Jeff Vandermeer's Reading List

“I get superstitious,” says the author, whose latest novel is “Hummingbird Salamander”: “I once had a book sent to me that was disrupting my ability to write a novel because of a superficial similarity between the two. I took that book and dug a hole and buried it deep in the backyard.”

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By the Book: Jeff Vandermeer (2021)

NYT By the Book column (2021-04-15).

Source: www.nytimes.com

Theory of Bastards

Audrey Schulman · Buy on Amazon

"The novel I can't get out of my head is Audrey Schulman's mid-Collapse "Theory of Bastards," with its nuanced confluence of the personal and the epic, the human and the nonhuman."

Beast Meridian

Vanessa Angélica Villarreal · Buy on Amazon

"The poetry book I can't shake is Vanessa Angélica Villarreal's "Beast Meridian," which takes so many chances, is so, so brilliant, and the lines just burn into you."

Dead Souls

Nikolai Gogol · Buy on Amazon

"I sneaked unnoticed into the Everyman Library edition recently and, burrowing deep, loved the rich complexity, the wise and barbed exploration of corruption and the absurd irrationality of the human condition."

The Traitor

Michael Cisco · Buy on Amazon

""The Traitor," by Michael Cisco, a novel that unfolds like a lucid fever dream or some undiscovered Brothers Quay film written by Bruno Schulz and directed by David Lynch. Such a mind-altering exploration of mortality, the supernatural and colonialism."

Animals' Best Friends

Barbara J. King · Buy on Amazon

"Barbara J. King's "Animals' Best Friends: Putting Compassion to Work for Animals in Captivity and in the Wild" is the most comprehensive exploration I've read of the complex relationship between the human and nonhuman, full of great insights and practical information."

Raccoon

Daniel Heath Justice · Buy on Amazon

"Daniel Heath Justice's "Raccoon" is a fascinating and thoughtfully written exploration of its subject in science and culture — and a must-read for anyone like me who is curious about what, for example, Raccoon Mother (our best yard raccoon) is thinking on any given day."

Islands of Abandonment

Cal Flyn · Buy on Amazon

"Cal Flyn's "Islands of Abandonment: Nature Rebounding in the Post-Human Landscape" does a remarkable job of reclaiming lost and supposedly empty or derelict places by showing us how they can still be full of life and hope."

The Bloody Chamber

Angela Carter · Buy on Amazon

"My high school creative writing teacher gave me a copy of Angela Carter's "The Bloody Chamber" and said I needed to read it. She was right — I didn't know until then that you could write like that. I felt as if my brain was exploding with each sentence, in the best possible way."

Autumn

Ali Smith · 2016 · Buy on Amazon

"Since it's spring, Ali Smith's "Autumn," the first few pages of which are already revelatory and liberating."

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