Fall 2024 Book Recommendations

Book recommendations later.

First, cover reveal!

Both my 2025 picture books, FORTS and CASSINI’S MISSION are coming along. In fact, revealed here for the first time is the cover for CASSINI’S MISSION!

Isn’t it gorgeous? Julia Blattman has done such an amazing job on the illustrations. I can’t wait for you to see them.

FORTS will be released July 2025, and CASSINI’S MISSION will be released August 2025.

Books I Recently Read and Loved

“Autumn” and “cozy” go together like peanut butter and jelly, and nothing says “cozy” like post-apocalyptic. What? You haven’t heard of the cozy post-apocalyptic genre?

Well, read on for some recommendations, and read to the end of this newsletter to get a bonus!

Picture Books

Ten-word Tiny Tales To Inspire and Unsettle by Joseph CoelhoOK, strictly speaking, this is not post-apocalyptic, so there I go, breaking my own rules right away. But it’s a great read for the Halloween season, so I had to include it.

This picture book of slightly eerie ten-word stories with accompanying illustrations is perfect if you’re looking for a book all your kids can enjoy. My 12 and 9 year olds took turns reading the tales aloud, allowing the rest of us to close our eyes and get a picture in our mind of what the story is about. Then we compared to the image in the book to the image in our head, but the illustrations are so imaginative, it was never even close. Some pictures were a little creepy, so you might want to preview it before reading to a sensitive kid.

I promise, all other books in this newsletter are post-apocalyptic. 😁

City Under the City by Dan YaccarinoCITY UNDER THE CITY is an early chapter book/longer picture book. A girl living in a dystopian future discovers an ancient city under her futuristic one. She discovers something called books, and how they can save the world from some creepy eyeballs that tell everyone what to do. Like a lot of great sci-fi, this picture book hints at a complex past that all happened before the story.

Teen

All That’s Left in the World by Erik J. BrownA superflu wipes out 99.99% of the world. Two 16-year-old boys become friends when one of them steps in a bear trap and the other has medical supplies. They rely on each other to get them through a tough journey south from Pennsylvania. It’s a slow, gentle love story (just kissing) with some strong cursing. Truthfully, this one is too tense and page-turny to be what I would call “cozy,” but nothing horrific happens and it ends on a strong hopeful note, so I guess it counts? I couldn’t put it down and went to bed way too late last night trying to finish it. The audiobook is also good (yes, I listened to the audiobook when I couldn’t sit to read the book book).

Adult

Psalm for the Wild-built by Becky ChambersThis delightfully short novella follows a tea monk as they search for purpose in their life. They go from community to community, serving people the right tea to ease their troubles, until one day they decide they'd like to travel to a ruined hermitage. And then they meet a very friendly robot. It can be read in an evening, and will send you to bed feeling like if the world as we knew it ended, it'll still be ok. Very cozy.

Oil and Dust by Jami FairleighThis book has some tiny pet peeves of mine, so originally I wasn’t going to recommend it. But I can’t stop thinking about the setting. The world as we know it ended long ago...and it's better off. Everyone likes it this way, and they would really like to keep it as it is, rather than revert to the previous world full of greed, politics, and overzealous religions. It's a book you read for the experience and the world, rather than the plot. I was able to get this self-pubbed book through inter-library loan.

Nonfiction

Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction by Annalee NewitzNewitz published this nonfiction book back in 2012. She looks back at what caused Earth's previous mass extinctions (one of the causes was too much oxygen!) and how various species survived those extinctions. Then she looks forward--deeply forward--at how humans can survive future mass extinctions. Part history, part speculation. I found it fascinating.

Random Bonus Recommendation

Butterfly in the Sky: The Story of Reading RainbowThis blessedly scandal-free documentary on Netflix is 100% everything I was hoping it would be. (I don’t know if I could have handled even a whiff of scandal regarding Reading Rainbow.) I cried, I laughed, I sung along.

Book I Read a While Ago and Keep Thinking About (So You Know It’s Good)

As promised, if you made it to the end of the newsletter, here’s a book I read a while ago and can’t stop thinking about (BTRWAKTA(SYKIG)):

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

I mean, of course. If you haven’t read Station Eleven yet, let this be the nudge to you to read it.

While it’s not exactly cozy, it is engrossing and ends on a wonderful note of hope.

Leave Me a Comment!

Have you read any of these books and have thoughts about them you want to share?

Is there something you want me to talk about in my next newsletter?

Have a question about my books or about the publishing process?

Let me know in the comments.