Episode 602 || What Would Scully & Mulder Read?
This week on From the Front Porch, Annie is speculating what Scully & Mulder (from Fox show The X-Files) might read now, in 2026. If they walked into The Bookshelf, what books would Annie put into their hands? Or what books do we sell that they’ve already read and loved? (And, it’s no coincidence: These are also the books Annie would put into your hands, if you were looking for spooky season reads.) Here’s what Annie came up with:
To purchase the books mentioned in this episode, stop by The Bookshelf in Thomasville, visit our website (search episode 602), or download and shop on The Bookshelf’s official app:
The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
Children of the Wolf by Abby Geni
11/22/63 by Stephen King
Voyagers by Meg Charlton
Beings by Ilana Masad
The Wanderers by Meg Howrey
Devolution by Max Brooks
In the Woods They Wait by Carrie Lee South
There Used to Be People Here by Kennedy Cole (November 3rd, 2026)
From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in South Georgia. You can follow The Bookshelf’s daily happenings on Instagram, Tiktok, and Facebook, and all the books from today’s episode can be purchased online through our store website, www.bookshelfthomasville.com.
A full transcript of today’s episode can be found below.
Special thanks to Dylan and his team at Studio D Podcast Production for sound and editing and for our theme music, which sets the perfect warm and friendly tone for our Thursday conversations.
This week, Annie is reading Missing Sister by Joshilyn Jackson.
If you liked what you heard in today’s episode, tell us by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. You can also support us on Patreon, where you can access bonus content, monthly live Porch Visits with Annie, our monthly live Patreon Book Club with Bookshelf staffers, Conquer a Classic episodes with Hunter, and more. Just go to patreon.com/fromthefrontporch.
We’re so grateful for you, and we look forward to meeting back here next week.
Our Executive Producers are...Beth, Cammy Tidwell, Jammie Treadwell, Joseph Shorter IV, Kimberly, Linda Lee Drozt, Martha, Nicole Marsee, Stephanie Dean, Gene Queens and Wendi Jenkins.
Transcript:
[squeaky porch swing] Welcome to From the Front Porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business, and life in the South. [music plays out]
“Not even knowledge takes all the strangeness from the world.”
-Sarah Perry, The Essex Serpent
[as music fades out]
[00:00:34] I'm Annie Jones, owner of The Bookshelf an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia. And this week we're continuing our occasional podcast series where I imagine what books I might hand sell to our favorite authors and fictional characters. This week, Dana Scully and Fox Mulder from The X-Files. If you're craving more From the Front Porch, or if you want to listen to episodes ad-free, join us on Patreon. This year, listener favorite Hunter McClendon and I have been sharing our monthly recaps of our conquering of the complete stories by Flannery O'Connor. Episodes air on the last Friday of each month, and it's never too late to start reading or listening, or to get your friends and family to join us too. Just visit patreon.com/fromthefrontporch. Three different tiers are available. The $5 a month tier will give you access to those Conquer a Classic episodes, including a whole back catalog of episodes, and our monthly Porch Visit Q&A sessions. The $20 a month tier will give you ad-free episodes of From the Front Porch, plus a deep dive into some of Flannery O'Connor's other works. Now would actually be a great time to join us on Patreon because we are wrapping up our time with Flannery O'Connor, and we are getting ready to announce our 2027 Conquer a Classic selection. So if you've been on the fence about joining us on Patreon, now would be a great time to join, patreon.com/fromthefrontporch.
