April 7, 2025 • 35 mins
The Books I've been reading plus more exciting news on the new podcast, Short Bites: A Stephen King Podcast
# Podcast Show Notes
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#booktube/Podcast
# Podcast Show Notes
Support Weird Reads:
Become a Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/jason_white
Join the Patreon for ad-free episodes!
Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdreader
Email me: weirdreadspodcast@gmail.com
Find Jason elsewhere:
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/jasonsweirdreadsFind
Join the Weird Reads book club: https://fable.co/club/jasons-weird-reads-book-club-with-jwhite-418694065870?club_type=free#books
Join the discord: https://discord.gg/RTvcHvWuXa
Twitter:
@Jason_White74
@WeirdReadsPod
Intro music created by DudeAwesome from Freesound.
[Freesound - “Scary Haunting Cinematic Style Mix Sound Effects.flac” by DudeAwesome](https://freesound.org/people/DudeAwesome/sounds/490055/
#booktube/Podcast
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello, and welcome to episode thirty one fifty one. I'm
Jason White, and this is Weird Reads and Jason's Reid Reads,
and today I am going to do from the hip
style recent reads. And if you don't know what recent
(00:21):
or if you don't know what recent reads are, if
you don't know what from the hips are, it's where
I talk about just a little bit of my own life,
what's going on generally pertaining to the show, and you know,
what's going on behind the scenes kind of thing. And
then I talk about the books I'm reading right now
(00:45):
and what I am reading or what I have read,
and then and then that's it basically. As you can tell,
I'm having trouble speaking today, so we might be in
for some editing, all right. So in March, we're pretty
busy here, and that's why you haven't seen any videos
(01:08):
on the YouTube channel. There's a lot of busy weekends
because I've been doing a lot of overtime at work
and I've been doing a lot of work on my
writing and my podcasts. I had a zombie novel that
I wrote way back in twenty thirteen, and it was
(01:29):
published in twenty and fifteen, and then that publisher went
belly up, and I decided to get it professionally edited,
which costs a good chunk of change, And I've been
working on those edits again, and so I'm hoping to
release that by the end of this year, so stay
(01:50):
tuned for that.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
I've been working hard on that.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
It's really slow going, like sometimes you can only do
a couple of pages a day, and it's the book
itself is like two hundred and fourteen or fifteen pages long.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
So that'll be interesting.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
See you know, if I guess, you're just gonna have
to wait to see when that's gonna happen. And also,
I think I mentioned this last time, but I finished
a novella and it's about twenty twenty nine thousand words
long and I'm letting it sit now while I work
on the edits for the novel. And that's I'm pretty
(02:30):
happy that I was able to finish a longer piece
of fiction because I haven't been able to do that
in a very, very long time. So what's going on
with the podcasts? Well, this one's been running pretty regular.
I haven't had to take too many breaks like I
thought I would, but I've been working a lot on
Short Bites, a Stephen King podcast where we talk about
(02:53):
short stories Stephen King short Stories, and you can look
for that. I finally have a release date for that
that you're gonna you're gonna find that on April the
twentieth on the new YouTube channel Short Bites, the Stephen
King Podcast and the new podcast itself under the same name,
(03:15):
so that I think that's fantastic. I'm very happy about that.
So it's what I have actually about four I think four,
uh maybe even five episodes in the can for Short Bites.
(03:35):
I just wanted to collect them. I've been working on them,
I think since February, and I've been wanting to work
on them to you know, just get them, to get
you know, like a little ahead. And I've had some
amazing guests so far. Some of the guests I've had
were my old friend Michael Schutz. I used to co
(03:58):
host the nest Well's podcast with me way back. It's
I've been like six or seven years now, which is
weird to think.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
But he's an author.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
I've talked about his books before, like Plank Children. I
highly recommend that I've talked to from our own you
from YouTube. Jen from Literary Love one, two three. She's
gonna appear on the show Sin from Sin's Booknook and
so far author's Nicholas Kaufman and and Jonathan Jans. Yes,
(04:36):
Jonathan Jans, you heard me right, He's he's on an
episode there too. You might be able to guess which one.
In regards to a certain anthology that's coming out. I
thought it would be an interesting idea to ask him
if he would be willing to come on and talk
about that short story because he's in this anthology that's
coming out that's a dedication to Stephen King. I think
(04:59):
I just gave it a way there, But stay tuned.
So I have a lot of other really cool guests
of people you've seen on the Weird Reads podcast here
before and people that you haven't, So stay tuned for that.
It's going to be a lot of fun, and so
(05:20):
far it has been a lot of fun. I'm learning
a lot about Stephen King's short story or short stories
and writing, and I've been having a blast, honestly all right.
So on the book club for April, I missed like March,
and I think February too, but we're we're in April now,
can you believe that. For April, the Jason's Weird Reads
(05:44):
book Club is reading Trader's Cord by Scott Leeds. Now,
this is only April the seventh, and I haven't been
able to start it yet because I'm busy, as you're
going to see, I'm busy reading books. And how about
we get into what I'm reading right now, because I'm
reading four books and one of them is like nine
(06:04):
hundred to two thousand pages somewhere, and it's slowing me down.
But I'm really enjoying it because he's an old author,
an old favorite. Actually he is old, actually he is
like in his eighties. But that book that itself is
The Last Chairlift by John Irving. I used to read
John Irving all the time, way back in the oughts
(06:25):
in the two thousands. From two thousand to twenty ten,
I read almost not exclusively, but you know, I caught
up to where John Irving had written everything up until
that point.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
He was and is my favorite, one of my favorite writers.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
And so I decided to dive into his latest The
Last Chairlift, which is another big, thick book by John Irving,
and I can't stop reading it. I thought I would
stop when certain other books came to the table that
I had to read and I just couldn't stop reading it.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
But it's really taking a while.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
I think i've been reading it since the beginning of
March and I'm getting close to halfway through.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
But like I said, it's about nine hundred pages.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
But I'm reading a bunch of other books in the meantime,
so I'm not always reading it. I'm also reading Daddy's
Boy by Michael David Wilson. Because Michael, if you might remember,
he was on the show last year in April. He's
the host of This Is Horror podcast and he's also
(07:35):
an author, and we talked mostly about his books, and
we're going to be talking again, probably about his podcast
and Daddy's Boy, which is coming out in May, I believe,
so stay tuned for that. That's coming up real soon.
