but not the legal issues of earlier centuries.  It wasn’t modern with cell phones (although there was a car phone that made an appearance), so it didn’t frustrate my sense of jealousy about gatherings during this time of the virus that shall not be named.  This is another piece I want to bring up about our book club – although we did start this book club in part because of the pandemic and a need to connect, this group could not connect in person regardless, as we usually have at least two time zones represented, sometimes three.  We’ve had readers from as many as four states too, so it doesn’t feel like a pandemic sacrifice, but a very worthy effort to see these readers since geography has prevented us from gathering for longer.  

I haven’t added any horror books to my TBR, other than Hendrix’s, but I’m more open to them.  Do you have any recommendations for me (Ashley will tell you I don’t need them, but my super long TBR brings me joy, so don’t listen to her) of titles for a reserved horror reader? [Ashley says Nikki doesn’t need anymore HOLDS, the TBR is not controllable because we want to read ALL THE BOOKS]  I’d love to consider them!

~Nikki 

As I was reading The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires I ended up going on an adventure to the neighborhood I grew up in. Bear with me, dear readers, this is going to make sense soon, I swear, but you need a bit more background. If you remember a few weeks ago I traveled to NOLA to help my sister with my niece-ling and my nephew-nugget. I was also tasked with purchasing a friend some cans of peas. This might sound really weird to you, but if you know then you KNOW that not being able to get specific regional foods is a STRUGGLE BUS. And in the Covid-times, it’s even more difficult. I bought 6 cans of these peas for my first Tennessee friend, I was 8 when she was 9.5, and we lived on the same street, rode the school bus together, etc, even though she was a year ahead of me in school. The peas aren’t the point, they’re the catalyst. Well, a few years ago, she and her husband ended up buying a house around the corner from her parents…who still live in the same house as 27 years ago. (Shout out to her amazing husband who made me this Tennessee state flag out of reclaimed barnwood from his own family’s barn!) I drove creepily by the house that I grew up in, and then her parents’ house, before stopping at her house for special peas delivery and a masked chat. Not much has changed in the neighborhood, let’s be real honest about that. The cars are newer…  Her two boys were home and they let us chat uninterrupted for a while, but once we were interrupted, I asked her eldest what he was reading because I knew he was just now catching his stride as a reader. He showed me a 10 pack of Goosebumps books he had gotten the day before. Then, out of my mouth came: “Gosh, I loved Goosebumps when I was your age.” I didn’t have to think about it but I knew it was true. I read Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys and Goosebumps and Bunnicula with the same voracity and at the same age as I read The Babysitters Club. All while growing up in a house literally around the corner from this young reader.

Now, for the point of all this background story: I used to love horror and mystery and scary things in my reading life. I thought it was the coolest thing ever and I don’t know how or when or why I became so ANTI THOSE THINGS. I think it just comes down to my reading tastes changed as I started reading the same books as my buddies. (The instigator of this change in my reading habits is hundop the reader Nikki mentioned got all up in our DM’s recently – cause she brought DRAGONS into my life and I’m so grateful for that.) Maybe at 35 I am coming full-circle in my reading habits, because I really, really enjoyed The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires. It makes me want to pick up some more horror and supernatural themed books. As I discussed in this October post, I’m actually really into some creepier shows. I love zombies, and werewolves, and vampires, oh my! I guess my limit is those thriller and horror movies where there are actual people (not supernatural beings or animals) hurting other people. So, maybe that’s also my limit in books? Who knows, I think I’m more aware of my mental blocks and willing to try something new to me. (Just not Nicholas Sparks or John Grisham, sorry not sorry, mom.[Nikki here: Same.  Sorry again mom, and sorry readers.]) I’m also willing to admit that maybe I AM a horror reader, but it’s just not number one on my list like it was back in the day. Another thing I really enjoyed, and that probably tips the scales into my reconsideration of being a horror reader, was the level of sass and sarcasm that Hendrix employs. It’s that often subtle Southern Lady, Bless Your Heart, sass that brings me so much joy IRL and in my Reading Life. We know we sound like a broken record, but DON’T SKIP THE AUTHOR’S NOTES or ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS! Snaps to Hendrix who even changed the format of his acknowledgements to fit the book’s theme. You’d almost think it was an extended epilogue, but it’s not! It’s worth all the gruesome ew of horror scenes to read those three pages at the end.

Since I’m willing to reconsider my stance on the titles and genres that are ‘for me,’ that adds considerably to the TBR. (all the books!) Are you willing to throw recommendations my way? What books should I consider bumping up the list in the genres I am now re-discovering that I DO enjoy?

~Ashley

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