[00:02:07] A few months ago, during one of our Patreon Porch Visits, podcast listener Courtney asked me what books I'd recommend to my beloved March sisters. I loved the question and the resulting thought exercise so much, I decided I needed to try my hand at selecting books for other fictional characters and authors I love. In January, I had some recommendations for Jane Austen. That officially now feels like a million years ago. And in April, I recommended titles for all four of the March sisters. In August, I shared books I thought Rory Gilmore might enjoy reading, and this week I'm turning my attention to Dana Scully and Fox Mulder from The X-Files. Listen, I am not The X-Files target audience. I do love a procedural, it's true, but I am not big on sci-fi, generally speaking. That's a generalization. Generally, I'm not big on sci-fi. I did grow up-- I'm thinking through this. Is that true? I grew up watching Star Wars because I have a brother, and I liked the original trilogy of films. I like some Steven Spielberg stuff. I like Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir. But generally, I'm not the world's biggest sci-fi fan, and I didn't watch The X-Files when it was on air. My best friend in college loved the show, and I remember her talking about it a lot, but she also loved Supernatural, and I tried and could not get into Supernatural, so I never tried The X-Files until a few years ago. I don't really know what prompted it, but Jordan and I devoured every single episode, and now it's become one of our favorite comfort re-watches. It's up there with Cheers and The Office. We just get in rhythms of re-watching different seasons and series of television, and it is now probably in our top 10 series of all time, I would say.
[00:03:59] If you are not familiar, the premise is simple. It's a relic of the 1990s when it debuted. Fox Mulder is a once promising, still brilliant FBI agent, played by David Duchovny, who has lost the respect of his peers because of his obsession with odd phenomena, including extraterrestrial life. Dana Scully, played by Gillian Anderson, is a no-nonsense medical doctor turned FBI agent. She is sent by the powers that be at the FBI to report on Mulder and keep him in line. Together, they work their way through the X-Files, marginalized, unsolved cases, often involving paranormal phenomena The show has two kinds of episodes, monster episodes, which are my personal favorites, and myth episodes, which I'm slightly less interested in. Those episodes deal with bigger, overarching issues of government conspiracy, but they are the through line that kept the show going across decades. The monster episodes are more like case-of-the-week episodes, and they deal with, weird, creepy, crawly, criminal things, and I love those episodes. The X-Files ran for nine seasons, from 1993 to 2002, so quite a long time. Then, in 2016, there was a reboot with 10 episodes that was actually pretty successful, received generally positive reviews, and then in 2018, there were 10 more. The word on the internet streets, of which I am not always a savvy denizen, is that there is going to be a new X-File series with Ryan Coogler at the helm. Reddit seems to believe that Coogler has filmed the pilot, and it's going to star Danielle Deadwyler and Himesh Patel. So I am really and truly seated. I am pumped. This could be fantastic, because the source material is pretty good, and I would argue holds up, and then I think with somebody with a creative mind like Ryan Coogler, who could reimagine it and bring it into, 2026, 2027, I think there's something there.
[00:05:55] So if you have not watched The X-Files, is this episode for you? I would say yes. If you are an Annie, Olivia, Keila kind of reader, if you dabble in sci-fi, if you dabble in horror, if you like things that go bump in the night, you like the occasional suspense book, all of these, the books that I'm going to talk about today I think are in the Annie, Olivia, Keila Venn diagram.
[00:06:17] So if you're familiar with our team, I like literary fiction, literary nonfiction. Olivia generally likes suspense, thriller, cozy mysteries. Keila likes horror, Southern Gothic, that kind of thing. So when all of our Venn diagrams meet, I actually think you get The X-Files. If you are like, "Annie I am watching shows that, were published, produced today. I'm not going back to the '90s," I get that. If you like Widow's Bay, then some of these books, I think, are going to work for you. I wanted to post this episode in October, so if you've been waiting for a spooky reads episode, this is the episode for you. Today I'm recommending books for Scully and Mulder together. So despite their differences, Scully and Mulder actually have a pretty large Venn diagram between them, and the books I've chosen reflect their interests in the supernatural and their frequent butting of heads. Part of the premise of The X-Files is that Mulder believes, he believes in extraterrestrials, he believes in the supernatural, and Scully does not. She is very scientific-minded. Remember, she's a doctor, a medical doctor, and so she approaches things from a much more scientific point of view. It is funny occasionally when those roles reverse, because Scully is a, I believe, a Catholic in the show, and then Mulder is decidedly if not anti-religious, fairly agnostic in his religious beliefs. And so every so often their roles reverse, which is always fun. So these are books that tackle the ideas of faith and reason in a way I think would make both agents take notice. And of course, these books also dip their toe into the world of science fiction.
