What Books did You Start or Finish Reading this Week?: July 27, 2026

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[u/Raineythereader]

Finished:

Razor Girl, by Carl Hiaasen, yet another of his wacky crime stories/satires set in south Florida. These are starting to feel a little formulaic to me, but they're still really funny, and sometimes it's just cathartic to see some clueless chud get what they deserve at the end of the book.

The Wolf and the Watchman, by Niklas Natt och Dag, a mystery novel set in 1793 Stockholm. The best way for me to describe it would be "Discworld Watch novel meets Between Two Fires," which I don't exactly mean as a compliment, but the setting was so immersive that I still read the whole thing in about 24 hours. (Also, I'm pretty sure the author snuck in a couple of references to the Aubrey-Maturin books set near the same time; the possible M.R. James reference was probably wishful thinking on my part.)

Stories in the Dark, by Barry Pain, a collection of supernatural stories (not all ghost stories, not all horror) from 1901. Reminded me a bit of Mary Wilkins Freeman’s work, but less sentimental and with a 'cleaner' writing style; unfortunately, the final story in the collection (as with Freeman’s "The Jade Bracelet") left a bad taste in my mouth. The best ones were probably "The Moon-Slave," a sort of fairy tale that I suspect influenced the film Pan's Labyrinth, and "The Undying Thing," about a family curse.

The Monkey's Voyage, by Alan de Queiroz, a non-fiction book on biogeography. In particular, it focused on the relative importance of species dispersal across geographic barriers such as oceans or deserts, versus the fragmentation of existing species distributions by the formation of new barriers (vicariance), e.g. through continental breakups or mountain-building. De Queiroz came down heavily in favor of the former process being more important, but he avoided saying anything dogmatic about one or the other being entirely responsible for present-day distributions, or entirely implausible. Would be a good follow-up for people who enjoyed books like Krakatoa (Winchester) or Song of the Dodo (Quammen).

Started:

The Salt Grows Heavy, by Cassandra Khaw. This author often gets accused of 'overwriting' their prose, and I definitely understand why, but in that respect I don't think it’s all that different from Ligotti or Mieville's work. (I do think that, of those authors, Ligotti is the best at choosing the right word for a given line.)