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Hi Michael. Grey Dog was my favorite read of 2024. I will be starting Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy soon. I don't know if a last person on earth type of story but it is dystopian.

Michael I am so glad you liked Night of the Hunter. It is one of the best books I have read. I loved this tension-filled novel

Happy new year!

I mentioned "I Who Have Never Known Men" which is a top 10 of all time for me so I'll go with The First Day of Spring (Nancy Tucker), Tampa (Alissa Nutting), Grey Dog (Elliott Gish) and Julia (Sandra Newman). I'm currently reading Apartment 16 (by You Know Who). Love the channel. 😺😸🐱

Just finished reading the Queen,I wonder if there is going to be a sequel

This year I've read quite a few short story collections & anthologies, but the last few novels that I've read were..... Leech, by Hiron Ennes - ambitious & inventive post apocalyptic horror novel : well written, with an interesting ending, but it seems to have a padded feel to it - could have been shorter. So so.... Lost Souls, by Poppy Z Brite - literate novel about Vampires : modern-day decadent feel to it. Good. Hungry Moon, by Ramsey Campbell - religious fanatics take on ancient evil. Full of Campbellian touches (as usual). Very good. Ancient Images, by Ramsey Campbell - concerns a lost horror film, & what occurs when a film buff finds it. Great stuff. The Nameless, by Ramsey Campbell - child abduction. So few horror writers tackle this subject. Campbell gives us his take on a sensitive subject - Very good. Wild Seed, by Octavia Butler - a woman with shape changing-abilities meets her match when she comes across a lifeform that can switch bodies. Sounds like fantasy, but it is told in gritty/realistic fashion - Good. The Count of Eleven, by Ramsey Campbell - this one is about a decent man on a downward spiral - Very good. The Ceremonies, by T. E. D. Klein - this is a re-read, & it is possibly the best alien/colloquial horror novel I have ever read. Slow burn, but with great action scenes & descriptive passages. It deserves to be better known. Excellent. Midnight Sun, by Ramsey Campbell - this is Campbell's homage to the works of Blackwood & Machen, & my personal favorite of his. Very evocative & descriptive - Excellent. The Darkest Part of the Woods, by Ramsey Campbell - about an American who moves to the UK to study a fungus with hallucinogenic properties - Very Good. Dawn, by Octavia Butler - Probably Butlers creepiest novel, about a woman who wakes up on an alien space ship. Butler really hits the mark with this one. Excellent.

Great list my friend! I do need to give Nick Cutter another chance, The Troop was just ok for me. My favorite Ramsey Campbell is The Face That Must Die, highly recommended. Wow, I taught The Curious Incident of The Dog In The Nighttime, such a wonderful book. You are an awesome human being Michael. Exquisite Corpse is high priority on my tbr, I loved Lost Souls. Have a wonderful 2025! 🥳📚

You know Michael they've got something called 'soft pretzels'... Just read The Face That Must Die by Ramsey Campbell and thought it was great. Looking forward to the Campbell reviews in 2025. Happy New Year!

📚 ❤

I loved The Queen. It easily made my Top 10. I read Geek Love and absolutely hated everything about. 🤷‍♀️

I'm reading Exquisite Corpse now, it's a humdinger. I'm at the part where Jay and Andrew met and go to Jay's house. I got The Queen when it was released; I'm looking forward to reading it. I just got back into reading again this year, starting with my 2nd reading of Swan Song, and I've bought a lot of other horror books I haven't read yet. I live in the same city as Robert McCammon, and I went to a local book store he works with and bought a stack of his books.

You have such great taste in books. Several are on my TBR thanks to you. My favorite book by far of the 142 I read in 2024 is The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy. I struggle to say anything about it that isn't clichéd so I'll give up and just call it the masterpiece that it is.