[00:07:56] If Scully and Mulder walked into the bookshelf today, here are the books I would put into their hands. These are also the books I would put into your hands if you're looking for spooky season reads. First up, a beloved book by me that I talk about, I think, all the time, but allow me to try to hand sell it to you one more time. It is The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry. This released in paperback back in 2018. I believe I picked up a hardback version long ago. Actually I'm doing that math. 10 years ago, in 2016, it was out in hardback, and I got it from Sundog Books as part of a birthday bookstore trip Jordan had planned for me for my 30th birthday. So that has been 10 years ago now. Sarah Perry is a British author. She has a new kind of memoir, nonfiction book coming out. It's already out in the UK, called Death of an Ordinary Man. So you've heard me talk about her fairly recently. The reason I want to mention The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry is it actually features, in my mind, a Scully and Mulder type friendship. This platonic friendship that feels true to the spirit of The X-Files is at the heart of The Essex Serpent. So it's London, 1893. Cora Seaborne is a widow, a new widow, and she has to move to coastal Essex. So she kind of moves to this seaside town with her 11-year-old son, Francis, and then the boy's nanny, Martha, who's her dear friend.
[00:09:20] And so the three of them move to the coast, and once there, they hear that after 300 years, the mythical Essex Serpent has returned to the coast. It's returned to their neck of the woods. Cora is a scientist and amateur naturalist. She has no patience for religion or superstition, and so she's immediately intrigued, chalking this up to this kind of podunk coastal town, people who don't know any better have to make up stories for themselves. So she becomes friends, she's introduced to this parish vicar, William Ransom. He is suspicious of the rumors, but for different reasons. He is a man of faith, and he is concerned that all of these kinds of desperate cries are more moral panic than anything else. And so the two of them kind of team up. It's almost a buddy cop story. Except Cora is a widowed housewife and want to be scientist, want to be scientist, and Ransom is this, in my mind, of course, handsome vicar. There is an Apple TV adaptation of this, which is actually great. I feel like there is so much TV being produced all the time that stuff just slips under the radar. I thought this was a fantastic television adaptation. I believe it stars Tom Hiddleston in the priest role. But I loved this book. It is outside of my wheelhouse, like X-Files. It's historical fiction, which is not normally what I'm just going to gravitate toward naturally on the shelf. I picked this one up at Sundog because it was a staff pick, and I'm so glad I did.
[00:10:52] It was serendipitous that I picked it up because, again, I might not be drawn to it on its own merits. But The themes of science and religion and the way those things work together was really interesting to me. It's always interesting to me. You know I love books like The Dearly Beloved books that kind of grapple with faith and doubt, skepticism, religion, science. But also it's just a really good friendship book. I really love the relationship that's at the heart of the novel, and I love the setting. So it's kind of this-- how do I describe it? It's kind of this foggy, atmospheric setting. And if you've ever watched The X-Files, so many of their episodes were filmed, I think, in Canada, and you can just get the sense that this fog has descended. And so that is what The Essex Serpent reminds me of. I think Scully in particular would really love this book. It is The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry, out in paperback. Came out in paperback back in 2017, so a good backlist title.
[00:11:48] For a more frontlist title, I would hand-sell Scully and Mulder Children of the Wolf. This is by Abby Jenny. And when I say frontlist, brand spanking new. This is a new release. It released back in September. Olivia loved this one, and she did such a great job of hand-selling it that she hand-sold it to me and Keila. So both of us have read this book. All three of us have read this book. The reason I think it would make a good pick for Scully and Mulder is because it deals heavily with Nordic myth and Viking lore. You perhaps have heard Olivia talk about this one on, I want to say, a Newsday Tuesday video. So if you follow us along there. The book is about Liv and is narrated by Liv. She is an adult now, but 20 years ago, she was a young child living in rural Iowa with her brother Finn and their dad, Ulf. I'm not 100% sure how to pronounce his name. I did not listen to this one. I read it. Swedish-born Ulf is a direct descendant of Erik the Red, and he raises his children as if they were Vikings. Now, did I know what that meant before embarking upon this book? No, not really. But basically, they speak Swedish in the home. They don't go to regular school. They learn swordplay, archery. They celebrate Norse holidays and worship Norse gods, and they're kept from the rest of society. It's not so much that they have a disdain for American society, but Ulf is a very proud Swedish man.
