Each week our wonderful staff share the books that they've been enjoying.

Jason is reading Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay

I've been a big fan of Paul Tremblay since I read his chilling novel, The Cabin at the End of the World. He has become a novelist whose work I anticipate and I have not been disappointed in Horror Movie so far. It is disturbing, creepy and anxiety-inducing.

In 1993, three teenagers decided to make a low budget, art/horror film that they dubbed simply Horror Movie. They ask their fellow classmate, and our main protagonist, to play a fourth character, the mysterious and passive Thin Kid. In the film, the Thin Kid is ordered to wear a mask and live inside an abandoned school, where the teenaged trio conduct a series of cruel and escalating experiments.

Many years later Horror Movie gains cult status when three scenes are uploaded to YouTube, and now producers are circling, looking at the possibility of making a new film based on those scenes. They're hoping that the only surviving cast member, the Thin Kid, will be involved.

What happened on that film set 30 years ago, and do the disturbing incidents that took place have any bearing on reality?

This book will not be for everyone obviously, but if you want an unsettling read for the Halloween season, this is it!

Megan is reading A Day in the Life of Abed Salama by Nathan Thrall

I just finished reading this, and it was a devastating but really informative read about life in Palestine and Israel. The book is centered around a horrific bus accident of kindergarteners on their way to a theme park. What follows is the story of one child's father as he searches to find out what happened to his son.

Interwoven into this story are the stories and lives of others who are affected by the crash in one way or another, and the stories of how they came to be where they were on that day. There is a reason it won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction, and it is an important read to broaden your understanding of life for Palestinians.