And I'm in really enjoying Daddy's Boy.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
It I Michael David Wilson is a writer of mine.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
I think I'm always going to read what he puts
out because he has a very distinct voice, and I
think that's what I'm addicted to when it comes to
his writing. He's got like a certain quirkiness to his stories.
You have to read him in order to find out,
and I highly recommend.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Reading Daddy's Boy.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
I believe there may be pre orders available for that now,
so definitely check that out. I'm also currently reading Janitors
Versus the Living Dead by Michelle Garza and Melissa Layson.
I remember when they were talking about this book on
Facebook and I just when they did their cover reveal,
(08:44):
and I was like, that cover is awesome and I
absolutely love just what the title suggests. And so I
went and pre ordered the book, and as usual when
you pre order books, you kind of forget that you
did that, and so I got this mysterious package in
the mail and I was like, what's this.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
I didn't order a book. And then I opened it
up and I was like, oh, yeah, I pre ordered that,
didn't I. So that's awesome. I'm so glad, and I'm about.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Twenty five percent of the way through right now, and
it's so far a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
I love the.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Custodian crew they work in Like this, it's like a
subdivision for rich people that all these people live near.
Actually within this subdivision, it's not really called a subdivision,
but I'm calling it a subdivision. It's like a rich
area and there's a golf course attached to it, and
(09:38):
they work on that golf course, but they also go around.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
And clean people's houses, and.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
So they clean the golf course itself and people's houses,
and they're just a hoot.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
You know. It's like I know these people.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
So I'm also obviously continuing on with night Shift. I
find that it doesn't take as much time as I
thought it would. I thought it was going to completely
take up all my time reading these short stories.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
It doesn't.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
I've been reading one per like in preparation for an episode,
and I listened to it if I can, because night
Shift isn't an audiobook. Only certain stories are part of that.
So it's actually I forget what it's called. Let me
look it up here quickly, because there is an audio
(10:31):
book you can get. I think it's like, I have
it on my phone here. It's called it is called
Graveyard Shift, which is interesting. Graveyard Shift by Stephen King,
and there's only about seven of the stories in there,
so you know, anyways, I'm getting ahead of myself here.
(10:52):
I've been reading those books and or those short stories,
and what I do is if I can listen to them.
I'll listen to them over and over again, and then
I'll read them, and I take a lot of notes,
like here's my physical copy, like there's a lot of
tabs there, and and I do that to sort of
(11:16):
get even more familiar with the story, to get familiar
with the writing, and to come up with questions and whatnot.
And so it's been fun. I've never done this before.
I've never like read to this extent before, and I'm
kind of having a lot of fun with it. It's
quite the interesting project.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
All right. So what have I been reading? Like I had?
Speaker 1 (11:38):
I have to catch up here. That's why this episode
is here. I'm going to try to keep these fairly
my descriptions of them short, because I don't know how
many books. I think there's like thirteen books here that
I write in about a month and a half time.
So the first up, I remember, remember when I was
talking about me being grumpy in regard to my reading
(12:00):
in that well, I decided to and I think I
mentioned this in the last Recent Reads episode. I switched
to Parannesse. I didn't switch. I just started reading because
I wanted one of those books that everyone seems to
love in order to, you know, stop what could have
been a reading slump. I didn't want to go into
(12:25):
a reading slump, so I started reading Parenthessey and that
was a good choice. Parentes by Sanne Susannah Clark, I
should mention also is a really great book. It starts
off as kind of like, you have no idea what's
going on. There's this this guy who lives in this
giant house. I mean it's a giant house where there's
(12:47):
all these statues and there's three floors to this house
and the bottom floor keeps flooding out by the ocean.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
And he's this guy.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
He doesn't know who he is or what he's doing.
For all he knows he's been there forever, and he's
going through all the statues in this house and he's
like making notes on them and he's taking care of
them all. And then I'm not going to spoil it,
but something happens and he starts remembering things.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
It's a really good story.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
It really wrapped me up and and and did exactly
what I needed it too. So Paranesi by Susanna Clark
is a really good book. If you haven't read it,
I highly recommend it. Next up is Another book I
highly recommend by another favorite author of mine, and that's
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix. This book, this
(13:42):
book is it's typical Grady Hendrix, which is a good thing.
Grady Hendrix is known for this type of you know,
a female protagonist. These women are typically stronger than what
maybe a lot of fiction would portray women as.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
But this story is about a young girl who.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Who's being is I think the late sixties, early seventies.
She's being sent to a place where, you know, she
gets pregnant. She's sixteen and she's pregnant, and so they
send her to this place where she can have her
child and they'll take that child when she has it
and adopt it. And so you get to stay with
(14:26):
this girl while she's living in this area with all
these other girls who are in the same predicament as her,
and it goes into all the things that you know,
happened to her and to her friends that are just wrong.
How we treated these or how they were treated. We
(14:48):
don't do it anymore. You never know it could come
back because of the you know, the way things are
in the world. But they're not treated well, they're not
treated as though they're human. You know, they're blamed for
their situation, not the men who got them in that.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Situation in the first place.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
And they meet a witch along the way who teaches
them some witchcraft, and that that really that really changes
things for them and for the better. It's I guess
it's kind of like a good for her type book.
I also reread The Gun Slinger. In the last episode,
(15:29):
the Last Recent Reads episode, I said I was going
to read like maybe twenty pages a day or something
like that, and I've decided to put that on hold
because there's just too much going on. But I really
enjoyed my third or fourth reread of The Gun Slinger.
The Gun Slinger is just awesome. I don't know why
people would want to skip it, and I don't know
why people don't like it. It's a different style for
(15:50):
Stephen King, for sure, but it's still it's it's worthy, man,
It's it's it's like a prologue. I don't I've heard
people some people like to skip prologs, but I don't
get that.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
It's like, do they just not like reading?
Speaker 1 (16:05):
They just want to get to the good stuff, and
that's it, because this is good stuff. There's important stuff
in here too that that you need to know for.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
The rest of the series. That that's I'll.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Step off my soapbox now. The Gunslinger, I think is important.
