What I’ve Been Reading This Week<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Books where I said YES LET’S GO to every wild move. Books that aren\u2019t necessarily full of decisions I\u2019d make as a writer, but that thrill me and I enjoy oh so much. All three of these are massive, massive hits. I had a blast!<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Night Library Of Sternendach<\/em> by Jessica L\u00e9vai:<\/strong> subtitled \u201cA VAMPIRE OPERA IN VERSE.\u201d Yes. YES! My dudes<\/em>. A vampire opera in sonnets<\/em>, rhyming fucking sonnets. You know<\/em> how much yr man the shipwrecked sailor despises rhyming outside of hip-hop, and yet I enthusiastically said YES to every portion of this book. Partially because yr man the shipwrecked sailor has found the idea of being turned into a rich vampire who spends all his time reading appealing since roughly 2005. God, I loved this goofy tome. The more I describe it, the more you\u2019ll be like \u201cyou sure?\u201d Reader, I am sure. It\u2019s a star-crossed lovers story, a virginal bookworm dork who happens to be descended from a line of vampire hunters falls in love with an old aristocratic vampire because of his library<\/em>. In lesser hands, I\u2019d be grousing about how we have to be more creative with our horror concepts, but Jessica is such a good writer who fully committed to this project that I kinda want to see it adapted to the stage and scored. It reads smoothly, the rhymes aren\u2019t\u00a0intrusive. When the ending came, I was genuinely moved by the plight of the characters, even if I expected what was happening to happen. It takes real skill to tightrope walk all of these elements\u2014meter, rhyme, storytelling, character development, plot\u2014and L\u00e9vai absolutely pulls it all off. What an achievement. I love this book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n SOCIOCIDE AT THE 24\/7<\/em> by Paul Cunningham:<\/strong> I was lucky enough to see Paul read at NEON NIGHT MIC back in January. I wanted one of his books, and I had money for one. Paul, however, is such a nice guy that he gave me a second for free. Lucky me, these books rip. SOCIOCIDE AT THE 24\/7<\/em> is a frenetic, doomscrolling-as-poetry collage of internetisms, but in a way that doesn\u2019t forget that it\u2019s a poem. I think you\u2019re meant to read all 51 pages relatively fast, because the momentum of the text propelled me to that. There\u2019s music in the cacophony of the internet, if only you let a poet translate it.\u00a0This book is exhilarating, and the kind of long poem I’d love to see a multi-reader marathon reading of. There is a sea of books pulling from the diction of the internet out there, many of which you can ignore. This is not one of those. <\/p>\n\n\n\n THE HOUSE OF THE TREE OF SORES<\/em> by Paul Cunningham:<\/strong> would you like to read a book where the speaker is an assistant manager of an IKEA, becomes a father to two children by sort having them happen to him rather than any biological process, and does extended riffs on the Swedish Chef from The Muppets<\/em>? A book that puns Swedish and English words? A book that’s heavily hard surrealist and yet you always know you’re either in an IKEA or thinking about an IKEA? This one’s for you. It’s incredible. I know Paul counts Aase Berg as a mentor, and the lineage is clear, here. If you haven’t read Swedish surrealism, all I can say is you must. <\/p>\n\n\n\n LINKS!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Something to listen to while you browse? In honor of over-the-top operatic vampire week, here’s my second-favorite favorite AFI song:<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_7127-1024x768.jpg\")