[00:13:13] And this is no spoilers, it's on the back of the book you know it's coming, but Liv lives this relatively, at least in her mind, idyllic childhood until the FBI raids her home. And so the first half of the book, or the first third of the book at least, is devoted to Finn and Liv's raising and what their childhood looked like in rural Iowa. I actually loved this part of the book. I loved learning about their schooling and about Nordic myth. Again, lots of stuff about Nordic mythology here or Norse mythology here. And then I think that takes up about either a half or a third of the book. And then we flash forward, and it's present day, and Liv has noticed that a couple of murders are popping up in and around her relatively rural community. And so the fact that there's more than one now has raised her spidey senses. I don't want to give away any more than that. Olivia did a good job of describing this one as less a whodunit and more a whydunit . I would argue it's both. There is a whodunit element, but I'll agree that the most interesting aspects of this book have to do with motive. I think because of the FBI component, the mythology at the core of the book, Mulder in particular would love this particular book. I was hooked from the first page. It's very fast, very easy to read, would be a fun book to read this spooky season. Keila liked it as well. That is Children of the Wolf by Abbi Jenne.
[00:14:39] Because Stephen King literally wrote an episode of The X-Files, I feel like it would be weird to do this whole episode and not hand sell Scully and Mulder a Stephen King novel. So I'm going to recommend for them 11/22/63. This is a deep backlist title. I say deep. It came out in paperback in 2012. To me, it is Stephen King's great crossover novel. Full disclosure, it's also the only novel by Stephen King I've ever read, which I do intend to fix one day, so nobody panic. I do intend to fix that. But for now, it is the only Stephen King book novel I have read. It is the only Stephen King novel I have read, and I think the reason for that is it really is a crossover book. It's not straight horror. It is a time travel book about the JFK assassination. This book is pretty much universally beloved, though my note here is not necessarily by me. I liked this book okay. I had some serious qualms with the ending, as I recall. I believe the ending made me furious after devoting so many pages. It's such a thick book. Stephen King writes a lot of pages. But I do think Scully and Mulder would like this one. Of course, The X-Files occasionally devotes some time to the JFK assassination because so much about The X-Files, especially the myth episodes, are about government conspiracy. There are even three really fun side characters known as the Lone Gunmen. And so because of that, I do think Scully and Mulder would appreciate 11/22/63. If you're not familiar, of course, the date comes from the date that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, and the world was changed forever.
[00:16:17] So Stephen King imagines what if you could change it back. The main character of 11/22/63 is a guy named Jake. He's an English teacher living in Maine, and his life is upended when he realizes his friend who owns the local diner lets him know that his storeroom is a portal to the past, a particular day in 1958. And so Al enlists Jake to take over the mission that has become Al's obsession. Al wants to prevent the Kennedy assassination, and so he recruits Jake to fulfill his purpose for him. I would be curious. I did not watch the television adaptation of this, but now I'm like was the TV adaptation any good?" Because the premise really is so great. The premise is so great and many people love this book. I did not love it, but I do a good time travel book. If you want to hunker down with a book this fall, this has the page count for it. It's a bit of a brick, but it is fast-paced, plot driven. I think, of course, would really appeal to the Mulder sensibilities. It is 11/22/63 by Stephen King released in paperback back in 2012. We've made it this far into the episode without diving too much into extraterrestrials, but that is about to change.