And it's not the best book by any means. I
think if I were to tier the books, I think
it would it would come in last. It wouldn't be
first by any means. But I think it's important and
I enjoyed reading it, and that's saying something, saying it
(16:36):
would come in last, and I still love it so
and one day I think I will tier.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
I think I have an.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Order now finally, although I still have to read When
Through the Keyhole. Stay tuned for that, I imagine Sin
and I will will dust off our copies of A
Wind in the Keyhole and and we'll bring that episode
to you sometime within this year. I also read Sterling
(17:03):
City by Stephen Graham Jones, and if you don't know,
a whole bunch of Stephen Graham Jones books. As they
came out, they often went out of print, because that's
how it works for the majority of authors. And then
he got really big, and because he got really big,
they've been reprinting a.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Lot of his old out of print books.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
And Sterling City is one of them. I've heard him
on a podcast recently saying that he would never do
a Lovecraftian type story, but this is like a love
Crafty and type story for him. It's not cosmic horror,
I would say, necessarily, but it kind of is. But
it kind of reminds me of his meteorite story, Stephen
(17:49):
King's meteorite story Color out of Space, because similar thing happens.
Meteorite lands in the farmers field and it pretty much
changes everything. But it's completely different and from Lovecraft's story.
But I think there are maybe some parallels here that
Stephen Graham Jones forgot about when he said that, because
it was.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Recent when you said that.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
And I think this book came out in like the
early teens or like twenty ten or something like that originally,
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
But it's good. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
I also read at Dark I've Become Loathsome by Eric Laraka.
This book, this book is dark Man, and it really
rocked my world.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Honestly, it changed a lot of things for me.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Because I was going through that grumpy period where the
state of the world was looking bleak and only looking bleaker.
And then I read this book about a guy who
buries people alive. They pay him to do this, and
it goes into some dark territories. Might understand now you
(19:01):
got you're probably wondering how who would pay for that?
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Right? I mean?
Speaker 1 (19:05):
The point is like, you're only buried for a short
period of time, and usually you're at the end of
your rope when you request.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
This type of of thing.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
So if you were to approach him, it would be
because you're you're maybe ready to end things and and
you want one last, one last chance at saving yourself.
And so you go to this guy, pay him a
certain amount of money, and he'll bury you for to say,
fifteen minutes, and then he'll dig you back up. This
(19:37):
is actually something that happens in I think Thailand or somewhere.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
There's like services like this.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
I don't know, I didn't look into it, but but yeah,
So the guy, the protagonist is the guy who does this,
and he's he's been through it. Man, he's got some issues,
and a certain client comes to him and it kind
of changes him for perhaps the worst. It's very beautiful
(20:08):
in a very dark sense. It's it's perhaps one of
the darkest stories I've read in a long time.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
And it's very serious, not too.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Much not too much comedy in this and but you know,
look out for the end of the year that's probably
be This is probably gonna be one of them there,
one of the top ten. If unless I do another
Top twenty, I don't know, but this one blew me away.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Highly recommend it.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
And because I was so impressed by that, I went
and read Eric Loraca's This Skin Was Once Mine. This
is like a collection of four novellas, or maybe one
of them is a short story, but the other three
are novella length. I can't remember, but these were all
so very impressive as well. I think there was only
one in there that I didn't really like, but the
(20:54):
other three like really blew me away. One of the stories,
in a in an adjacent sort of way, reminded me of.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
The Swords by Robert Aikman.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
If you haven't read that story, I highly recommend you
go read that story, but also read this collection. The
Skin was One's Mind. It's it's fabulous in a very
dark way. Excuse me, all right, So I also read
Victorian Psycho because I did that little and this is
where it started. I decided to do like a reading
(21:35):
project where I would read American Psycho and then read
some of the books that were maybe sort of influenced
by it. One of them definitely is, and the other
one is that one is the first one, American Psycho
by Brett Easton, American Psycho goddamn is Victorian Psycho by
(21:57):
Virginia Fato. I don't know if I pronounced that right,
but this book is a lot of fun and you
can kind of see maybe how it was perhaps influenced
by American Psycho. But this book is very different. It
takes place in Victorian times, and it's about a woman
who gets like a nursing job in a house for
(22:22):
rich people, of course, and she has like these weird
psychotic tendencies. And this book gets very gory and very violent.
We'll leave it at that. It's just a fun book.
It's kind of funny in a very dark, twisted way.
If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. If
you just want something that's gory and fun and nasty
(22:43):
in that way, definitely give it a checkout. I think
you'll enjoy it. But then I read American Psycho by
Brett Easton Ellis and this book is completely different. It's
more of a satire and maybe a Victorian Psycho is
a bit of a satire on the climes as well,
but this one is, like you can see it, like,
(23:05):
the first quarter of American Psycho is all about fashion
and what these people on Wall Street are wearing, and
how they treat each other, and how they treat their
women because it's mostly a male cast, except for the
women of course, who surround them, like their girlfriends or
(23:26):
just the people they're having sex with.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
And the drugs.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Of course, there's drugs. There's a lot of drugs, a
lot of cocaine. And music reviews. Yes, there's music reviews.
But as I was saying, the first quarter is all
about the fashion. If you don't know any fashionable names
of the late eighties, you're going to learn them here
and to a deep extent. Let me tell you, I
(23:50):
think there's a lot of people who got lost in
that and maybe gave up reading American Psycho because or like,
what the this?
Speaker 2 (23:58):
I don't get it?
Speaker 1 (23:59):
But you know, slowly but surely, the real Patrick Bateman,
our main character here, slowly reveals himself and by the
end you don't know if he did everything that he
claims to in this book.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
I have my theory.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
I think he did do some of it maybe, but
I think most of it was just in his head. Anyways,
that's up for discussion, which I guess this isn't really
necessarily about. American Psycho is hard to read for several reasons.
And it's weird that I loved it so much because
(24:35):
it gets hard to read because of the things he
does to certain people. There's a lot of human butchery
going on here, and a lot of you know, nonchalance
about it, like something we just do or I just
do typically on you know, it's just another Tuesday morning
type thing. And then there's the fashion aspect, which I've
(24:57):
never been a fashion person, and so learning about all
the fashion stuff and what to wear in business situations
just like, you know, can we move on? But in
a sense I found myself interested. Anyway, it's just Brett
Easton Ellis's voice. He sort of makes it interesting even
if it's not interesting to you and so. And also
(25:20):
this is like a deep like it's not I don't
think it's just written for.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Shits and giggles.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
I think there's an aspect an important aspect to this,
and it's a look at the way we are.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
We focus, we hyper focus.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
On things that aren't important, and I think that the
point of this book is that can lead to some
serious problems. And maybe maybe this whole book is about
being beauty is only skinned deep?
