Continuing our new holiday tradition, next up we have my recommendations for fellow blog team member Maya. After conducting extensive research, including scouring Maya’s previously published posts, I’ve come up with some bespoke picks for her enjoyment. For those among you who may enjoy horror with a supernatural/paranormal tinge, graphic novels, Kate Beaton, and the like, these choices just might do double for you. I hope there’s something here that you haven’t already heard of and that interests you, Maya! Since Maya is an undisputed horror fan (with several blog posts in evidence), I had to include a horror novel in my gift of recommendations. This one was on Book Riot’s 2024 Summer Scares List, which is an annual tradition the website has in collaboration with the Horror Writers Association in the US and several other book and/or library-related organizations. What better way to play to Maya’s steadfast and unceasing love of summer and hatred of winter then to pull from this list. It aims to boost the popularity of the horror genre for readers at any age and for all seasons. Too often the spoopy and gothic are linked to Halloween, the colder months, and autumnal vibes. Check out the list linked above if you’re interested! There’s books for adults, young adults, and middle grade. Such Sharp Teeth is about Rory Morris. After a move back to the place she was born and an encounter with a man from her past, she gets in an accident with a wild animal, or so she thinks. Paranormal transformation ensues, along with romance.
Department of Mind-blowing Theories
I knew I had to find a similar author to Kate Beaton for this post. My Secret Santa giftee’s admiration of her mirrors my own. Beaton’s brand of dry, erudite humour that pokes fun at untold figures from history and literature is pretty niche. If there was someone out there who happened to have the same witty and facetious tone, I had to find them. I think I might have done it! The reader’s advisory database Novelist pointed me toward Tom Gauld and the Department of Mind-Blowing Theories. It’s a collection of comic strips from the New Scientist magazine. His quippy, scientific bon mots were originally published once a week. Poking fun at various figures and concepts from the scientific community, Gauld is giving similar vibes for sure. When writing for The Guardian newspaper’s “books page,” he even wrote about literary things too. Given Maya’s penchant for What If, perhaps this one combines the best of both worlds (in the words of our dear Miley Cyrus. I will never stop referencing that song. It was the bulk of my adolescence.) We also have these books of his in our collection, which look excellent:



Ryuichi Sakamoto
Next up, music. After reading this post about Japanese film composer Joe Hisaishi, I knew I had to track down a listen-alike, if you will. Someone who evokes a similar audio ambiance. Sometimes, you can’t go wrong with a cheeky look at Reddit. One user recommended the late Oscar-winner Ryuichi Sakamoto. As I write this, I’m listening to the album of selected compositions linked above on Hoopla. I’m really enjoying the range of his work. There are large-scale, grand accompaniments to no-doubt epic scenes alongside smaller, more tranquil studies in delicate sound. I would recommend the album for sure. It would make for good background music while studying, cooking, or cleaning (a la Maya’s post here). I always liked listening to instrumental music when I was writing essays in university. There are complex, narrative-like progressions, changes, stops, starts, and trailing offs, but there are no words to battle with the ones on screen in front of you. I can’t imagine a better compliment to blog writing to be honest. Hoopla also has several other Ryuichi Sakamoto works to choose from here. Composer Terry Riley — a collaborator, co-performer, and friend of Maya’s beloved Hisaishi — is on there too. Hisaishi (AKA Mamoru Fujisawa) once said that Riley’s “A Rainbow in Curved Air” was an inspiration to him as he developed musically. Hoopla has albums attributed to Riley specifically, as well as compilations that include the composer. Autodreamographical Tales has an amazing title, but so does Cadenza On The Night Plain And Other String Quartets. I hope the titular quality of these works portends their musical quality as well.


A River of Golden Bones
Finally, I thought I would round out these offerings with an audiobook to complement the fullness of Maya’s format habits. I found one that I might borrow myself: A River of Golden Bones. It looks like a fun fantasy jaunt, and it just so happens to feature wolfs again. To be honest, the more compelling draw for me is that the narrator of this particular Libby version is Vico Ortiz. Ortiz starred in one of my favourite TV series of late, Our Flag Means Death, as nonbinary pirate Jim Jimenez. A dark, HBO comedy with an incredibly sweet and earnest queer romance, Our Flag has meant a lot to a particularly passionate and vocal subsect of the internet. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the series has been converted to DVD format, so there’s no way for us to add it to VPL’s collection. However, given her penchant for the macabre, I would certainly recommend the show to Maya. The audiobook mentioned above is available from Markham Public Library’s digital collection on Libby. VPL members should be able to access it by signing in with their VPL card number and PIN, though. And that about wraps things up for this second round of Secret Santa from the Hot Off the Shelf Blog Team. Next week, we’ll have another, so stay tuned for more tailored picks that just might be exactly what you’re looking for. I hope something here was novel or unexpected but intriguing for my Secret Santa giftee, and I’ll catch you all on the interwebs next month!