We like consuming words on the page almost as much as we like consuming food on the plate. Welcome to the Scout Book Club: a brief and regular rundown of what we’re reading, what’s staring at us from the bookshelf begging to be read next, and what we’ve already read and recommend.

The Vancouver Writers Fest wrapped up its 2024 edition last week, on October 27th; however, we took advantage of the event’s impressive roster of writers to elicit a whole slew of book recommendations from its participants. Consult them below for your ongoing reading pleasure:

Grey Dog (ECW Press), by Elliott Gish | Full disclosure: I acquired and edited this novel, but it’s really that good! It’s set in 1905 and follows a spinster schoolteacher as she moves to a creepy town for a new job, carrying with her the traumas of the past as she tries to understand the spooky and unsettling things happening around her. I call it a Saphhic Anne of Green Gables with homicidal wildlife. DETAILS — Jen Sookfong Lee, Author, The Conjoined (ECW Press)

Carmilla (originally published in 1872), by Sheridan le Fanu | It’s a novella about a young vampire who goes around seducing other girls in castles. My daughter said it was very Heather O’Neill-coded. I can’t believe I hadn’t read it before. I’m about to start Ghostroots by Pemi Aguda. There’s a black sheep on the cover. I’m obsessed with goats and sheep when they appear in novels. There’s a story called Breastmilk, which intrigues me, because not enough has been written about its magical properties. DETAILS — Heather O’Neill, Author, Capital of Dreams (HarperCollins)

Eight-lane Runaways (Fantagraphics), by Henry McCausland | My favourite comics have the quality where it feels as though the cartoonist on the other end is getting lost in the joy of creating. This is a book of such arresting detail, motion, and experimentation that could only ever exist in this artistic medium. Readers be-warned: this is not a straightforward or necessarily plot-driven work, but something evocative and enigmatic that is so arrestingly charming, strange, and emotional that I’ve not been able to shut up about it since I first read the self-published zines of this story five years ago. DETAILS — Adam de Souza, Cartoonist & Illustrator, The Gulf (Penguin Random House)

Hello, Horse (Biblioasis), by Richard Kelly Kemick | I just finished Richard Kelly Kemick’s story collection, Hello, Horse. We had a number of events together this fall. He’s a mad genius. The stories are based on wacky premises – a dystopian future where orphans are left in the care of hockey-playing nuns; a pedagogical conference held at a Cuban an-inclusive; a pregnant grieving teenager hoping to win the Unitarian Church’s annual short story competition to make the rent, for example – yet they are gorgeously rendered and surprisingly poignant. I don’t drink whiskey myself, but I sense that it would be the perfect drink to help the reader relax into Richard’s darkly funny worlds. DETAILS — Caroline Adderson, Author, A Way to Be Happy (Biblioasis)

*It would be remiss for me not to mention Vancouver’s various independent and used book stores, and encourage you to pay them an in-person visit to seek out these and other titles.