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Monday, July 12, 2021

Library Journal Horror Genre Preview

My annual Horror Genre Preview is now live in the July 2021 issue Library Journal. It is premium on the web and in the print magazine but you can see it for free because they have complimentary article access each month. 

[Although this is a good time to remind all of you that if your library subscribes to the print magazine you can set up the online access with some help from you periodicals person. You are already paying for it; you should use it.]

This year, like the past 4, my goal to to give you as many of the upcoming titles from July to January or February, from as many different publishers as possible [within my 3,000 word limit]. I always make sure to include some nonfiction and create overarching commentary about the direction of the genre as I see it. This year's overarching thread was "Busting Up the Boys Club," as I focused on the women in horror from publishers to authors to editors and more. There are a few other trends which you can see in the article here. I have quotes by a bunch of authors and editors included also. 

There are 60 titles. These are not reviews but I do give you aa little something about each title. I stand behind every single title for a general public library collection, but I realize most libraries cannot buy them all. I hope this article helps you to figure out what your patrons will enjoy most. Library Journal also created this downloadable spreadsheet of every title in author alpha order, with all the information you need to order them here.

I also want to remind you that you can see my past Horror genre previews by clicking here. There are also on a page on RA for All Horror with other information and resources entitled "Archive of Becky's Lists Articles and Presentations." These will help you to make displays and to help round out your collections. Together these lists provide a snapshot of the genre, both c=some key titles and the recent trends.

Below is the introduction to the article. Click here or on the title of the article to read the entire piece. Halloween is only 111 days away, but the spooky season will really go into overdrive as soon as Summer ends. Get ready now.

If 2020 was the year that real-life horrors upstaged anything we had seen in books, 2021 is the year that fiction caught up with reality. When the world entered lockdown, many readers sought escape from their intense, daily fear by reading about horrors other than the pandemic, especially those titles where the anxiety and terror could not possibly be real. Unfortunately, those real-life fears are not going away anytime soon.

The ramifications of the trauma we all endured are here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future, and have shaped horror fiction. Key aspects to note in 2021 are the influence of women in the genre and an increasing popularity of the genre as a whole, that includes reissues of horror classics and a new wave of important debut authors. All titles mentioned in this article are listed in this downloadable spreadsheet.

Click here to read the entire article.

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