Updated: January 1, 2018
Chronicling, for some reason, every book and short story I’ve read since The Lord of the Rings late in the spring. This is a companion to the rabble-rousing “Selected readings from the Old Lady Book Club,” protested openly by AARP, NOW and other pro-civility agencies. You cannot spell literati without ire, nor geriatric without rage.

Critical remarks are avoided in similar fashion to another fine list. Ratings are reserved for “Library Book Club” selections (noted in red to represent the spectre of death) and other significant achievements/shame spirals. Rereads coopt the register mark and establish that “rereads” and “coopt” are not to be hyphenated.

JRR Tolkien
The Fellowship of the Ring (1954)
The Two Towers (1954)
The Return of the King (1955)

Stephen King
The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger (1982/2003 revision)

Agatha Christie
Sleeping Murder (1976)

Edgar Allan Poe
“Review of The Quacks of Helicon” (1841)
“Astoria” (1837)

Elmore Leonard
Glitz (1985)

Agatha Christie
The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side (1962)

Edgar Allan Poe
“The Domain of Arnheim” (1847)
“Landor’s Cottage” (1849)
“William Wilson” (1839)

Jeff Pearlman
Boys Will Be Boys: The Glory Days and Party Nights of the Dallas Cowboys Dynasty (2008) Ⓡ
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

HP Lovecraft
“The Nameless City” (1921)

Keith Cameron
Mudhoney: The Sound and the Fury From Seattle (2013)
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Elmore Leonard
Pronto (1993)

HP Lovecraft
“The Festival” (1925)

Edgar Allan Poe
“Berenice” (1835)
“Eleonora” (1841)
“Ligeia” (1838)
“Morella” (1835)
“Metzengerstein” (1832)

Stephen King
The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three (1987) Ⓡ
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Edgar Allan Poe
“A Tale of the Ragged Mountains” (1844)
“The Spectacles” (1844)
“The Duke of l’Omelette” (1832)
“The Oblong Box” (1844)

HP Lovecraft
“The Colour Out of Space” (1927)

Edgar Allan Poe
“King Pest the First” (1835)
“A Succession of Sundays,” a.k.a. “Three Sundays in a Week” (1841)
“The Devil in the Belfry” (1839)
“Lionizing” (1835)

HP Lovecraft
“The Call of Cthulhu” (1928)
“The Dunwich Horror” (1929)

Charlotte Gordon
Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley (2016)
⭐⭐⭐⭐

Ian McGuire
The North Water (2016)

Edgar Allan Poe
“The Rationale of Verse” (1848)
“The Poetic Principle” (1848)

Mary Shelley
Frankenstein (or: The Modern Prometheus) (1818)

Edgar Allan Poe
Politian (1835)

John William Polidori
“The Vampyre” (1819)

HP Lovecraft
The Whisperer in Darkness (1931)

Edgar Allan Poe
“The Philosophy of Furniture” (1840)
“The Light-House” (1849)

HP Lovecraft
“The Dreams in the Witch House” (1933)
“The Haunter of the Dark” (1936)

Kurt Vonnegut (Jr.)
“The Big Trip Up Yonder” (1954)

Ben H. Winters
Underground Airlines (2016)
⭐⭐

Edgar Allan Poe
“Eureka” (1848)

Andrew Boylan
Sacrifice (2016)

Edgar Allan Poe
“A Few Words on Etiquette” (1846) *
“Morning on the Wissahiccon” (1844)
“The Philosophy of Composition” (1846)
“A Few Words on Secret Writing” (1841)
“Fifty Suggestions” (1849)
“Some Account of Stonehenge, the Giant’s Dance, a Druidical Ruin in England” (1840)

Kurt Vonnegut (Jr.)
Player Piano (1952) Ⓡ

Edgar Allan Poe
“Byron and Miss Chaworth” (1844)
“Harper’s Ferry” (1842) *

Edgar Allan Poe
“An Opinion on Dreams” (1839)
“Instinct vs. Reason: A Black Cat” (1840) *
“Pay of American Authors” (1845) *
“Wood Pavements” (1845)
“Why Not Try a Mineralized Pavement” (1845)
“Old English Poetry” (1836) *
“The Capitol at Washington” (1839) *

Erik Larson
The Devil in the White City (2003)

Agatha Christie
The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)

Edgar Allan Poe
“Our Magazine Literature” (1843) *