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Who out there has read all the books they want to read? *crickets* Exactly! There are so many amazing books, we will never get to them all, and that’s okay. I personally love having a never-ending TBR list. But I also want to go back and read books that I have already read and loved. Some books need to be revisited! For instance, a couple weeks ago, I took The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins off the shelf to read again because that book kicks my brain in the best way. And the whole time I was reading it, the unread books on my shelves cussed me out because when is it going to be their turn?? Answer: I don’t know! I want to read all the books but also read all the books again. It’s a great problem to have, tbh.
When I was young, I never read a book again that I had previously read, and I always read one book at a time, start to finish. Now, I have five, six, sometimes ten books going, and I reread a book or two a month as well. You’d think it would be the opposite, that the older I get, the less time I have, so I would want to cram in as many new titles as I can. But there’s something magical about reading books again. You can revisit the way it made you feel or the time and place you were in your life when you read it the first time. And you can take new things away from a book, maybe a new favorite line, or a new favorite character. (I reread The Secret History by Donna Tartt every year, and let me tell you, middle-aged me no longer thinks Henry is romantic boyfriend material like I did when I was in my twenties.)
So in the spirit of rereading great books, for this post I picked the five great SFF books that I hope to pick up next. And maybe it will inspire you to read them again—or pick them up for the first time!
The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djèlí Clark
It’s 1912 in Cairo, Egypt, and two agents from the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities are sent to get whatever has possessed a tram car to leave. But they soon learn that its appearance may be a portend of things to come. This novelette is the second of Clark’s Dead in Cairo tales. First there was a short story, and a novel, A Master of Djinn, followed this one. You don’t have to read them in order, but you should definitely read them all! (P.S. If you were wondering, a novelette is shorter than a novella.)
The Devourers by Indra Das
If you like your fantasy dark and steeped in legends and lore, you’ll definitely want to get this on your TBR! It’s about a college professor in India who is told an eerie tale by a stranger. In order to learn the end of the story, the professor translates a series of old documents and learns about an older species of beast-humans who once walked the lands. And as his translations near the end, his obsession with the story becomes visceral.
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Escape from Baghdad! by Saad Z. Hossain
This is a darkly comedic madcap adventure about two black marketeers in Baghdad who wind up with Saddam Hussein’s prized torturer in their possession. Dagr and Kinza don’t want the captain, but before they can turn him over to authorities, he makes them an offer: his freedom for the location of riches beyond their wildest imagination. Desperate for new lives, they agree to bring him to the treasure. And with the help of a U.S. Marine, who also makes shady deals, they all end up on a trip that shows them that the world is so much more than just what they can see on the surface.
The Employees by Olga Ravn, translated by Martin Aitken
What is this book about? I don’t know! Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but it is true that I have read it repeatedly, and I am still not entirely sure I fully understand what is going on. I just know that I love it so, so much. It’s a series of reports and memos, arranged out of order, about the humans and robots on a ship. A series of weird objects have been brought aboard from a new planet, and the crew talks about their jobs and their reactions to these new objects. It’s funny and wonderfully odd, and I am not doing it justice, so you’ll just have to read it.
Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots
And last, but not least, a supervillain novel after my own heart. Anna works for a temp agency, and while on the job, she is injured by one of the city’s superheroes during a battle. This is Anna’s origin story, as she is now out of work and left with hospital bills. Why isn’t the superhero accountable for collateral damage?? So she gets a job working for a supervillain, making spreadsheets, tracking data on social media, and following the news about clashes and victims. She soon discovers that by changing the story, she may be able to change the world. (The sequel to this is called Villains and was due in August, but a quick search shows that it may have been pushed back again. We’ll get it when we get it!)
Okay, star bits, now take the knowledge you have learned here today and use it for good, not evil. If you want to know more about books, I talk about books pretty much nonstop (when I’m not reading them), and you can hear me say lots of adjectives about them on the Book Riot podcast All the Books! and on Bluesky and Instagram.
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