Speaker 2 (25:52):
I don't know. And then I read may Fly by C. J. Lead.
This book was also really good.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
This this book takes a female protagonist who's kind of
like Patrick Bateman, who works in a popular American theme
park that which could or could not or might or
might not be Disney. Pretty sure it probably is Disney,
but it's never mentioned, probably for some good legal reasons.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
And you just follow me.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
You know. With with Patrick Bateman is you didn't like him, he.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Was a despicable person.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
He kind of enjoyed following him because he's interesting, but
you wouldn't like him in real life. But I found
myself really liking Mayve. And that's weird because she's she's
just a psycho. I don't I don't understand the contrast.
But as I said, she works in this popular theme
park and you can only imagine what that's like and
(26:54):
where this story is gonna go I'm gonna leave it
at that because I don't want to spoil anything. Mayfly
is a per short compared to American Psycho. Okay, so
I read another kind of psychotic book for this was
for I think March's Jason's we had Read's book club
and we read The Lamb by Lucy Rose.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Now this book.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
If you haven't read this book, I highly suggest you
go to Amazon or wherever you get your ebooks and
just download a sample. The first paragraph, the first sentence
about the six fingers that this kid dug out of
a dug out of a shower drain.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Yeah, that pretty much sets the tone for the story.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
So it's about a mother and a daughter who live
and they take in strays like stray human beings, and
they become well, they become the next meal. These people
they like to eat people.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
So it's total cannibalism. And we go into some depth
here with like recipes. This book it goes there. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
So The Lamb by Lucy Rose another really great read.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
I really enjoyed it, highly recommended.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
This book goes into some weird territory and I'm not
too sure if I agreed with the ending.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
The ending was kind of Weird for me.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Honestly, I can't say I enjoyed the ending, but it
wasn't like it was a terrible ending. It was an
interesting ending. I just don't know if I completely agree
with what happened there. If you've read all of the lamb,
let me know in the comments. If you're watching the video,
let me know what you thought, or email me at
(28:46):
Weird Weird Reads Pod at gmail dot com. The email
is in the show notes, all right. I also read
a Man after all those disturbing books, did a palate cleanser.
So I went searching for another book that everyone seems
to love, and I landed on Frederick Bachmann. It was
(29:07):
only a matter of choice which one I was going
to choose, so I decided to go by a man
called Ov.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
I think is how you pronounce it? Ova? Ova?
Speaker 1 (29:17):
That's it, a man called Ova.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
This book was a lot darker.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Than I thought it would be, so it wasn't exactly
a palate cleanser. I don't know if I should really
go into too much of the details because it might spoil.
I went in completely blind, just about a grumpy old
man basically who recently lost his wife, and so this
book might tug at your tear ducks a little bit,
but it's also tragic for other reasons. This old ov
(29:48):
Ova he's not happy, and that's a parent from the beginning,
but he has a good heart and he keeps doing
things that he grumpily, grumpily does. He doesn't want to
do it, but he ends up helping people out a lot,
and it stops him from doing certain things. And those
certain things are maybe in the.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Trigger warnings here.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
This book really deals with suicidal ideation and whatnot, So
if you're triggered by that, maybe skip this book. But
I didn't find it all that bad myself. And that's
where like there's like a sort of comedic edge to
all that. And because he every time he goes to
(30:31):
end himself something funny, not really funny, but the situation
itself stops him from doing it. That turns kind of comedic.
And I'm gonna leave it at that. It's a good story,
good heartfelt but dark kind of story, and it's kind
of unique just for that alone. And then to end
(30:51):
this round, I read three but I'm gonna save one
of those for the next recent reads. But I read
a couple of Jonathan few Jonathan Jan's books. If you remember,
earlier in the year, I read Children of the Dark
by Jonathan Jance.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Well.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
I decided to since I was going to have them
on my show for the Stephen King.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Short bites.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
I thought I'd read the sequel, which is The Night Fliers,
And this book pretty much continues a year later from
where Children Are the Dark Ends and these creatures, man,
they make a comeback, and do they ever?
Speaker 2 (31:28):
My god, this book is full of action.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
I think I want to say it's more action than
the first one, but I'm not too sure if that
would be accurate.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
But man, this book is fun.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
I don't think he going to these books by Jonathan
Chance for anything too deep.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
The characters are always really well drawn out.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
I love that, like the characterations here are just like
they're great, and the action is like top notch. Man,
if you want like an adrenaline rush man, go to
Jonathan Jans and his Children of the Dark series. And
because the creatures are similar, I decided to check out
Savage Species by Jonathan Chance. They're not just similar, it's
(32:09):
all in the same world. And this one is another
like adrenaline pumping crazy ride that goes through those caves
that that are in Children of the Dark a lot
because the story involves a young child who goes missing
and so they, you know, of course, a bunch of
people go searching for the child and that's when they
(32:31):
run into these creatures.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
And it's not good. It's not good at all. A
lot of people, a lot of people get it.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
It's insane. And you know, talking to Jonathan Chance, he's
such a really cool, nice guy, but he's brutal in
these books. My God, do not attach yourself to any
of the characters. That's that's that's my trigger warning for this.
You might want to check out other trigger warnings too,
because like this, these books go there. They're they're dark
(33:00):
in a fun way, but they're very gory. If gore
turns you off, then you might want to skip this.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
But I don't know.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
I love reading fun gory books. That's just what they are,
all right. So that's all I have for this episode
of Recent Reads. So stay tuned for April the twentieth,
because that's when Short Bites is.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Going to premiere.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
And it's been a long time in the running. I
remember when I reached out to some of the people
to be guests on the show. I was like, yeah,
I'm going to get a hold of you again in January.
It's like at the end of it was in December
of twenty twenty four, and for some reason in my mind,
I just thought it was all going to happen at once.