[00:17:35] So the next book I would recommend to Scully and Mulder is Voyagers. This is by Meg Charlton. It's a debut novel that just came out June of this year. Olivia loved it, and I want to be clear that I started it and really liked what I read. And then I was, at that moment, shopping around for Shelf Subscriptions, so I had to move on with my life. So I did keep my copy, but I have not finished it. This was definitely an Annie and Olivia crossover book because Olivia specifically mentioned that it's more character-driven than her typical books are. But she said there was enough plot to keep her going. And I remember reading this description in the catalog on Edelweiss and thinking, "Oh, this sounds like The X-Files." So basically, it is decades in the past, and Alex and a girl named Anna both vanish for 36 hours while on vacation near Palm Springs. When they return, they're dazed but unharmed, and these six-year-olds wind up telling people this story of an alien abduction There's a media frenzy that makes the two kids famous, and after childhood stardom, talk shows, they form this bond because they're trauma bonded. They've basically experienced these things together until the mystery behind their disappearance and maybe the truth of their disappearance kind of tears them apart.
[00:19:00] So fast-forward, it's maybe 20, 30 years later, and there is this mysterious transmission pulsing from the edge of the solar system called The Signal, and it starts appearing and the world begins to change overnight. Planes are grounded, satellites fall, and so a lot of people are speculating, "Are we being contacted, by extraterrestrial life? What is this?" So everybody's kind of holding their breath. But Alex, who ever since his childhood has really removed himself from the conversation about anything unexplainable or extraterrestrial. The Signal kind of throws him into a spiral. And as The Signal continues to grow, Alex finds himself drawn to the only other person on the planet who could see things from his point of view, who might be able to help him explain the unexplainable, who has experienced things like he has experienced them, and that is Anna. Interestingly, after their childhoods, Alex became the Scully-type figure, meaning he's a lawyer. He's not super interested in life beyond planet Earth, doesn't really have room for a lot of mystery or myth in his life. Meanwhile, Anna has become a professional advocate for experiencers of extraterrestrial contact. So at the moment The Signal is growing, she is leading a retreat near Palm Springs. She has stayed close to that site where they were potentially abducted. So these former best friends tentatively reunite, and they start to also reckon with what happened to them as kids.
[00:20:41] And even just as I'm talking to you about it, I'm immediately like, "Oh, this feels like Station Eleven." And sure enough, the publisher blurbed it to Station Eleven, The Ministry of Time. Like I said, Olivia really liked this one, even though she said it was maybe more character-driven than what she is typically drawn towards. It received rave reviews in Library Journal, and I think received a pretty good review in Kirkus as well. And also the Library Journal review reviewer also compared it to Gabrielle Zevin, if you liked Tomorrow and Tomorrow, and I think that friendship element that is so prevalent in Tomorrow and Tomorrow. I'm even thinking about the friendship in All the Colors of the Dark. So if you liked those kinds of books, I think you will like Voyagers by Meg Charlton. Another book that kind of deals with the unexplainable is a book called Beings. This is by Ilana Masad. It released last September in hardback, and it's not going to be in paperback until 2027. So it's been popular enough where the publisher isn't going to release it in paperback until next year. Ilana Masad wrote All My Mother's Lovers, which released in 2020. I weirdly have such a fondness. Is it fondness? There are just certain books that I know released in 2020 because they sat on our shelves. They sat on our un-shopped shelves for so long, and Olivia tried our darnedest to hand sell them from the podcast and the website and Instagram and things like that. But those books that came out in 2020 just stick out in my mind. So All My Mother's Lovers released in 2020, and then this was her follow-up, although a very different kind of book from All My Mother's Lovers.