Hi Michael, greetings again from Toronto 🇨🇦. I hope you are well and that you had a great Christmas. Happy New Year! A very impressive list. Some more titles for my TBR notebook. Love the Ramsey Campbell special editions, they look great. And Ramsey is one of the best horror writers in the business. My friend Kayleigh at Happy Goat Horror has an interview with him earlier this year if you’re interested. Good reading to you in 2025!

The only book on your list I have read is Geek Love. I've read it a few times, actually. It is definitely memorable. This year I read a lot by (obsessed over) Shirley Jackson. I also really enjoyed The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon, The Cerulean Sea duology by T J Klune. A House for Mr. Biswas was quite an enjoyable read. I am sorry to say I read over 100 books this year but struggled to remember the best. I am trying to read more genres, so I appreciate how you make everything sound good.

I hope you're feeling better soon. I'm so glad your Germany trip went well. My parents traveled to Germany and took a river cruise in October. They (and I, naturally) are American Southerners, so I had to laugh when you talked about the accent.

I keep saying Grey Dog was my favorite book of the year but i keep forgetting about Fiends. I read it in January i think. Do you know if Nevill has anything new coming out anytime soon? 📚😃❤️

I keep hearing about I who have never known men. Sounds like I need to read this one. Great list!

Yay, you liked one I recommended! That's my #1 book for 2024. I love your description of it -- yes, nothing happens, but the anxiety is unbearable. Get better and scritches for Zvyezda!

Happy new year, and best wishes for mending. I’ve had some grueling weeks from chronic health crud, but seem to be stabilizing at last. I’d intended to get to Edifice Complex by now, but absolutely all my reading slowed waaaay down. In 2025. Sunset and Moonrise congratulate Z on having you so well trained.

Known Men: I knew that was going to be the #1 book I read in 2024. The Purple Cloud (M.P. Shiel). I picked this up and look forward to reading it soon. I wanted to get to a few *dead of winter* themed books , but its 55degrees here in NJ (13c for my European fans). Currently reading Once Upon a River (Diane Setterfield). Zvyezda! Happy New Year. Very happy I found this channel. There are more than one "Wertenberg" around?

Michael, Happy New Year for you from Brazil!

Happy new year Michael, hope yours is better than mine.

Hope you are feeling better Michael! Love Shirley Jackson, but am definitely not a completionist. Look forward to your best of 2024. Happy New Year my friend! Love Zvyezdza!

I read I Who Have Never Known Men was excellent!

Get well soon, and Happy New Year to you and Zvezda.

Sorry you aren't feeling well, but at least it didn't happen until you were done traveling. Being sick when you aren't home is the worst. Looks like z'fiesta is taking good care of you though. Looks like she missed you!

Hi Michael, sorry you're under the weather. I'm just getting over some weird cold thing myself. Hope you feel better! Kisses for Z, she looks so fluffy, i want to smoosh her 😃🐱❤️Happy New year🥂

Get well soon!

It sounds like you had a nice time with your family. I'm happy you were able to see them. Oh my goodness! That is the first time I've heard Zvyezda speak. She's precious. Hope you are feeling better soon. ❤️

Hope you feel better soon, Michael, and I wish you & Zvyezda a splendid 2025. Thanks for all the great videos in 2024.

Imajica was amazing !

I've seen the 1989 French horror film "Baxter." Thanks for making me aware it was based on a novel. Fun Fact about "The Omen": Elvis Presley was so intrigued by this book, he wrote a few notations and underlined sentences in his copy. He carried it when he traveled and it was also with him in his final hours.

Some good films, yes, esp Alien, maybe The Descent for originality…a few I thought were good as new movies, but over the years, they have lost their appeal. And Bug? Are you kidding? Even with my…um…life experiences, it was so ridiculous. We laughed thru most of it, couldn’t wait for it to be over. The Blair Witch Project - I had heard it was going to be really different, so deliberately avoided reading anything about it, I wanted to go in blind. I went to a dreary rainy Saturday afternoon matinee, there were maybe 5 people in the theater, which was perfect. I loved it - and while it is still a good movie, we have been so over bombarded by found footage, it just hasn’t kept its appeal for me.

