Okay, I’m ready to call it — this year, I read (or read again) 71 books!

Technically, that’s two books less than last year (and last year’s number was technically a little less than the year’s before) but I’m trying to stress out less about my unreasonable TBR pile and making my way through it. Instead, I’m making a concerted effort to read what I really want to read at the given time and not rushing through books just to goose the stats.

For the curious, my full list is below (with favorites marked, as always, with an asterisk). And below that you’ll find my lists for 2022 and 2021 as well, for comparison.

This will likely be my last post of the year, so I want to thank you for checking in with me and taking the time to read about what I’ve got going on. Hopefully next year will begin with some exciting announcements, as I’ve got a few tentative projects in the works right now.

Happy Holidays!!

2023
Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite*
The Fran Lebowitz Reader by Fran Lebowitz
Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates*
Experimental Film by Gemma Files*
Split Scream: Vol. 2 by Cynthia Gómez and M. Lopes da Silva*
The Wild Hunt by Emma Seckel
The Best Horror of the Year: Vol. 12 (Ellen Datlow, Editor)*
Helicopter Parenting in the Age of Drone Warfare by Patrick Barb*
Gargantuana’s Ghost by Patrick Barb*
Corpsemouth and Other Autobiographies by John Langan*
Stories from the Attic by William Gay*
The Safety of Unknown Cities by Lucy Taylor*
The Lost Weekend by Charles Jackson
Koko by Peter Straub*
Sisters of the Crimson Vine by P.L. McMillan*
The Wide, Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies by John Langan*
Nightblood by T. Chris Martindale
Soft Targets by Carson Winter*
Southern Fried and Horrified by Ronald Kelly*
Folk Songs for Trauma Surgeons by Keith Rosson*
The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain
Charcoal by Garrett Cook*
Music of the Moldering & If it Bleeds by Matthew M. Bartlett*
The Donut Legion by Joe R. Lansdale*
They Were Here Before Us: A Novella in Pieces by Eric LaRocca
The Mother Wound by Jess Landry
Behold the Void by Philip Fracassi*
Madam Crowl’s Ghost & Other Stories by Sheridan Le Fanu
Beneath A Pale Sky by Philip Fracassi*
The Office of Historical Corrections: A Novella and Stories by Danielle Evans*
The Vile Thing We Created by Robert P. Ottone*
Shadow Season by Tom Piccirilli*
Children of Demeter by EV Knight
Thrill Me by Benjamin Percy*
Yours Cruelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark by Cassandra Peterson*
A Choir of Ill Children by Tom Piccirilli*
Split Scream: Vol. 3 by Patrick Barb and J.A.W. McCarthy*
Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction by Lisa Kröger and Melanie R. Anderson*
Whalefall by Daniel Kraus*
The Dragon Griaule by Lucius Shepard*
Agony’s Lodestone by Laura Keating*
The Trees Grew Because I Bled There: Collected Stories by Eric LaRocca*
The Angel of Rome And Other Stories by Jess Walter*
The Deceased by Tom Piccirilli*
The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms by Amy Stewart*
Strangers On A Train by Patricia Highsmith
Under the Hollywood Sign: The Collected Stories of Tom Reamy by Tom Reamy*
The Best of Our Past, The Worst of Our Future by Christi Nogle*
As Summer’s Mask Slips and Other Disruptions by Gordon B. White*
We Are Here To Hurt Each Other by Paula D. Ashe*
Pre-Approved For Haunting and Other Stories by Patrick Barb*
101 Horror Books to Read Before You’re Murdered by Sadie Hartmann
The Wayward Bus by John Steinbeck*
Every Shallow Cut by Tom Piccirilli*
The Witnesses Are Gone by Joel Lane*
The Unblemished by Conrad Williams
Dead Leaves by Kealan Patrick Burke
Benny Rose, The Cannibal King by Hailey Piper
Pork Pie Hat by Peter Straub
All Hallows by Christopher Golden
Deep Into That Darkness Peering by Tom Piccirilli*
The Secret Life of Insects and Other Stories by Bernardo Esquinca*
Polyphemus by Michael Shea*
Spectral Shadows: Three Supernatural Novellas by Robert Westall*
We Live In Water: Stories by Jess Walter*
I’d Rather Be The Devil: Skip James and the Blues by Stephen Calt*
Scarewaves by Trevor Henderson
The Chalk Circle Man by Fred Vargas*
Seeking Whom He May Devour by Fred Vargas*
Bad Dog: Collected Crime Stories by Tom Piccirilli*
Fever House by Keith Rosson*

