Stephen McClurg's Blog, page 4

The Mid-Year Book Freakout 2025

You can read last year’s here.

Best Book You’ve Read So Far in 2025

For fiction, I’d have to go with Antkind. Wonderfully weird and full of surprises—stop-motion filmmaking, one of my favorite interests, is just one of the many splinters lodged in its surreal, obsessive heart. If you’re not already a fan of Kaufman’s films, this probably won’t be your thing.

In nonfiction, Mark Fisher’s The Weird and The Eerie was a flash of joy. I need to reread it. Lynch, Lovecraft, Eno, Kubrick—it’s all there, but filtered through Fisher’s sharp, melancholy lens. The weird, he writes, is about a presence that shouldn’t be there. The eerie? A kind of haunted absence, or a missing presence that should be.

Best Sequel You’ve Read So Far in 2025

I don’t read many series. Best sequel this year goes to Teenage Grave 2. I may have read both Teenage Grave books in one sitting—not just because they’re short, but because they tap into a specific kind of horror nostalgia and reading joy. For me, that’s being a kid and reading horror paperbacks. Teenage Grave taps into the early splatterpunk era and the array of thematic horror anthologies released at the time. The frequently surreal touches and tones are reminiscent of the Dell/Abyss titles, such as The Cipher by Kathe Koja. 

And the covers are fantastic.

New Release You Haven’t Read Yet, But Want To

First to mind: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter and Beta Vulgaris. Runners-up: The Lamb, Wake Up and Open Your Eyes, and The Unworthy. There are a few nonfiction titles I’ve got my eye on, too—I just can’t remember the names.

Most Anticipated Release for the Second Half of the Year

Leonora Carrington’s The Stone Door. I have loved her art and collected stories, and am looking forward to some of her longer works of fiction.

Biggest Disappointment

This one hurt: Pay the Piper, based on George Romero’s work. I’ve loved Romero since I saw Night of the Living Dead on a cheap VHS somewhere around age 11. At one point, I’d watched Dawn of the Dead 20 or 30 times before I stopped counting. He was such a singular presence in horror—raw, thoughtful, political. It’s a shame that his version of The Stand was never made. I wrote more about this at Horror DNA.

Biggest Surprise

Joe Brainard’s I Remember. I’ve used the “I remember…” exercise in writing workshops and seen it assigned often, but I’d never actually read Brainard’s book or heard him mentioned at any time I’ve seen this prompt. It’s a spare, funny, experimental memoir that feels like Ginsberg minus the shamanism. Just memory after memory, building something somehow touching, funny, and enveloping with such a simple premise.

Favorite New Author (debut or new to you) 

Mark Fisher. The Weird and the Eerie is deeply in my wheelhouse: horror and weird fiction as frameworks for cultural and philosophical inquiry. I’m excited to read more, especially his writing on capitalism, hauntology, and the spectral nature of culture.

Newest Fictional Crush 

Maybe I read the wrong books or just read differently, but this question is always difficult to answer. Maybe Clarissa Knowles from The Organization Is Here to Support You, though I suspect that says more about tone and style than romance.

Newest Favorite Character

Antkind’s B. Rosenberger Rosenberg, who contains multitudes, though early on is a hilarious academic buffoon. His ridiculous commentary on everything from race to Judd Apatow kept me laughing as I worked to clear out and fix our basement after a flood. 

Book That Made You Cry 

Though I said last year how easy it has become to cry, I can’t remember crying while reading this year. The closest may be the emotional response I had to Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These.

Book That Made You Happy 

John Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos. I’ve read several of his now, and they always feel like cozy apocalypses. Imagine The Thin Man by way of The Last Man on Earth. It also made me want to reevaluate the Village of the Damned adaptations, which I’ve never fully warmed to.

Most Beautiful Book You’ve Bought so Far This Year (or received) 

House of Psychotic Women: Expanded Edition: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neuroses in Horror and Exploitation Films by Kier-la Janisse. The writing is sharp, the film criticism revealing, and the annotated filmography at the end is pure gold. Plus, the stills and poster art are gorgeously reproduced.

What Books Do You Need to Read by the End of the Year?

I’d love to make it through Phenomenology of Spirit for the first time this year. It’s not a necessity, but it’s been on my list for a while.

Musicalia #128: Thresholds

A new playlist and poem are available over at The Drunken Odyssey.

Musicalia #127: Potential Entity

A new poem and playlist await at The Drunken Odyssey.

At Horror DNA: Horror Comics and Religion

You can read my review at Horror DNA.

At Horror DNA: Ash

A new review for the sci-fi horror film Ash is now at Horror DNA.

Musicalia #126: Sharp Charms

You can get the poem and playlist at The Drunken Odyssey.

Musicalia #125: The Split-Blade Verses

A new poem and playlist are available at The Drunken Odyssey.

Musicalia #124: The Gift That Severs

A new poem and playlist await over at The Drunken Odyssey.

New Words and Music: Cesspool Dreams: Stranded Islands

I’ve been a fan of Cesspool Dreams, a duo of Jeff McLeod and Matt Finney, since they started releasing music with dark, Urban Southern Goth(ic)-tinged spoken word. Finney’s persona lives somewhere near those of Troy James Weaver, Breece D’J Pancake, Kathe Koja, and even some of the less surrealistic of Weirdpunk Books releases. When Jeff asked if I wanted to work on a track for an upcoming release, I immediately said yes and then ran into trouble wanting to celebrate the spirit of their past releases, but also not copy Finney’s voice. Hopefully, I accomplished that. When using my voice, I tend to hide or disguise it for various reasons, but I couldn’t do that here.

Here’s a description from the Bandcamp page: Take a deep, dark journey with Stranded Islands, the latest installment of drone-driven, analog synth-laden, guitar-sprawled Southern Gothic spoken word musicks from Cesspool Dreams . . . this time featuring 8 different voices and tales from people originally from and/or living in the Southeastern United States.

Stranded Islands is available now.

Musicalia #123: Horns/Dilemma

A new poem and playlist await over at The Drunken Odyssey.