[00:22:16] It won the 2026 Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ+ speculative fiction. The moment I read this on Edelweiss; I tagged it as an X-Files book because I really do like watching The X-Files. And so you'd think if I like watching The X-Files, then I might like reading things similar in tone. So far, it's hit or miss, but this one does sound interesting. So in 1961, an interracial couple drives through the dark mountains of New Hampshire, and a mysterious light begins to follow them. And then years later, through hypnosis, they recall their brush with extraterrestrial life. And so this book is fictionally explaining that is when the alien abduction narrative starts. And so she takes the husband and wife's point of view, and that is one thread of the story. And Masad talks about their trauma, the aftermath, and what it meant for their relationship, what it meant for their future. In the second thread of the novel, we get letters from a science fiction writer named Phyllis to her love interest, Rosa, and it's all about yearning, loneliness, particularly queer yearning in the 1960s. And so this also this part of the novel is also set in the '60s. You get these letters from Phyllis to Rosa. And then there is a present day thread where an archivist is trying to understand their own forgotten childhood encounter that may have been an alien abduction. And they're analyzing Phyllis' letters and who Phyllis was. And so you get two narratives in and around the 1960s. The first, the husband and wife who had the alien encounter. The second are the letters of the science fiction writer. And then the third thread of the novel is present day.
[00:24:10] And so it's all about mystery and believing the unexplainable, trying to explain the unexplainable, the role of the science fiction writer. This is, I would argue, literary fiction. So a little less plot-driven and plot-heavy than some of the other books on this list. But I also think pretty original and takes the alien abduction narrative and twists it, turns it on its head a little bit. Rave reviews in Publishers Weekly. The interconnective narratives talk about the importance of storytelling. I like that element. That reminds me because we just talked about Gabriel's Evan, it reminds me, Tomorrow and Tomorrow isn't about video games. It's really about friendship and creativity and ownership. And it sounds like this is dealing with that as well, where Beings isn't just about alien abduction or alien encounters or extraterrestrial life. It's really about the importance of archives and storytelling and the stories we tell ourselves. So if that is of interest to you, I think that would be especially of interest to actually both Scully and Mulder. But I think Scully in particular would like Beings by Ilana Masad, and that's still out in hardback. It released last fall. Got a really great cover.
[00:25:27] Next up, I would recommend The Wanderers. This is by Meg Howrey. It came out in paperback back in 2018, so another good backlist title. I love Meg Howrey. She also wrote They're Going to Love You, and she wrote Body Language, which released this fall, and is probably going to be in my top 10 of the year. I loved The Wanderers. This is a book about a group of people who are going to be the first people on Mars. And so they have to prove they're the crew for the voyage and spend 17 months in the most realistic space simulation ever created. So to prepare them for this journey, they have to spend 17 months, which is bonkers, acting as if they are already on Mars. And meanwhile, they're going to constantly be observed by Prime Space, which reminds me of whatever Elon Musk's company's name is. So, anyway, the book I believe it's entirely set in those 17 months. I could not put this book down,. And I think what's really interesting about this one is who all blurbed it. We all know that industry blurbs don't necessarily mean a ton. A lot of times it's who an author has a relationship with or what have you. But this book got a lot of blurbs, and the blurbs ran the gamut. J. Ryan Struttel did a blurb, Ruth Ozeki, and Peter Nichols. So this, to me, is an Annie and Olivia pick. In fact, I asked Olivia if she had read this, and she has not. And unfortunately, we don't have a ton of time to devote to backlist titles as booksellers, but I think Olivia would love this book. Yes, it is character-driven because I believe there's three people who are in this simulation.
[00:27:07] It's also about the people who are observing them. If you liked Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid, I think you would like this book. It's very funny, and it's also, I think, pretty unique imagining what life on Mars could be like. So, yeah, if you liked The Martian, you might like this book. But it is also about what 17 months away from the rest of the world would require. I loved Celestial Lights, which released earlier this year. That'll be in my top 10 of the year. The Wanderers is very much like Celestial Lights. If you're an X-Files fan who prefers the myth episodes, then I think you would like this book because, again, this isn't a monster story. This is more human relationships, and then also thinking and dreaming about what life on another planet could look like. I thought this book was great. I'm actually really impressed with Meg Howrey and her ability to write a variety of different stories across a couple of different-- maybe not genres, but it's just very different subject matters. All of her books are so different from one another, which I'm always really blown away by. So this is The Wanderers by Meg Howrey. It is out in paperback. If you prefer a monster story, which in X-Files terminology I do, then Keila and Olivia both read and loved Devolution by Max Brooks. We're going to say Devolution. I am not 100% sure what the preferred pronunciation is, but I'm going to assume Devolution.