(33:47):
I don't know why. I thought that. It's been kind
of going slowly, and I think that's it's not really
actually slow. It just feels slow because when I finally
finalized everything that I wanted to do for this new podcast,
it was just all there in my mind and it
was like I was going to be able to do
(34:08):
it all right away.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Right. Well, that's not the case.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
So anyways, April twentieth, wherever you get, wherever you download
your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
I will be.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Doing more videos here in regards to that soon and
also on the new channel and podcast obviously, So just
stay tuned for that on April the twentieth, And as
for everything else, Yeah, I hope you're all having a
great time. Please leave a message in the comments if
(34:37):
you're on the YouTube channel, and thank you for being
here and being patient with me. Keep being safe, keep
being weird, because being weird is important, especially in today's world,
and I will catch you guys next time.
Hello, and welcome to episode thirty one fifty one. I'm
Jason White, and this is Weird Reads and Jason's Reid Reads,
and today I am going to do from the hip
style recent reads. And if you don't know what recent
(00:21):
or if you don't know what recent reads are, if
you don't know what from the hips are, it's where
I talk about just a little bit of my own life,
what's going on generally pertaining to the show, and you know,
what's going on behind the scenes kind of thing. And
then I talk about the books I'm reading right now
(00:45):
and what I am reading or what I have read,
and then and then that's it basically. As you can tell,
I'm having trouble speaking today, so we might be in
for some editing, all right. So in March, we're pretty
busy here, and that's why you haven't seen any videos
(01:08):
on the YouTube channel. There's a lot of busy weekends
because I've been doing a lot of overtime at work
and I've been doing a lot of work on my
writing and my podcasts. I had a zombie novel that
I wrote way back in twenty thirteen, and it was
(01:29):
published in twenty and fifteen, and then that publisher went
belly up, and I decided to get it professionally edited,
which costs a good chunk of change, And I've been
working on those edits again, and so I'm hoping to
release that by the end of this year, so stay
(01:50):
tuned for that.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
I've been working hard on that.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
It's really slow going, like sometimes you can only do
a couple of pages a day, and it's the book
itself is like two hundred and fourteen or fifteen pages long.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
So that'll be interesting.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
See you know, if I guess, you're just gonna have
to wait to see when that's gonna happen. And also,
I think I mentioned this last time, but I finished
a novella and it's about twenty twenty nine thousand words
long and I'm letting it sit now while I work
on the edits for the novel. And that's I'm pretty
(02:30):
happy that I was able to finish a longer piece
of fiction because I haven't been able to do that
in a very, very long time. So what's going on
with the podcasts? Well, this one's been running pretty regular.
I haven't had to take too many breaks like I
thought I would, but I've been working a lot on
Short Bites, a Stephen King podcast where we talk about
(02:53):
short stories Stephen King short Stories, and you can look
for that. I finally have a release date for that
that you're gonna you're gonna find that on April the
twentieth on the new YouTube channel Short Bites, the Stephen
King Podcast and the new podcast itself under the same name,
(03:15):
so that I think that's fantastic. I'm very happy about that.
So it's what I have actually about four I think four,
uh maybe even five episodes in the can for Short Bites.
(03:35):
I just wanted to collect them. I've been working on them,
I think since February, and I've been wanting to work
on them to you know, just get them, to get
you know, like a little ahead. And I've had some
amazing guests so far. Some of the guests I've had
were my old friend Michael Schutz. I used to co
(03:58):
host the nest Well's podcast with me way back. It's
I've been like six or seven years now, which is
weird to think.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
But he's an author.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
I've talked about his books before, like Plank Children. I
highly recommend that I've talked to from our own you
from YouTube. Jen from Literary Love one, two three. She's
gonna appear on the show Sin from Sin's Booknook and
so far author's Nicholas Kaufman and and Jonathan Jans. Yes,
(04:36):
Jonathan Jans, you heard me right, He's he's on an
episode there too. You might be able to guess which one.
In regards to a certain anthology that's coming out. I
thought it would be an interesting idea to ask him
if he would be willing to come on and talk
about that short story because he's in this anthology that's
coming out that's a dedication to Stephen King. I think
(04:59):
I just gave it a way there, But stay tuned.
So I have a lot of other really cool guests
of people you've seen on the Weird Reads podcast here
before and people that you haven't, So stay tuned for that.
It's going to be a lot of fun, and so
(05:20):
far it has been a lot of fun. I'm learning
a lot about Stephen King's short story or short stories
and writing, and I've been having a blast, honestly all right.
So on the book club for April, I missed like March,
and I think February too, but we're we're in April now,
can you believe that. For April, the Jason's Weird Reads
(05:44):
book Club is reading Trader's Cord by Scott Leeds. Now,
this is only April the seventh, and I haven't been
able to start it yet because I'm busy, as you're
going to see, I'm busy reading books. And how about
we get into what I'm reading right now, because I'm
reading four books and one of them is like nine
(06:04):
hundred to two thousand pages somewhere, and it's slowing me down.
But I'm really enjoying it because he's an old author,
an old favorite. Actually he is old, actually he is
like in his eighties. But that book that itself is
The Last Chairlift by John Irving. I used to read
John Irving all the time, way back in the oughts
(06:25):
in the two thousands. From two thousand to twenty ten,
I read almost not exclusively, but you know, I caught
up to where John Irving had written everything up until
that point.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
He was and is my favorite, one of my favorite writers.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
And so I decided to dive into his latest The
Last Chairlift, which is another big, thick book by John Irving,
and I can't stop reading it. I thought I would
stop when certain other books came to the table that
I had to read and I just couldn't stop reading it.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
But it's really taking a while.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
I think i've been reading it since the beginning of
March and I'm getting close to halfway through.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
But like I said, it's about nine hundred pages.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
But I'm reading a bunch of other books in the meantime,
so I'm not always reading it. I'm also reading Daddy's
Boy by Michael David Wilson. Because Michael, if you might remember,
he was on the show last year in April. He's
the host of This Is Horror podcast and he's also
(07:35):
an author, and we talked mostly about his books, and
we're going to be talking again, probably about his podcast
and Daddy's Boy, which is coming out in May, I believe,
so stay tuned for that. That's coming up real soon.
And I'm in really enjoying Daddy's Boy.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
It I Michael David Wilson is a writer of mine.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
I think I'm always going to read what he puts
out because he has a very distinct voice, and I
think that's what I'm addicted to when it comes to
his writing. He's got like a certain quirkiness to his stories.
You have to read him in order to find out,
and I highly recommend.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Reading Daddy's Boy.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
I believe there may be pre orders available for that now,
so definitely check that out. I'm also currently reading Janitors
Versus the Living Dead by Michelle Garza and Melissa Layson.
