Happy Spooky Season! That means this is our Annual Spooky Season Reading Episode, so break out some Halloween candy and dig in. We talk about folk horror, classic horror, horror comedy and more. Come for the horror, stay for the shocking realization that our reading tastes and habits shift and evolve over the years!

Books discussed include:

Starve Acre by Andrew Michael Hurley
The Rednexorcist by Frank Sloane (Grady Hendrix)
Paperbacks from Hell by Grady Hendrix
Midnight Pleasures by Robert Bloch
Dwellings by Jay Stephens
Salem's Lot by Stephen King
Ocultos by Laura Perez
Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones

TBRs:

The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Restoration by Ave Barrera trans. by Ellen Jones and Robin Myers

We're back! After a break, Sharon, Sarah, and Eric are back behind the microphones to bring you episode 33 of Shelf Motivated. Come for the book chat, stay for continued discussion of a movie that Sarah says was better than the book! Here's a hint… we've been talking about this book on the pod since 2024! Sharon explores the darker end of the cozy spectrum, Eric reads one of the most popular books of the year, Sarah reads about kids books, and retired killers (not in the same book…don't worry). All this and more!

Books Discussed:

Make Believe: On Telling Stories to Children by Mac Barnett
Life In the Iron Mills by Rebecca Harding Davis
Blood on the Forge by William Attaway
Out of This Furnace by Thomas Bell
Flesh by David Szalay
Too Old for This by Samantha Downing
Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann trans. by Anthea Bell
The Meg by Steve Alten

Cozy: Secret Book & Scone Society by Ellery Adams
TBRs: Helen of Nowhere by Makenna Goodman
The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout
Middlemarch by George Elliot
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

'Tis the season! It's time for another Shelf Motivated end of year holiday extravaganza! Come for the time-tested classics… stick around for the Victorian Ghost Stories and Folk Horror adjacent seasonal reads. Sarah discusses a stone-cold Christmas Classic… and also a book by LM Montgomery that technically takes place during the winter for part of it. Sharon gets into the ritual of reading when it's cold outside, and like the Ghost of Holiday Podcasts Past, revisits some titles we discussed on early holiday episodes. So, grab a holiday cookie or two, a warm beverage, and hunker down with us for a Winter Holiday book chat!

Books discussed:

A Christmas Story by Jean Shepherd
The Blue Castle by LM Montgomery
The Dead of Winter by Sarah Clegg
Advent by Gunnar Gunnarsson
The Valencourt Book of Victorian Ghost Stories Volumes 1-6
Twelve Nights by Urs Faes (translated by Lee Searle)
Rock Crystal: A Christmas Story by Adalbert Stifter (translated by Marianne Moore)
Cozy: A Totally 80s Christmas: A Holiday Novella (Totally 80s Mysteries) by D.A. Wilkerson