[00:28:37] This released in paperback in 2021, so was one of those 2020 titles. You might recognize Max Brooks. He wrote World War Z, which was a best-selling novel that then became a pretty popular movie. This is set in the Pacific Northwest in Washington State, so immediately the atmosphere feels very X-Files. There were a couple of really memorable X-Files episodes that were set in the Pacific Northwest. There's something about it that must feel, again, as I was talking about earlier, kind of fog descending and very atmospheric and dark. Maybe that's why Twilight was set there. I don't know. I didn't read Twilight. Anyway, so this book is set in Washington State at this eco-community, and this community's called Green Loop. It's supposed to be this model of green living, like back to nature experience, but also you get all of the perks of modern life and modern society, like internet, smart houses, et cetera, right outside, I believe, Seattle. Anyway, it's this beacon of eco-living until Mount Rainier erupts, and it leaves the residents cut off from the rest of the world and utterly unprepared for the consequences. So the residents of Green Loop realize that they now have to fight for their own survival, and then they find themselves facing something they could not have thought possible. This got good reviews in Kirkus, Publishers Weekly. Olivia loved it. I remember her reading it. It is not a spoiler to say that this is a Bigfoot-esque story, and so that's one of the things I think The X-Files does best, is it takes these figments of our imagination, maybe figments of our imagination, and it acts as if they are real and could really be wreaking this kind of havoc, sometimes murderous havoc, on the communities involved. This sounds very much like an X-Files episode. I was not going to include this book, and then I was telling Keila I was recording this episode, and she was like, "You have to include Devolution by Max Brooks." And so this is a book loved by Olivia and Keila, who is an X-Files fan as well, immediately was like, "You have to include this." So I am including Devolution by Max Brooks. Readers will like this one if they are monster fans of The X-Files, if they like the monster episodes of X-Files.
[00:30:58] Okay, I have two final books for Scully and Mulder, and Scully and Mulder fans. But just like sometimes I have to hand sell books I've never read, I have never read these, and neither have Keila or Olivia. But when I hear about these books, I cannot help but think about The X-Files. So I'm going to hand sell them to Scully and Mulder just like I would do any customer because sometimes it's not about hand selling what I've already read; sometimes it's hand selling what I know you will read. So In The Woods They Wait is a debut novel by Carrie Lee South. This just released last month, and I want to read this so badly. The cover is a little campy feeling, and so I'm dying to know if the tone of the book is campy feeling. I did read the first chapter of this and was hooked, but had to stop myself from bringing it home because I had a stack that I already had to finish. So let me tell it to you, and maybe you will take it home. So In The Woods They Wait is about a woman named Audrey. The book opens with a glimpse at Audrey's childhood. She is a teenager in the woods in Arkansas hiking with her little brother. They're camping with their family. She and her brother are on a hike. They get in this argument. It's very realistic feeling older sister, younger brother, and they get in this argument, and they split up, and Benny is never seen again. Benny, the little brother, is never seen again.