I remember when they were talking about this book on
Facebook and I just when they did their cover reveal,
(08:44):
and I was like, that cover is awesome and I
absolutely love just what the title suggests. And so I
went and pre ordered the book, and as usual when
you pre order books, you kind of forget that you
did that, and so I got this mysterious package in
the mail and I was like, what's this.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
I didn't order a book. And then I opened it
up and I was like, oh, yeah, I pre ordered that,
didn't I. So that's awesome. I'm so glad, and I'm about.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Twenty five percent of the way through right now, and
it's so far a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
I love the.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Custodian crew they work in Like this, it's like a
subdivision for rich people that all these people live near.
Actually within this subdivision, it's not really called a subdivision,
but I'm calling it a subdivision. It's like a rich
area and there's a golf course attached to it, and
(09:38):
they work on that golf course, but they also go around.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
And clean people's houses, and.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
So they clean the golf course itself and people's houses,
and they're just a hoot.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
You know. It's like I know these people.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
So I'm also obviously continuing on with night Shift. I
find that it doesn't take as much time as I
thought it would. I thought it was going to completely
take up all my time reading these short stories.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
It doesn't.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
I've been reading one per like in preparation for an episode,
and I listened to it if I can, because night
Shift isn't an audiobook. Only certain stories are part of that.
So it's actually I forget what it's called. Let me
look it up here quickly, because there is an audio
(10:31):
book you can get. I think it's like, I have
it on my phone here. It's called it is called
Graveyard Shift, which is interesting. Graveyard Shift by Stephen King,
and there's only about seven of the stories in there,
so you know, anyways, I'm getting ahead of myself here.
(10:52):
I've been reading those books and or those short stories,
and what I do is if I can listen to them.
I'll listen to them over and over again, and then
I'll read them, and I take a lot of notes,
like here's my physical copy, like there's a lot of
tabs there, and and I do that to sort of
(11:16):
get even more familiar with the story, to get familiar
with the writing, and to come up with questions and whatnot.
And so it's been fun. I've never done this before.
I've never like read to this extent before, and I'm
kind of having a lot of fun with it. It's
quite the interesting project.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
All right. So what have I been reading? Like I had?
Speaker 1 (11:38):
I have to catch up here. That's why this episode
is here. I'm going to try to keep these fairly
my descriptions of them short, because I don't know how
many books. I think there's like thirteen books here that
I write in about a month and a half time.
So the first up, I remember, remember when I was
talking about me being grumpy in regard to my reading
(12:00):
in that well, I decided to and I think I
mentioned this in the last Recent Reads episode. I switched
to Parannesse. I didn't switch. I just started reading because
I wanted one of those books that everyone seems to
love in order to, you know, stop what could have
been a reading slump. I didn't want to go into
(12:25):
a reading slump, so I started reading Parenthessey and that
was a good choice. Parentes by Sanne Susannah Clark, I
should mention also is a really great book. It starts
off as kind of like, you have no idea what's
going on. There's this this guy who lives in this
giant house. I mean it's a giant house where there's
(12:47):
all these statues and there's three floors to this house
and the bottom floor keeps flooding out by the ocean.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
And he's this guy.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
He doesn't know who he is or what he's doing.
For all he knows he's been there forever, and he's
going through all the statues in this house and he's
like making notes on them and he's taking care of
them all. And then I'm not going to spoil it,
but something happens and he starts remembering things.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
It's a really good story.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
It really wrapped me up and and and did exactly
what I needed it too. So Paranesi by Susanna Clark
is a really good book. If you haven't read it,
I highly recommend it. Next up is Another book I
highly recommend by another favorite author of mine, and that's
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix. This book, this
(13:42):
book is it's typical Grady Hendrix, which is a good thing.
Grady Hendrix is known for this type of you know,
a female protagonist. These women are typically stronger than what
maybe a lot of fiction would portray women as.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
But this story is about a young girl who.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Who's being is I think the late sixties, early seventies.
She's being sent to a place where, you know, she
gets pregnant. She's sixteen and she's pregnant, and so they
send her to this place where she can have her
child and they'll take that child when she has it
and adopt it. And so you get to stay with
(14:26):
this girl while she's living in this area with all
these other girls who are in the same predicament as her,
and it goes into all the things that you know,
happened to her and to her friends that are just wrong.
How we treated these or how they were treated. We
(14:48):
don't do it anymore. You never know it could come
back because of the you know, the way things are
in the world. But they're not treated well, they're not
treated as though they're human. You know, they're blamed for
their situation, not the men who got them in that.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Situation in the first place.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
And they meet a witch along the way who teaches
them some witchcraft, and that that really that really changes
things for them and for the better. It's I guess
it's kind of like a good for her type book.
I also reread The Gun Slinger. In the last episode,
(15:29):
the Last Recent Reads episode, I said I was going
to read like maybe twenty pages a day or something
like that, and I've decided to put that on hold
because there's just too much going on. But I really
enjoyed my third or fourth reread of The Gun Slinger.
The Gun Slinger is just awesome. I don't know why
people would want to skip it, and I don't know
why people don't like it. It's a different style for
(15:50):
Stephen King, for sure, but it's still it's it's worthy, man,
It's it's it's like a prologue. I don't I've heard
people some people like to skip prologs, but I don't
get that.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
It's like, do they just not like reading?
Speaker 1 (16:05):
They just want to get to the good stuff, and
that's it, because this is good stuff. There's important stuff
in here too that that you need to know for.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
The rest of the series. That that's I'll.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Step off my soapbox now. The Gunslinger, I think is important.
And it's not the best book by any means. I
think if I were to tier the books, I think
it would it would come in last. It wouldn't be
first by any means. But I think it's important and
I enjoyed reading it, and that's saying something, saying it
(16:36):
would come in last, and I still love it so
and one day I think I will tier.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
I think I have an.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Order now finally, although I still have to read When
Through the Keyhole. Stay tuned for that, I imagine Sin
and I will will dust off our copies of A
Wind in the Keyhole and and we'll bring that episode
to you sometime within this year. I also read Sterling
(17:03):
City by Stephen Graham Jones, and if you don't know,
a whole bunch of Stephen Graham Jones books. As they
came out, they often went out of print, because that's
how it works for the majority of authors. And then
he got really big, and because he got really big,
they've been reprinting a.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Lot of his old out of print books.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
And Sterling City is one of them. I've heard him
on a podcast recently saying that he would never do
a Lovecraftian type story, but this is like a love
Crafty and type story for him. It's not cosmic horror,
I would say, necessarily, but it kind of is. But
it kind of reminds me of his meteorite story, Stephen
(17:49):
King's meteorite story Color out of Space, because similar thing happens.
