Reads Inspired by Our Favorite Albums - Dispatch #2
Welcome to the wonderful second installment in a series of carefully curated recommendations inspired by our albums and artists! As an avid reader obsessed with very specific aesthetics, I absolutely delight in cultivating the atmospheric relationship between the albums I have on repeat and my favorite reads. If you're a long-time lover of 'Coyote Stories' from The Crane Wives, you're in good company and this list was created especially for you!
Foreverhaus by Kailey Tedesco [Paperback, $16.95]
Foreverhaus is Tedesco's gorgeous poetry collection exploring the nature of domesticity made macabre, the body made a haunted house, and the architecture of a dwelling turned human and unkind beneath its inhabitant's feet. A long-time favorite of mine!
The Butcher's Blessing by Ruth Gilligan [Hardcover, $12]
The Butchers’ Blessing moves between the wilds of folkloric Ireland and the tangled ambition and incredible loneliness that surrounds Úna in her role as the Butcher's daughter. As the tale moves through the countryside, it captures this world image by image—a lake, a cottage, and most striking: a single butcher, hung upside-down in a pose of unspeakable violence.
How to Be Eaten by Maria Adelmann [Hardcover, $28]
In How to Be Eaten, this darkly funny and provocative novel reimagines classic fairy tale characters as modern women in a support group for trauma. This debut takes our coziest, most beloved childhood stories, exposes them as anti-feminist nightmares, and transforms them into a new kind of myth for grown-up women.
The Cherry Robbers by Sarai Walker [Hardcover, $27.99]
Sylvia Wren is one of the most important American artists of the past century. Known as a recluse, she avoids all public appearances. Her former self, Iris Chapel, is the second youngest of six sisters, all heiresses to a firearms fortune. They grow up cloistered, mostly neglected by their distant father and troubled mother. Ultimately, Iris flees the devastation of her family, but can she outrun the family curse forever?
Wildwood Whispers by Willa Reece [Paperback, $17.99]
Wildwood Whispers is a heartwarming novel of hope, fate, and folk magic, which unfolds as a young woman travels to a sleepy southern town in the Appalachian Mountains to bury her best friend. The wildwood is whispering. It has secrets to reveal, if you’re willing to listen.
Happy listening, and happy reading!
- Monica