Last year I guided my reading with the theme of serial killers in fiction. You can check out that series here. I learned two things from that experience:

• I am not nearly as academic about my reading as I was twenty years ago. I want to enjoy a good story. I want to think and ponder. I am not great at contextualizing in the wider conversation of literature or creating in-depth “studies” about the works I read. I would love to get back into this deeper form of reading, but I don’t think it’s something I have the capacity for at the moment.
• I love having a list of books to read that are all related! It helps cut down on the panic of “what will I read next!?!” and also eases that weird feeling of missing a book after it ends.

With that in mind, I’ve decided to continue my “series” this year, shifting the topic to books about cults. Similar to my “rules” from last year, I’m looking for books that:

1. The books must be fictional. No memoir. No non-fiction.
2. The books should not be too closely based on real cults. (I am going to make some exceptions on this one, probably more than I made in the serial killer series, simply because there are some closely-inspired books out there that I do want to read).
3. I’m not looking for full-world cults. I don’t want cults the size of a country or planet, but rather small pockets of people.

At the moment, the following list is a very rough outline of some of the books that seemed interesting to me. One of the issues I’m already running into is that there are thousands and thousands of books that feature cults, and a lot of them seem good. So expect this list to grow and shrink over time. I’ll end up leaving a lot of books out, unfortunately. But that’s where suggestions from others come in. I hope people will guide me to the best of the best.

Have a book I should have to the list? Write to me on my contact form. Have an arc for a book featuring a cult that you think I’d like? Send it over.