One of my favorite 70s novels is “Julia,” which I believe was Peter Straub’s second novel, a very creepy story about a grieving mother haunted by the spirit of a 12 year old psychopath. I am trying to remember if I have read The Stepford Wives. I think maybe I have. I have hardback copies of a lot of these old 70s novels..both of my parents were readers. I was a kid in the early 70s and would read anything I could get my hands on, so if it was lying around the house, I read it. The Exorcist was one of those books. I was way too young to be being that kind of stuff….probably why I am so warped. You haven’t read Interview with the Vampire? I read it in the early 80s. I am no big huge fan of vampires either, but it was so different than anything else previously written about vampires, and it blew me away at the time. A top ten book for me, no, but I love it. However, it is the story that kicked off the idea of vampires having “humanity,” which led to them eventually not even being scary anymore, which I don’t like. I also have to say that I think ‘Salem’s Lot is worth reading, it is my favorite and the spookiest of all King’s books, next to The Stand….nothing spookier than viruses!

No.1 is a beautiful book.

Why am I not surprised that you rank “Something Wicked this Way Comes” as number one? It’s not a criticism to say that it makes the Top 10 Horror lists of just about every literate critic I’ve ever encountered. It’s just that good.

For me, number one is Final Days. No One Gets Out Alive, I found quite boring.

Love a book haul and unboxing! I hope you a wonderful trip to Germany.

One potential idea that may appeal to you: I think there is something to be said for a group of horror aesthetes or connoisseurs that actively tries to promote the best of horror. The genre is too full of gremlin - like readers, whose noise drowns out what is good (Stephen King's apparently endless groupies being just one sign of the poor quality of most horror readers.) Perhaps start with an annual group TH-cam "Best of the Year" event?

Imajica is surely the best book he has ever written. It’s so complex and involves so many characters. In my opinion it’s not only one of his best but one of the best books anybody has ever written ❤

Great video Michael! Based on your bookshelf I assume that you read more ebooks than printed books. Is that correct? Don't you like to collect printed editions? Do you will make a vídeo about your trip to Germany?

M.R. James stories are very effective. Those Ramsey Campbell books are stunning! Have a safe trip to Germany.

My recommendation to you ..read them and review them. Keep them coming

Now that’s what I call a Christmas present

Nice haul and unboxing!

I would agree that FlameTree is the best publisher of new work, though I would say that Valancourt is one of the best (re)publishers of classic works, and even has had some truly top-tier new stuff when they put out their Musolino, Fager, and Veres collections. (At least, new in the sense that these are the first translations of these authors from languages I cannot read.)

MR James' stories are usually "ghost" stories in only the very broadest senses. And his "Count Magnus" is not a ghost story (I won't spoil it for you by telling you what or who the Count is.) "The Treasure of Abbot Thomas" is again...probably not really a ghost story.

While adding a new comment it appears I added my first submission a second time! My apologies. Anyway I wanted to comment how I could see your realization of the the future anguish you will be experiencing when reading those books by Brad Abdul. I have not read them, but hopefully you will be pleasantly surprised.

While enjoying your many horror offerings I’ve often thought of recommending M.R. James to you. I am aware of your distaste for ghost stories, but his collections tend much more towards horror and not hauntings, and as such he is misidentified as a ghost story writer. On top of that you will appreciate the atmosphere, as well as the classic mature and descriptive prose of that era. Please give M.R. James an opportunity.

While enjoying your many horror offerings I’ve often thought of recommending M.R. James to you. I am aware of your distaste for ghost stories, but his collections tend much more towards horror and not hauntings, and as such he is misidentified as a ghost story writer. On top of that you will appreciate the atmosphere, as well as the classic mature and descriptive prose of that era. Please give M.R. James an opportunity.