If you go to a writer’s convention and don’t walk away with a stack of stuff to read, then you are at the wrong convention.

I love recommendations by readers, writers, publishers, agents, and more! Here are some of the wonderful titles from the a selection of the panels I attended. My apologies if I didn’t catch all the names and books suggested.

Archaeology in Fiction: Indiana Jones v. Real Life (Lesley Donaldson, Katrina Guy, & S.M. Carrière.

Malazan Book of the Fallen by Stephen Erikson – book 7: Reaper’s Gale
Non-fiction: works by Barry Cunliffe, John T. Koch, Mario Alieni, Luigi Cavelli-Sforza

Story Structure (Sheila Williams, Sam Morgan, Ranylt Richildis, Leah Bobet, & Nina Munteanu)

David Mitchell – Cloud Atlas
Will McIntosh
 Zoë Quinn – Depression Quest (online interactive game/storytelling)
Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff – Illuminae

Shakespeare and Speculative Fiction (Kate Heartfield, James Alan Gardner, Lesley Donaldson, Amal El-Mohtar, & Kelly Robson)

Queen Mab – Harry Dresden
Michelle Butler Hallett – This Marlow
Elizabeth Bear – The Stratford Man series
Jonathan Barnes – On the Twelfth Night (Monstrous Little Voices series; also see Kate Heartfield’s The Course Of True Love )
Ryan North – Romeo and/or Juliet
Poul Anderson – The Historian
The Preface to Shakespeare by Samuel Johnson (online non-fiction; critique of Shakespeare)
Neil Gaiman – The Sandman
Isaac Asimov – Gold

Witchcraft, Druids, and the Occult (Max Turner, Mary Pletsch, Brendan Myers, Farrell McGovern)

Schrödinger’s Cat Trilogy – Robert Anton Wilson
Initiate: A Witch’s Circle of Water – Thuri Calafia
The Dancing Wu Li Masters – Gary Zukav
Magic in the West End: Stories of the Occult – Kala Trobe
The Druid’s Tune – O.R Melling
Druids – Morgan Llywelyn

Lovecraft and Race (Sean Moreland, Max Turner, Bronwyn Bjorkman, David Nickle)

Dreams in the Bitch House – Madeline Ashby
She walks in Shadows – Innsmouth Free Press
Victor LaValle – The Ballad of Black Tom
Lovecraft Country: A Novel – Matt Ruff
Magna Mater : women and eugenic thought in the work of H.P. Lovecraft – Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Peter Watts – Blindsight (author’s website)

Horror is Domestic (Brett Savory, Sandra Kasturi, Matt Moore)

film: Ghostwatch
The ‘Geisters – David Nickle
The Candle – Leo Tolstoy
Voice of Our Shadow – Jonathan Carroll
The Little Stranger – Sarah Waters
Paul Tremblay – A Head Full of Ghosts
The Damned – Andrew Pyper

Other reading suggestions:

Madeline Ashby – vN (The First Machine Dynasty novel)
How Not to Write a Novel – Howard Mittelmark
Gabriel García Márquez (I missed which of his titles was named)
I, Robot – Isaac Asimov
Scourge of the Realm – Erik Scott de Bie
Expendable – James Alan Gardner
Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine
Postscripts to Darkness Magazine
Speculating Canada
TEGG books at Ondre Librum (Stormtalons is the latest offering by the benchmark publisher)

 

The above list is subject to corrections and additions. More books… give me more to read!

Add more suggestions in the comments!