Meteorite lands in the farmers field and it pretty much
changes everything. But it's completely different and from Lovecraft's story.
But I think there are maybe some parallels here that
Stephen Graham Jones forgot about when he said that, because
it was.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Recent when you said that.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
And I think this book came out in like the
early teens or like twenty ten or something like that originally,
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
But it's good. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
I also read at Dark I've Become Loathsome by Eric Laraka.
This book, this book is dark Man, and it really
rocked my world.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Honestly, it changed a lot of things for me.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Because I was going through that grumpy period where the
state of the world was looking bleak and only looking bleaker.
And then I read this book about a guy who
buries people alive. They pay him to do this, and
it goes into some dark territories. Might understand now you
(19:01):
got you're probably wondering how who would pay for that?
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Right? I mean?
Speaker 1 (19:05):
The point is like, you're only buried for a short
period of time, and usually you're at the end of
your rope when you request.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
This type of of thing.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
So if you were to approach him, it would be
because you're you're maybe ready to end things and and
you want one last, one last chance at saving yourself.
And so you go to this guy, pay him a
certain amount of money, and he'll bury you for to say,
fifteen minutes, and then he'll dig you back up. This
(19:37):
is actually something that happens in I think Thailand or somewhere.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
There's like services like this.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
I don't know, I didn't look into it, but but yeah,
So the guy, the protagonist is the guy who does this,
and he's he's been through it. Man, he's got some issues,
and a certain client comes to him and it kind
of changes him for perhaps the worst. It's very beautiful
(20:08):
in a very dark sense. It's it's perhaps one of
the darkest stories I've read in a long time.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
And it's very serious, not too.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Much not too much comedy in this and but you know,
look out for the end of the year that's probably
be This is probably gonna be one of them there,
one of the top ten. If unless I do another
Top twenty, I don't know, but this one blew me away.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Highly recommend it.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
And because I was so impressed by that, I went
and read Eric Loraca's This Skin Was Once Mine. This
is like a collection of four novellas, or maybe one
of them is a short story, but the other three
are novella length. I can't remember, but these were all
so very impressive as well. I think there was only
one in there that I didn't really like, but the
(20:54):
other three like really blew me away. One of the stories,
in a in an adjacent sort of way, reminded me of.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
The Swords by Robert Aikman.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
If you haven't read that story, I highly recommend you
go read that story, but also read this collection. The
Skin was One's Mind. It's it's fabulous in a very
dark way. Excuse me, all right, So I also read
Victorian Psycho because I did that little and this is
where it started. I decided to do like a reading
(21:35):
project where I would read American Psycho and then read
some of the books that were maybe sort of influenced
by it. One of them definitely is, and the other
one is that one is the first one, American Psycho
by Brett Easton, American Psycho goddamn is Victorian Psycho by
(21:57):
Virginia Fato. I don't know if I pronounced that right,
but this book is a lot of fun and you
can kind of see maybe how it was perhaps influenced
by American Psycho. But this book is very different. It
takes place in Victorian times, and it's about a woman
who gets like a nursing job in a house for
(22:22):
rich people, of course, and she has like these weird
psychotic tendencies. And this book gets very gory and very violent.
We'll leave it at that. It's just a fun book.
It's kind of funny in a very dark, twisted way.
If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. If
you just want something that's gory and fun and nasty
(22:43):
in that way, definitely give it a checkout. I think
you'll enjoy it. But then I read American Psycho by
Brett Easton Ellis and this book is completely different. It's
more of a satire and maybe a Victorian Psycho is
a bit of a satire on the climes as well,
but this one is, like you can see it, like,
(23:05):
the first quarter of American Psycho is all about fashion
and what these people on Wall Street are wearing, and
how they treat each other, and how they treat their
women because it's mostly a male cast, except for the
women of course, who surround them, like their girlfriends or
(23:26):
just the people they're having sex with.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
And the drugs.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Of course, there's drugs. There's a lot of drugs, a
lot of cocaine. And music reviews. Yes, there's music reviews.
But as I was saying, the first quarter is all
about the fashion. If you don't know any fashionable names
of the late eighties, you're going to learn them here
and to a deep extent. Let me tell you, I
(23:50):
think there's a lot of people who got lost in
that and maybe gave up reading American Psycho because or like,
what the this?
Speaker 2 (23:58):
I don't get it?
Speaker 1 (23:59):
But you know, slowly but surely, the real Patrick Bateman,
our main character here, slowly reveals himself and by the
end you don't know if he did everything that he
claims to in this book.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
I have my theory.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
I think he did do some of it maybe, but
I think most of it was just in his head. Anyways,
that's up for discussion, which I guess this isn't really
necessarily about. American Psycho is hard to read for several reasons.
And it's weird that I loved it so much because
(24:35):
it gets hard to read because of the things he
does to certain people. There's a lot of human butchery
going on here, and a lot of you know, nonchalance
about it, like something we just do or I just
do typically on you know, it's just another Tuesday morning
type thing. And then there's the fashion aspect, which I've
(24:57):
never been a fashion person, and so learning about all
the fashion stuff and what to wear in business situations
just like, you know, can we move on? But in
a sense I found myself interested. Anyway, it's just Brett
Easton Ellis's voice. He sort of makes it interesting even
if it's not interesting to you and so. And also
(25:20):
this is like a deep like it's not I don't
think it's just written for.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Shits and giggles.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
I think there's an aspect an important aspect to this,
and it's a look at the way we are.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
We focus, we hyper focus.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
On things that aren't important, and I think that the
point of this book is that can lead to some
serious problems. And maybe maybe this whole book is about
being beauty is only skinned deep?
Speaker 2 (25:52):
I don't know. And then I read may Fly by C. J. Lead.