[00:32:26] Fast forward, Audrey is now a park ranger in those same woods, and she now helps train new rangers, takes care of injured hikers, and still part of the reason, and of course, this is not surprising, part of the reason she has gotten a job there is because she's still searching for her brother. This very much reminds me of one through line in the X-Files is that Mulder's younger sister was abducted by aliens, or he believes she was abducted by aliens, and so much of his work is fueled by his missing sister. And so Audrey's work is very much influenced by the fact that her brother went missing when she was little. Now, another little girl has gone missing on the trails, and Audrey feels like it's similar to her brother's case, and now she's starting to be concerned that it's not just that these are kids who got lost. Perhaps they were taken, and maybe not even taken by someone, maybe taken by something. This is being described as a Southern Gothic novel. It's set in the Ozarks. The author is from Arkansas, which gives me hope that it is realistically portrayed. The cover is so creepy campy, and I am very curious because I can't figure out. Olivia and I were talking about this. I do think it's going to be more supernatural than Heartwood, which Olivia and I both really liked. I think I might have liked that one a little bit more than Olivia, but Heartwood by Amity Gaige. I do like nature thrillers. I think I've talked before about Kimmy Cunningham Grant. I think she does a really great job with nature thrillers. Anyway, because this might dabble in the supernatural, the unseen forces, the maybe monster element, I think this will be a good book for Scully or Mulder.
[00:34:21] And then last but not least, this would be a pre-order, so Scully and Mulder will have to pre-order this one just like anybody else. But I had to include it because this book was almost the impetus behind this whole episode, and that is There Used to Be People Here by Kennedy Cole. Olivia started talking about this one back when I was making a book list for fall literary first look, and she included this on her highly anticipated titles for fall. So I have been highly anticipating it since I saw it on her list. There is a little bit of body horror in this book. If you are an X-Files fan, you know that's part of the storytelling in X-Files, especially in monster episodes. But I did want to mention that because this is not just supernatural thriller, there is a little horror element as well. There Used to Be People Here is set in 1970s Mississippi. Our main character is Samuel Barclay. He is this small-town Mississippi detective, and he is the only Black detective in town. So he is just trying to fly under the radar, do his job quietly, not ruffle any feathers, and trying to work his way up the ranks, which is not easy to do given the fact that all of his coworkers are white. It's also not easy because his new partner is just this temporary guy named Harvey, who also really isn't beloved by the police force. And so it feels like he's been given this burden almost that this guy that he just has to deal with. They are trying to solve the case of this man who went into the bathroom of a local gay bar, and he never came back out. Instead, he was found dead on the floor, and now the town wants to know how this could have happened.
[00:36:03] It's not just a murder mystery, though, although I do love a murder mystery. But the investigation leads Samuel to a curious plane crash cover-up, but was it a plane crash? And maybe there's something else going on, and maybe the plane had other entities on it who have now infiltrated the town, and Samuel's got to find a way to stop them. This is being compared to The X-Files, which I thought was fascinating. So I think it just goes to show that The X-Files is still very much in the zeitgeist because it got that blurb. The publisher said it's The X-Files meets S.A. Cosby, which of course Olivia loves S.A. Cosby. I have read one or two of his books. And so I think if you like S.A. Cosby, like I said, if you like Attica Locke, I think you will like this. It's talking about race, queerness, and then also about demonizing anything that is different. And so I think that's something The X-Files actually played around with, particularly in the latter episodes. So this is There Used to Be People Here by Kennedy Cole. This will have to be a pre-order, so you can't read it peak spooky season. But you can read it a little bit delayed spooky season in November and for that matter, so can Scully and Mulder. Those are the books that I am recommending to Scully and Mulder and to you.
[00:37:26] You can find all of them on bookshelfthomasville.com, and the list is in the show notes. I'll run through them one more time. This is my recommended book list for Scully and Mulder: The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry, Children of the Wolf by Abby Geni, 11/22/63 by Stephen King, Voyagers by Meg Charlton, Beings by Ilana Masad, The Wanderers by Meg Howrey, Devolution by Max Brooks, In the Woods They Wait by Carrie Lee South, and There Used to Be People Here by Kennedy Cole. If you've never tried The X-Files, I would encourage you to do so. The episodes are streaming on Hulu. But even if you're not an X-Files fan, I think these are great introductions into the sci-fi genre or to dip your toe into more Southern Gothic horror kind of storytelling. This week I'm reading Missing Sister by Joshilyn Jackson.
Annie Jones: From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in Thomasville, Georgia. You can follow The Bookshelf’s daily happenings on Instagram at @bookshelftville, and all the books from today’s episode can be purchased online through our store website:
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