2022
Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu*
Our Friends from Frolix 8 by Philip K. Dick
The Book of Broken Hymns by Rafe Posey*
Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark*
Basketful of Heads by Joe Hill*
Sundial by Catriona Ward*
Dread Softly by Caryn Larrinaga
The Haunting of Alma Fielding by Kate Summerscale
Swift to Chase by Laird Barron
The Stay-Awake Men & Other Unstable Entities by Matthew M. Bartlett*
The Book of the Most Precious Substance by Sara Gran
Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin*
Spontaneous Human Combustion by Richard Thomas
Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell by Nathan Ballingrud*
The Cormorant by Stephen Gregory*
The Nineties: A Book by Chuck Klosterman*
Full Throttle: Stories by Joe Hill*
Mr. Cables by Ronald Malfi*
The Dead Fish Museum by Charles D’Ambrosio
The John Fante Reader (Stephen Cooper, Editor)
The Twilight Man: Rod Serling and the Birth of Television by Koren Shadmi*
The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and the World of Literary Obsession by Allison Hoover Bartlett*
The Hunger and Other Stories by Charles Beaumont
And Her Smile Will Untether the Universe by Gwendolyn Kiste*
All We Need of Hell by Harry Crews
Anthony Bourdain’s Hungry Ghosts by Anthony Bourdain and Joel Rose
Selected Stories by Nate Southard
Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters by John Langan*
The Low, Low Woods by Carmen Maria Machado
The Me You Love In The Dark by Skottie Young*
Stray Dogs by Tony Fleecs*
Hack/Slash: My First Maniac by Tim Seeley
The Stars We Share by Rafe Posey*
Beulah by Christi Nogle*
The Apparitionists: A Tale of Phantoms, Fraud, Photography, and the Man Who Captured Lincoln’s Ghost by Peter Manseau*
Julia by Peter Straub
Floating Dragon by Peter Straub*
Reunion Special by Carson Winter*
All the White Spaces by Ally Wilkes
Sometimes We’re Cruel and Other Stories by J.A.W. McCarthy*
What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher*
Helpmeet by Naben Ruthnum*
The Woman by Jack Ketchum & Lucky McKee*
Engines of Desire: Tales of Love & Other Horrors by Livia Llewellyn*
Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor*
lost boy lost girl by Peter Straub*
Terra Insanus by Edward Lee
Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach*
in the night room by Peter Straub*
Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy by Hailey Piper*
Final Cuts: New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles (Ellen Datlow, Editor)*
A Season of Loathsome Miracles by Max D. Stanton*
Queens of the Abyss: Lost Stories from the Women of the Weird (Mike Ashley, Editor)
Things Have Gotten Worse Since Last We Spoke And Other Misfortunes by Eric LaRocca*
Anybody Home? by Michael J. Seidlinger*
Shiver by Junji Ito*
Dark Archives: A Librarian’s Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin by Megan Rosenbloom*
End of the Road by Brian Keene*
Nightscript: Vol. 8 (C.M. Muller, Editor)*
Halloween Fiend by C.V. Hunt
The Halloween Children by Brian James Freeman and Norman Prentiss*
Devil’s Night by Curtis M. Lawson
The Mexican Tree Duck by James Crumley*
Split Scream: Vol. 1 by Carson Winter and Scott J. Moses*
Every House Is Haunted by Ian Rogers*
Closing Costs by Wesley Southard*
By The Light of My Skull by Ramsey Campbell*
In A Lonely Place by Karl Edward Wagner*
Little Deaths: The Definitive Collection by John F.D. Taff*
The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories (Tara Moore, Editor)
You Shall Never Know Security by J.R. Hamantaschen
Snowblind by Christopher Golden*
We Had to Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets*

