7 Books To Read This Month, From New Releases To Modern Classics

In Bustle’s new monthly books column “Stacked Up,” writer Arianna Rebolini shares titles she recommends, from hotly-anticipated new releases to under-read classics.

When I had a child four years ago, I lost my stomach for horror. This lowered tolerance came as a devastating blow — I’d spent most of my life obsessed with all things scary, but every time I tried to push past it, I found myself projecting my son onto any potential victim. (Oh no! What if he gets into soccer, makes the high school team, joins the team on a flight to nationals, survives the plane’s crash, and then ends up on the wrong side of a cannibalistic ritual??) Last month, though, I had a breakthrough: I watched The Fall of the House of Usher, Netflix’s eight-part series based on the Edgar Allan Poe story. Twice.

My deep love of Poe — and my only slightly lesser love of Mike Flanagan — compelled me, and I’m glad I gave in. The adaptation, which sees each episode pull from a different Poe story, was silly enough not to worm its way into my psyche but dark (literally and metaphorically) enough to maintain the spookiness level of a midgrade seasonal haunted house. It was Gothic, unsubtle, often beautiful, and filled with Easter eggs and original lines from Poe to satisfy every English major out there. I watched it, re-watched it, and then I re-read “The Cask of Amontillado.”

So it’s fitting that here, in this first installment of a new monthly book column, you’ll find that vibe continued in some of the recommendations below: eerie, sexy, not-too-devastating books (speaking of which, have you seen the Eileen trailer?) with nonhorror standouts thrown in.

Something Old

A Witch’s Guide to Fake Dating a Demon by Sarah Hawley

I’ll be honest: Romance is not a genre I often read, but when I found myself drawn to Hawley’s forthcoming A Demon’s Guide to Wooing a Witch and realized it was a sequel, I decided to read the first book instead. It takes place in a town where humans live among elves and centaurs, and follows Mariel Spark, a witch who is more inclined toward baking and gardening than magic (and who, Hawley really wants you to know, is “curvy”). After accidentally summoning a demon who can’t leave the mortal plane without her soul, she decides they must hide his identity by pretending they’re dating. We know what that means! A Witch’s Guide is somehow campy, cozy, and sexy all at the same time — and accessible to a newbie. I’m excited to read Book 2.

Reprieve by James Han Mattson

In 1997 Lincoln, Nebraska, four participants have made it to the last stage of a notoriously brutal haunted house — meaning they’re one room away winning the $60,000 prize — when an actual nightmare occurs: One of the contestants is murdered. Interspersed with transcripts from the ensuing trial, Reprieve traces the experiences of the distinctly drawn contestants, each of whom was already grappling with demons before arriving at Quigley House. As much about societal violence as it is about physical violence — and be warned, it gets gnarly — this psychological thriller isn’t like anything I’ve read before.

Something New

The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez

National Book Award winner Sigrid Nunez has an uncanny ability to communicate mood and sensibility through what might otherwise read as mundane, often distracted, musings. In The Vulnerables, the narrator — a woman whose age has designated her as “a vulnerable” during the COVID pandemic — spends the early lockdown parrot-sitting for a friend of a friend, in an apartment with a Gen Z stranger-turned-roommate. The narrator distills the absurdity of being human into something profound, spoken in a voice at once unpretentious and affecting.

Pedro and Marques Take Stock by José Falero, translated by Julia Sanches

Pedro and Marques Take Stock is Brazilian author José Falero’s first book to receive an English translation, and it left me eager for those still to come. When the titular duo — supermarket clerks at the bottom of the employment ladder — decide dealing weed is their ticket out of poverty, their endeavor grows into something unmanageable. The book cover identifies it as a picaresque novel, but if you’ve never encountered that term, don’t feel bad; I hadn’t either. It’s a genre focused on crooked characters you can’t help rooting for, whose actions, though unprincipled on paper, are swipes against a system built to keep them down. Pedro and Marques are just that, and their often-larger-than-life adventures offer a wry, razor-sharp commentary on violence, poverty, and corruption under capitalism.

The Manor House Governess by C.A. Castle

C.A. Castle’s debut is a modern queering of Jane Eyre, which inserts a genderfluid protagonist, Brontë Ellis, into a literary tradition usually reserved for heteronormative, white elites. The orphan Brontë was ruthlessly bullied during his tenure at an all-boys school and hopes his new job as a governess at the lavish Greenwood Manor will be a fresh start. The idyllic estate is hiding some dark family secrets, though, and as he becomes more enmeshed in the family, his relationships with each of them grow complicated. It’s a lush, affecting retelling from a writer who clearly loves the source material.

Something Out of the Blue

Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather

I recently found an old copy of Willa Cather’s 1927 novel in my Little Free Library and grabbed it quickly, recalling a friend’s enthusiastic recommendation, which I can now, in good faith, pass along to you. In sumptuously described, nonlinear vignettes, the book — based on the lives of two 19th century Roman Catholic clergymen who help found a new diocese within the recently claimed U.S. territory of New Mexico — explores the influence of religion on politics and vice versa, the effects of the church’s arrival on Indigenous populations, and the reality that attempts at conversion aren’t necessarily benevolent acts. Turns out the timing was auspicious: Penguin Classics is publishing a special edition for the 150th anniversary of Cather’s birth with a new introduction by Kali Fajardo-Anstine this month.

Afoot and Lighthearted: A Journal for Mindful Walking by Bonnie Smith Whitehouse

Walking and literature have a long and storied relationship, so it makes sense that this guidebook would take inspiration from writers like Mary Oliver, Walt Whitman, Alice Walker, and Jorge Luis Borges. Even when you can’t muster up the energy to follow one of the prompts — each walk comes with instructions organized around themes of wellness and creativity, as well as blank pages for reflection — you can certainly appreciate the quotes interspersed among them.