Good morning and happy Monday!

This post almost didn’t happen because I forgot it was Monday. I’m not even sure how that happened. Well, who knows. The post is finally here!

Have you ever forgotten what day it was?

This week I’m going to read a book that I just picked up at Barnes and Noble and a newly acquired horror short story collection.

What are you reading this week?

Acts of Service- Lillian Fishman

A provocative debut of sex and sexuality as a twentysomething New Yorker pursues a sexual freedom that follows no other lines than her own desire.

If sex is a truth-teller, Eve–a young, queer woman in Brooklyn–is looking for answers. On an evening when she is feeling particularly impulsive, she posts some nude photos of herself online. This is how Eve meets Olivia, and through Olivia, the charismatic Nathan–and soon the three begin a relationship that disturbs Eve as much as it delights her. As each act of the affair unfolds, Eve is left to ask: to whom is she responsible? And to what extent do our desires determine who we are?

In the way that only great fiction can, Acts of Service takes between its teeth the contradictions written all over our ideas of sex and sexuality. As incisive as it is exhilarating, this novel asks us to face our ideas about desire and power: what sex means to us, the forces that shape it, and how we find–or lose–ourselves in intimacy. At once juicy and intellectually challenging, sacred and profane, it might be the most thought-provoking book you read all year.

After the People Lights Have Gone Off- Stephen Graham-Jones

This collection of fifteen stories taps into the horrors and fears of the supernatural as well as the everyday. Included are two original stories, several rarities and out of print tales, as well as a few “best of the year” inclusions. Stephen Graham Jones is a master storyteller. What does happen after the people lights have gone off? Crack the spine and find out. With an introduction by Joe R. Lansdale.

Stephen Graham Jones is the author of fifteen novels and five collections, and has some two hundred stories published. Stephen’s been an NEA Fellow and has won the Texas Institute of Letters Award for Fiction and the Independent Publishers Award for Multicultural fiction. He’s forty-two, married with a couple of kids, and lives in Boulder, Colorado.

WINNER, Short Story Collection, THIS IS HORROR
NOMINATED, Short Story Collection, BRAM STOKER AWARDS
NOMINATED, Short Story Collection, SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARDS