5 Great Books I Read in September '21

People always tell me I read too much. Nobody ever says anything about people who watch TV for hours on end, or people who spend hours and hours every day on their phones. Just those who read a book are considered to be 'anti-social'. Well, if that is what I am so be it.

I love to read because I don't have to exist if I don't feel like it. I don't have to go anywhere - I can travel to other worlds from the comfort of sitting cross-legged on my bed. I can have a bunch of really cool friends and sometimes, one is a dragon or something. When last can you say you had a dragon friend? Yeah, I know.

When I started my reading schedule for September, initially I was having a slump of finding books that I could really exist within and live in. Things were not going well at the beginning and yet, I managed to find my feet after a few days and have some wonderful books to share with you this month. Here are five great books I read in September - they are in no particular order.

5 Great Books I Read in September '21

The Hollows by Mark Edwards

About a man and his daughter who go to a cabin resort that has recently opened back up after having a horrible disaster some years earlier, this book is about a cursed place where animals die and infestations of insects happen. With every single chapter, you feel like the whole thing is getting more and more claustrophobic and before you know it - it's underground. The ending is something you will never see coming because the hints are so easy to miss. This book is not really about a haunting at all, it is the illusion of one that makes it completely possible.

The Troop by Nick Cutter

When a group of boy scouts go to an island to get to the next level in their achievements, they realise very quickly that the man their scoutmaster rescued is not really all that hungry at all - he is actually sick. He is very sick. He is sick like you wouldn't believe. In this tale of abject terror, Nick Cutter makes a great excuse not to read this before breakfast. Let me tell you now that I read this book before breakfast and I could not eat for a few hours afterwards. It was really one of those books that made me sit there after the ending with my head in my hands. Some of you may get lost in a book but when it comes to this one, you'll be begging to get out.

First Person Singular by Haruki Murakami

In stories such as "Cream" and stories such as "Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova" we get to see Haruki Murakami at his very best yet again, investigating the idea of memory that we readers saw once upon a time in his previous novel: "Killing Commandatore". In his story "With the Beatles" (based on the album by the band) we see him investigate loss, love and grief - all of these ideas linked by beautiful everyday stories of people who are struggling to understand themselves as they get older. People in the midst of an existential crisis that still have to drag themselves up and do things - these are people that populate the stories of "First Person Singular" and its problem with remembering a false memory.

The King is Dead by Hugh Morrison

Hugh Morrison writes a novel about a Balkan King who moves to England escaping the Bolsheviks taking over his country only to be shot and killed in his own English home in front of other people. The lights flicker, the trees rustle and the fingers are pointed all before the police get involved. From Elsie - the King's English Bride-to-Be who is obsessed with her idea of a 'fairy tale wedding', to the Balkan woman married to an Englishman who signed up for a job that morning, to a man who wasn't even in the room at the time but worked for the King, to his trusty right-hand man named Zorard - people are pointing fingers all over the place. But, it may take the town Reverend, Shaw, to see what's really going on here.

Damnable Tales: A Folk Horror Anthology

I love and adore everything that has to do with Folk Horror. "Damnable Tales" is something that pulls together everything about witches, cults and woodland horrors together and creates one of the best anthologies of one of the best subgenres ever. With stories by MR James, Shirley Jackson, Robert Louis Stevenson, Walter de la Mare and Robert Aickman - this anthology is something to read during the autumn and winter seasons as Halloween goes by and Christmas approaches. You best believe that I am going to be reading this again between those time to get myself right into the feel of autumn with a cup of coffee and a glass of red wine.