Books I Might Read for Mountain Sounds Edits?

October is a blur, and I haven't done nearly enough for spooky season. However, I do have pumpkin bread baking in the oven and the Lightning game on—so, you win some, you lose some. The Lightning, however, are tied.

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It's been a surreal week or two. I'm packing up my studio, which is bittersweet; I'm supposedly getting book edits back on Thursday—a very different phase than when I got my last revisions last year. Logically, my situation in doing book edits this time around is so different, and much better.

My writing has gotten a whole lot more visible within the last week or two also, and I've been wrestling with that tipping point of no longer being able to fully retreat into my own quiet. I still think I'll protect my privacy a lot more than other people posting online, but more people are reading my work. Exponentially! Which is what I wanted but still: weird! Because of that, I've been grinding lately, which means I haven't been able to pop on here as much as I'd like. (I still prefer the blog to social media, but I have to lean into the traction so this is all more sustainable.)

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Anyway, last night I started putting together a list of books I would read during my edits. I'm horrible at sticking to a strict to-read list because I'm such a mood reader, but I'm nearly always devouring a book that connects to a previous thread.

I'll die on the hill that I'm only a good writer because I'm a good reader (and that's assuming I'm hopefully good at all), and I want to be one of the greats. Now that I have [redacted book update], I am shamelessly eager to make all the daydreams happen in as much traction as I can harness. I think frequently about this quote from Albert Camus's The Plague:

“Truthfully, his only task was to create opportunities for luck, which only stirred if it was provoked.”

Anyway, my reading list spans categories. Some are "comp titles" that situate you within the market. Others are psychological or demographical research for my fact-checking (continually.) Others still are craft-related.

I'm excited to be able to read Southern Gothic again too—and to really dig in deep, so that makes up a lot of the list. I want to read all the most iconic titles, and everything rooted deeply in Appalachia. I'm not a huge podcast person, but loved this recent discovery:

I also frequently define Southern Gothic as being characterized by a fear of change as it's unfolding, which fits for many reasons.

So let's get into it: some of the books I'm considering reading for this. Ignore how sporadic and messy this list and formatting is, and I'll link 'em later. These will narrow, and I absolutely will not get to all of them. You can also tack on the word MORE before any of these categories, because I've already devoured quite a few across each that have informed my manuscript to this point. Really, every book shapes how I work on it.

In no particular order:

Southern / Gothic

• Flannery O'Connor
• Child of God
• Beloved
• Wise Blood
• Girls with Long Shadows
• A Rose for Emily (story)
• The Little Friend (Tartt)
• As I Lay Dying
• Sing Unburied Sing
• The Violent Bear It Away
• Light in August
• In Cold Blood
• The Bog Wife
• The Twisted Ones
• A House with Good Bones
• Summer Sons
• St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
• The Woods All Black
• Wake the Bones
• Blackwater
• Edward Lee
• The Boatman's Daughter
• Midnight Grinding
• Sineater
• Southern Gods
• All the Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes by
• Bastard Out of Carolina

Craft

• Journal of a Novelby Steinbeck
• The Writing Life by Annie Dillard
• The Story of a Deal by William Storr

Camp Books

• The Counselors
• Wish You Weren't Here
• The God of the Woods

Sensory / Psych / PTSD

• A Natural History of the Senses
• The Body Keeps the Score
• The Collected Schizophrenias
• The Edge of Every Day
• The Attachment Effect
• Trauma & Recovery (Herman)
• What My Bones Know
• The Fragmented Selves (Fisher)
• How Emotions Are Made

Foster Care

• To the End of June
• The Lost Children of Wilder
• Disposable: America's Contempt for the Underclass
• Orphans of the Living
• Far from the Tree

Appalachian Folklore

• Witches Ghosts Signs
• The Old Gods Waken
• Outer Dark
• Smothermoss
• Below (Hightower)
• I'll Bring You Birds from the Sky
• The Twisted Ones
• The Tell-Tale Lilac Bush
• Ghost Days (Elbein)
• Appalachian Horror (Chappell)

Other Titles I Might Read (Relatedly) for Various Reasons

• House of Hollow
• Belladonna
• When Devils Sing
• Bittersweet in the Hollow
• Dark and Shallow Lies
• Demon Copperhead
• Your Brain on Art
• Wake the Wild Creatures

But many to go!