Books to Get You Excited for Stranger Things Season 4 Vol. 2
Stranger Things is now going into volume two of its fourth season. To celebrate, we’ve compiled a list of strange, weird, wonderful, poignant, geeky, and creepy stories – and in one case, recipes – that will turn your bookshelf Upside Down. Pack some of these into your bag and take them with you for your next Dungeons and Dragons game or ice cream run at Scoops Ahoy.
Are you planning a menu for a Stranger Things watch party this season? Then this book is for you. This cookbook, from spoof cookbook creators The Muffin Brothers, covers everything from appetizers like Demogorgon-Zola Tartlets and Barb’s Mystery Dip to desserts like Upside Down Cake and Hopper’s Coffee and Contemplation cupcakes.
Who do you call when there’s a Yeti pillaging the ice cream section at the grocery store where you work the night shift? That’s the predicament Judy is in, and she can’t just call any pest control service. This is a job for Monster, who deals with nuisance supernatural creatures. But the Yeti is only the beginning as the world is becoming overrun with all sorts of monsters.
This coming-of-age novel from John Fried follows the life of Martin Kelso, a boy growing up in New York in the 1980s. At the age of eleven, Martin notices that he and his friends are changing; the world is a lot more complicated than the heroes-and-villains games he and his friends loved to play, and Martin can’t figure out why his relationship with girls is suddenly so complicated. Through a series of vignettes, Martin finds himself trying to figure out the world: the good, the bad, the poignant, the scary, and the sometimes weird.
If you are a fan of Dungeons and Dragons, comic books, RPGs, and fantasy, then this biography of D&D co-creator Gary Gygax is for you. Kushner and Shadmi have told the story of Gygax’s life and the creation of Dungeons and Dragons in the style of a graphic novel. The book follows Gygax from his early life to the tumultuous origins of the game that would become Dungeons and Dragons. It also addresses the moral panic of parents who were convinced the game was a bad influence on their children, plus D&D’s impact on RPGs, video games, and storytelling yet to come.
A visit to the Carnival Nocturne turns into a real-life nightmare when Tobin becomes trapped inside the House of Mystery and Mirrors. The whole world soon forgets that Tobin existed – except for Tobin’s friend Zeus. To save his friend, Zeus decides to use Odd Occurrences — a podcast all about the scary and supernatural — as a means to find his way back to Carnival Nocturne. But this ends up releasing all sorts of horrors Zeus never could have imagined.
Buck Carlsbad used to be just another normal kid. But when his family was destroyed by a terrible force known as the Black Light, everything changed. Buck now works as a private eye specializing in all things paranormal, as he works to figure out what happened to his family. His hardest trial yet comes in the form of a fancy new bullet train, the Laser, that is expected to cross a stretch of desert that Buck has long tried to avoid…
Ryan Bergara and Shane Madej, aka the Ghoul Boys, are the hosts of Buzzfeed Unsolved Supernatural: the popular web series dedicated to all things eerie, puzzling, and scary. Since 2016, the show has explored the Salem Witch Trials, the Lizzie Borden murder trial, and the sinking of the Mary Celeste, to name just a very few. Now, Bergara and Madej have compiled 101 of their favorite stories into this volume that will certainly keep you awake with all the lights on.
Erin Roll is a freelance writer, editor, and proofreader. Her favorite genres to read are mystery, science fiction, and fantasy, and her TBR pile is likely to be visible on Google Maps. Before becoming an editor, Erin worked as a journalist and photographer, and she has won far too many awards from the New Jersey Press Association. Erin lives at the top floor of a haunted house in Montclair, NJ. She enjoys reading (of course), writing, hiking, kayaking, music, and video games.