This book was also really good.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
This this book takes a female protagonist who's kind of
like Patrick Bateman, who works in a popular American theme
park that which could or could not or might or
might not be Disney. Pretty sure it probably is Disney,
but it's never mentioned, probably for some good legal reasons.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
And you just follow me.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
You know. With with Patrick Bateman is you didn't like him, he.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Was a despicable person.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
He kind of enjoyed following him because he's interesting, but
you wouldn't like him in real life. But I found
myself really liking Mayve. And that's weird because she's she's
just a psycho. I don't I don't understand the contrast.
But as I said, she works in this popular theme
park and you can only imagine what that's like and
(26:54):
where this story is gonna go I'm gonna leave it
at that because I don't want to spoil anything. Mayfly
is a per short compared to American Psycho. Okay, so
I read another kind of psychotic book for this was
for I think March's Jason's we had Read's book club
and we read The Lamb by Lucy Rose.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Now this book.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
If you haven't read this book, I highly suggest you
go to Amazon or wherever you get your ebooks and
just download a sample. The first paragraph, the first sentence
about the six fingers that this kid dug out of
a dug out of a shower drain.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Yeah, that pretty much sets the tone for the story.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
So it's about a mother and a daughter who live
and they take in strays like stray human beings, and
they become well, they become the next meal. These people
they like to eat people.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
So it's total cannibalism. And we go into some depth
here with like recipes. This book it goes there. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
So The Lamb by Lucy Rose another really great read.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
I really enjoyed it, highly recommended.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
This book goes into some weird territory and I'm not
too sure if I agreed with the ending.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
The ending was kind of Weird for me.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Honestly, I can't say I enjoyed the ending, but it
wasn't like it was a terrible ending. It was an
interesting ending. I just don't know if I completely agree
with what happened there. If you've read all of the lamb,
let me know in the comments. If you're watching the video,
let me know what you thought, or email me at
(28:46):
Weird Weird Reads Pod at gmail dot com. The email
is in the show notes, all right. I also read
a Man after all those disturbing books, did a palate cleanser.
So I went searching for another book that everyone seems
to love, and I landed on Frederick Bachmann. It was
(29:07):
only a matter of choice which one I was going
to choose, so I decided to go by a man
called Ov.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
I think is how you pronounce it? Ova? Ova?
Speaker 1 (29:17):
That's it, a man called Ova.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
This book was a lot darker.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Than I thought it would be, so it wasn't exactly
a palate cleanser. I don't know if I should really
go into too much of the details because it might spoil.
I went in completely blind, just about a grumpy old
man basically who recently lost his wife, and so this
book might tug at your tear ducks a little bit,
but it's also tragic for other reasons. This old ov
(29:48):
Ova he's not happy, and that's a parent from the beginning,
but he has a good heart and he keeps doing
things that he grumpily, grumpily does. He doesn't want to
do it, but he ends up helping people out a lot,
and it stops him from doing certain things. And those
certain things are maybe in the.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Trigger warnings here.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
This book really deals with suicidal ideation and whatnot, So
if you're triggered by that, maybe skip this book. But
I didn't find it all that bad myself. And that's
where like there's like a sort of comedic edge to
all that. And because he every time he goes to
(30:31):
end himself something funny, not really funny, but the situation
itself stops him from doing it. That turns kind of comedic.
And I'm gonna leave it at that. It's a good story,
good heartfelt but dark kind of story, and it's kind
of unique just for that alone. And then to end
(30:51):
this round, I read three but I'm gonna save one
of those for the next recent reads. But I read
a couple of Jonathan few Jonathan Jan's books. If you remember,
earlier in the year, I read Children of the Dark
by Jonathan Jance.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Well.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
I decided to since I was going to have them
on my show for the Stephen King.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Short bites.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
I thought I'd read the sequel, which is The Night Fliers,
And this book pretty much continues a year later from
where Children Are the Dark Ends and these creatures, man,
they make a comeback, and do they ever?
Speaker 2 (31:28):
My god, this book is full of action.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
I think I want to say it's more action than
the first one, but I'm not too sure if that
would be accurate.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
But man, this book is fun.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
I don't think he going to these books by Jonathan
Chance for anything too deep.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
The characters are always really well drawn out.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
I love that, like the characterations here are just like
they're great, and the action is like top notch. Man,
if you want like an adrenaline rush man, go to
Jonathan Jans and his Children of the Dark series. And
because the creatures are similar, I decided to check out
Savage Species by Jonathan Chance. They're not just similar, it's
(32:09):
all in the same world. And this one is another
like adrenaline pumping crazy ride that goes through those caves
that that are in Children of the Dark a lot
because the story involves a young child who goes missing
and so they, you know, of course, a bunch of
people go searching for the child and that's when they
(32:31):
run into these creatures.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
And it's not good. It's not good at all. A
lot of people, a lot of people get it.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
It's insane. And you know, talking to Jonathan Chance, he's
such a really cool, nice guy, but he's brutal in
these books. My God, do not attach yourself to any
of the characters. That's that's that's my trigger warning for this.
You might want to check out other trigger warnings too,
because like this, these books go there. They're they're dark
(33:00):
in a fun way, but they're very gory. If gore
turns you off, then you might want to skip this.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
But I don't know.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
I love reading fun gory books. That's just what they are,
all right. So that's all I have for this episode
of Recent Reads. So stay tuned for April the twentieth,
because that's when Short Bites is.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Going to premiere.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
And it's been a long time in the running. I
remember when I reached out to some of the people
to be guests on the show. I was like, yeah,
I'm going to get a hold of you again in January.
It's like at the end of it was in December
of twenty twenty four, and for some reason in my mind,
I just thought it was all going to happen at once.
(33:47):
I don't know why. I thought that. It's been kind
of going slowly, and I think that's it's not really
actually slow. It just feels slow because when I finally
finalized everything that I wanted to do for this new podcast,
it was just all there in my mind and it
was like I was going to be able to do
(34:08):
it all right away.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Right. Well, that's not the case.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
So anyways, April twentieth, wherever you get, wherever you download
your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
I will be.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Doing more videos here in regards to that soon and
also on the new channel and podcast obviously, So just
stay tuned for that on April the twentieth, And as
for everything else, Yeah, I hope you're all having a
great time. Please leave a message in the comments if
(34:37):
you're on the YouTube channel, and thank you for being
here and being patient with me. Keep being safe, keep
being weird, because being weird is important, especially in today's world,
and I will catch you guys next time.
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