2021
Berlin Noir by Philip Kerr*
(This volume collects the first three of Kerr’s Bernie Gunther novels – March Violets, The Pale Criminal, and A German Requiem)
DJStories: The Best of David J Schow by David J Schow*
Familiar Spirit by Lisa Tuttle*
A Day at the Beach by Geoffrey Wolff
San Diego Lightfoot Sue and Other Stories by Tom Reamy*
Cutting Edge by various (Dennis Etchison, Editor)*
The Earth Wire by Joel Lane
Skin by Kathe Koja*
Viator by Lucius Shepard*
Gabriel by Lisa Tuttle*
Occultation by Laird Barron*
The Town by Bentley Little
Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero
Warlock by Jim Harrison*
Get In Trouble by Kelly Link
The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson
Three By Cain by James M. Cain*
(This volume collects three of Cain’s novels – Serenade, Love’s Lovely Counterfeit, and The Butterfly)
After the People Lights Have Gone Off by Stephen Graham Jones*
Tales of the Unexpected by Roald Dahl
The Turquoise Lament by John D. MacDonald*
The Charles Bowden Reader (Ed. Erin Almeranti and Mary Martha Miles)*
Ellison Wonderland by Harlan Ellison
The Dreadful Lemon Sky by John D. MacDonald*
Scar City by Joel Lane*
Unforgivable Stories by Kim Newman
Beast of the Heartland by Lucius Shepard*
The Last Detail by Darryl Ponicsan*
North American Lake Monsters by Nathan Ballingrud*
The Stones of Muncaster Cathedral by Robert Westall
The Pugilist At Rest by Thom Jones*
Night-Side by Joyce Carol Oates
Colonel Rutherford’s Colt by Lucius Shepard*
Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? And Other Questions About Dead Bodies by Caitlin Doughty*
The Great Leader by Jim Harrison*
The Big Seven by Jim Harrison
If The River Was Whiskey by T.C. Boyle*
Rant by Chuck Palahniuk*
Bloodchild & Other Stories by Octavia E. Butler*
R Is For Rocket by Ray Bradbury
Color Scheme by Ngaio Marsh
Blindsight by Peter Watts*
We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix*
I Sing The Body Electric! by Ray Bradbury
The Best of Michael Michael Marshall Smith* by Michael Marshall Smith 
Miss Lonelyhearts & The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West*
Basket Case by Carl Hiaasen
Cold Snap by Thom Jones
Observed While Falling: Bill Burroughs, Ah Pook, and Me by Malcolm Mc Neill
Greener Pastures by Michael Wehunt*
The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley*
Wicked Things by Thomas Tessier
In that Endlessness, Our End by Gemma Files*
The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell
Between Time and Terror (Edited by Robert Weinberg, Stefan Oziemianowicz, Martin H. Greenberg)*
Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham*
Booked To Die by John Dunning
Mapping The Interior by Stephen Graham Jones*
Silver Scream (Edited by David J. Schow)*
My Planet: Finding Humor In The Oddest Places by Mary Roach
The Imago Sequence by Laird Barron*
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones*
From Here To Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty*
Blood Sugar by Daniel Kraus*
The Final Case by David Guterson 
Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery by Brom*
Trick Or Treat: A History of Halloween by Lisa Morton*
When Things Get Dark (Edited by Ellen Datlow)*
Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw
Something More Than Night by Kim Newman*
Today A Woman Went Mad In The Supermarket by Hilma Wolitzer
The Last House On Needless Street on Catriona Ward*
Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake*
Out of the Woods by Chris Offutt*
To Be A Man by Nicole Krauss
The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell by Brian Evenson*
The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz*