Novels, Bird Box Reading Order, Novellas, Short Stories, Collections, Anthologies, Non-Fiction & Romanian Translations | BookFairy
📖 Introduction
Josh Malerman is an American horror novelist, short-story writer and musician whose fiction combines psychological suspense, supernatural terror, dark fantasy and speculative storytelling.
Best known for Bird Box (2014), Malerman has built a remarkably varied literary career. His stories explore fear, isolation, distorted perceptions of reality, family relationships and the psychological consequences of confronting the unknown.
Beyond his novels, he has published interconnected novella collections, standalone short fiction, limited editions, experimental serialised writing and non-fiction. He has also contributed stories to numerous horror anthologies.
Malerman is one of the singer-songwriters of the rock band The High Strung, and his creative work reflects an interest in rhythm, atmosphere, tension and unusual narrative structures.
This bibliography presents his published works chronologically, distinguishes original publications from later editions and alternative titles, and documents verified Romanian translations.
For an introduction to his writing, major themes and recommended starting points, visit the Josh Malerman Author Guide on BookFairy.
📚 Complete Books — Chronological Publication Order
The following table includes novels, standalone novellas, collections, major limited editions and non-fiction. Individual anthology contributions are catalogued separately.
| Year | Title | Category | Publication notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Bird Box | Novel | Bird Box #1 |
| 2014 | Ghastle and Yule | Novella | Kindle Single |
| 2016 | A House at the Bottom of a Lake | Novella | Originally published by This Is Horror |
| 2017 | Black Mad Wheel | Novel | Standalone |
| 2017 | Goblin: A Novel in Six Novellas | Linked collection | Original Earthling Publications edition |
| 2018 | Unbury Carol | Novel | Standalone |
| 2018–2019 | On This, the Day of the Pig | Novel | Limited edition; later retitled Pearl |
| 2019 | Inspection | Novel | Standalone |
| 2019 | A Little Red Book of Requests | Short-fiction collection | Borderlands Press limited edition |
| 2020 | Carpenter’s Farm | Serialised novel | Published online |
| 2020 | Malorie | Novel | Bird Box #2 |
| 2022 | Ghoul N’ the Cape | Novel | Earthling Publications limited edition |
| 2022 | Daphne | Novel | Standalone |
| 2023 | Spin a Black Yarn | Novella collection | Five novellas |
| 2023 | It Waits in the Woods | Short fiction | Creature Feature project |
| 2024 | Incidents Around the House | Novel | Standalone |
| 2025 | Watching Evil Dead: Unearthing the Radiant Artist Within | Non-fiction | Art and creativity |
| 2026 | Pictures of You | Novel | Del Rey, 8 September 2026 |
Publication note: Some limited editions carry different bibliographical dates in publisher announcements, copyright records and later catalogues. Where this occurs, the original work is listed once, and later versions are explained below.
👁️ Bird Box Series
Malerman’s principal continuing novel series consists of two books.
📚 Publication and Reading Order
| Book | Title | Year | Romanian title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bird Box | 2014 | Bird Box. Orbește |
| 2 | Malorie | 2020 | Malorie |
Bird Box (2014)
Original publisher: Ecco / HarperCollins
Genre: Post-apocalyptic horror, psychological thriller
An unexplained phenomenon makes the simple act of looking outside potentially fatal.
Malorie must guide two young children through a world where sight can no longer be trusted, and survival depends on discipline, ingenuity and the ability to interpret unseen dangers.
The novel inspired the Netflix film adaptation released in 2018.
Malorie (2020)
Original publisher: Del Rey
Genre: Post-apocalyptic horror, psychological suspense
Set years after the events of Bird Box, the sequel explores how prolonged danger changes the people who survive it.
Malorie remains determined to protect her children, but their growing independence creates new conflicts between caution, trust and freedom.
The two novels form a continuous narrative and should be read in publication order.
🌑 Standalone Novels
Black Mad Wheel (2017)
A group of musicians becomes involved in a mysterious assignment concerning an extraordinary and potentially devastating sound.
The novel combines psychological horror, music, memory and military secrecy.
Unbury Carol (2018)
A dark fantasy and horror Western involving a woman whose unusual medical condition places her in mortal danger.
The story draws on Gothic imagery, folklore and the atmosphere of a sinister fairy tale.
On This, the Day of the Pig / Pearl (2018–2019 / 2021)
A disturbing rural horror story centred on an unusually malevolent pig.
On This, the Day of the Pig was the original limited-edition title.
The novel was subsequently published for a wider readership as Pearl in 2021.
The two titles refer to the same underlying novel and are not counted as separate original works.
Inspection (2019)
In an isolated institution, boys are raised without knowing that girls exist. Elsewhere, a separate institution imposes similarly restrictive conditions on girls.
The novel examines manipulation, education, institutional control, gender separation and rebellion.
Carpenter’s Farm (2020)
An experimental novel released online in serial form.
Although it did not follow the conventional publication route of Malerman’s mainstream novels, it belongs in his literary bibliography because the work was made publicly available.
Ghoul N’ the Cape (2022)
An expansive work published by Earthling Publications as a limited edition.
Its restricted distribution has made it less familiar to general readers, but it represents a distinct published work.
Daphne (2022)
A supernatural horror novel in which an unsettling local legend becomes a source of escalating terror.
The story explores obsession, collective anxiety, suggestion and the boundaries between supernatural events and psychological fear.
Incidents Around the House (2024)
A young girl named Bela begins experiencing increasingly disturbing encounters with an entity she calls Other Mommy.
Told through a child’s perspective, the novel combines domestic tensions with supernatural horror.
Pictures of You (2026)
Original publisher: Del Rey
Original publication: 8 September 2026
Genre: Psychological thriller, horror
A woman awakens in a strange room and discovers that she has become the unwilling subject of a dangerous artistic project.
The novel explores identity, power, creativity and the disturbing transformation of a person into an object of someone else’s imagination.
🏚️ Goblin: A Novel in Six Novellas (2017)
Goblin is a collection of six interconnected novellas set in a fictional town with a deeply unsettling history.
Rather than presenting six unrelated stories, Malerman uses their shared location to construct a larger portrait of the town and its inhabitants.
Publication history:
- 2017: Original limited edition, Earthling Publications.
- 2021: Wider publication, Del Rey.
The later edition is a reprint of the original collection, not a new novel.
🧶 Spin a Black Yarn (2023)
Publisher: Del Rey
Category: Collection of five novellas
The collection contains:
- Half the House Is Haunted
- Argyle
- The Jupiter Drop
- Doug and Judy Buy the House Washer™
- Egorov
Each novella approaches horror differently, using family relationships, past crimes, psychological guilt, technological anxieties or elaborate revenge as its starting point.
Half the House Is Haunted won the 2024 World Fantasy Award for Best Novella.
The Jupiter Drop had appeared previously in an anthology, so its inclusion in this collection is not its first publication.
📕 Other Novellas and Short-Fiction Collections
Ghastle and Yule (2014)
Originally published as a Kindle Single, this novella is part of Malerman’s early shorter fiction.
A House at the Bottom of a Lake (2016)
Originally published by This Is Horror.
Two young people discover a submerged house and become fascinated by its secrets.
A later Del Rey edition appeared in 2021.
A Little Red Book of Requests (2019)
A limited-edition collection published by Borderlands Press.
It is recorded separately from Malerman’s full-length novels and his later novella collections.
It Waits in the Woods (2023)
A short work published as part of Creature Feature, a multi-author horror project.
It is a contribution by Malerman, not a collection wholly written by him.
📜 Short Stories — Selected Individual Publications
In addition to his standalone novellas, Malerman has published individual stories through horror anthologies and themed collections.
| Year | Story | Publication |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | The Jupiter Drop | You, Human |
| 2020 | One Last Transformation | Miscreations: Gods, Monstrosities & Other Horrors |
| 2023 | Half the House Is Haunted | Spin a Black Yarn |
| 2023 | It Waits in the Woods | Creature Feature |
| 2025 | The Spotter | You, Human: Vol. 2 |
One Last Transformation won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction.
The stories in Spin a Black Yarn are catalogued in the collection section rather than duplicated here in full.
📚 Anthologies Featuring Josh Malerman
The following anthologies contain contributions by Josh Malerman. These are multi-author publications and should not be mistaken for books written entirely by him.
2016
- Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories
- Shadows Over Main Street
- I Can Taste the Blood
- Scary Out There
- You, Human: An Anthology of Dark Science Fiction
2017
- The Anatomy of Monsters: Volume I
- New Fears
- Hardboiled Horror
2018
- Primogen: Origin of Monsters
- Lost Highways: Dark Fictions from the Road
- Doorbells at Dusk
- Hark! The Herald Angels Scream
- Phantoms
2019
- In Darkness, Delight: Masters of Midnight
- Ten-Word Tragedies
- In Darkness, Delight: Creatures of the Night
- Weird Tales #363
2020
- Miscreations: Gods, Monstrosities & Other Horrors
- Final Cuts
- Midnight Under the Big Top
- Don’t Turn Out the Lights
- One of Us
2021
- When Things Get Dark
- Beyond the Veil
- Shadow Atlas
2022
- Dark Stars
- Orphans of Bliss
- Revelations
- The Hideous Book of Hidden Horrors
- Chiral Mad 5
- Human Monsters
2023
- Christmas and Other Horrors
- Qualia Nous: Vol. 2
- The Good, The Bad, & The Uncanny
2024
- The Drive-In: Multiplex
- The Darkest Night
- Fears: Tales of Psychological Horror
- Screams From Beyond the Veil
2025
- 120 Murders
- You, Human: Vol. 2
- The End of the World as We Know It
- Night & Day
- Why I Love Horror
2026
- Ghost Lights
- Unearthed
- Silent Nightmares
- All Hallows’ Eve
Bibliographical note: This section records identified anthology appearances. It is not yet an individually verified index of every story title, original magazine publication and subsequent anthology reprint. Publication dates refer to the anthologies listed.
📖 Non-Fiction
Watching Evil Dead: Unearthing the Radiant Artist Within (2025)
Publisher: Del Rey
Category: Non-fiction
In this book, Malerman explores artistic creativity through his relationship with the horror film The Evil Dead.
Rather than providing another fictional horror story, the book examines inspiration, artistic expression and the creative process.
🎨 Graphic Adaptations and Other Publications
RSVP: E.S.P.
A graphic adaptation associated with Malerman’s work, adapted by Dirk Manning.
Graphic adaptations are distinguished from prose fiction to avoid counting the same underlying narrative twice.
📦 Special Editions, Alternative Titles and Reprints
Malerman’s bibliography includes several publications whose original titles or release formats differ from later editions.
| Original publication | Later edition | Bibliographical classification |
|---|---|---|
| Bird Box (2014) | Expanded illustrated edition (2019) | Expanded edition |
| A House at the Bottom of a Lake (2016) | Del Rey (2021) | Reprint |
| Goblin (2017) | Del Rey (2021) | Reprint |
| On This, the Day of the Pig (2018–2019) | Pearl (2021) | Alternative title / later edition |
| The Jupiter Drop (2016) | Spin a Black Yarn (2023) | Collected reprint |
Omnibus Editions
Combined listings, box sets and collected editions are not counted as additional original works.
A collection containing previously published stories is recorded under its own publication history, while the individual stories retain their first-publication dates where these can be established.
🇷🇴 Josh Malerman — Romanian Translations
Malerman’s Romanian translations have been published by Corint Books and Litera.
The original English publication years are distinguished below from the dates of their Romanian translations.
| Original title | Romanian title | Original year | Romanian year | Publisher | Translator |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bird Box | Bird Box. Orbește | 2014 | 2019 | Corint Books / Leda Edge | Liviu Szöke |
| Inspection | Inspecție | 2019 | 2020 | Corint Books | Liviu Szöke |
| Malorie | Malorie | 2020 | 2020 | Litera / Buzz Books | Liviu Szöke |
Bird Box. Orbește (2019)
Publisher: Corint Books
Imprint: Leda Edge
Translator: Liviu Szöke
ISBN: 978-606-793-564-6
This edition introduced Romanian readers to the world of Bird Box through the author’s original novel.
Inspecție (2020)
Publisher: Corint Books
Publication date: March 2020
Translator: Liviu Szöke
ISBN: 978-606-793-733-6
Malorie (2020)
Publisher: Litera
Collection: Buzz Books
Publication date: 8 October 2020
Translator: Liviu Szöke
ISBN: 978-606-33-6505-8
Romanian Publication Notes
The Romanian catalogue follows the same bibliographical principles as the original English-language list.
- Each original work appears once in the main chronology.
- Romanian editions are listed under the corresponding English titles.
- Reprints do not create additional original works.
- Historical publishers are retained.
- Translation details are included when supported by identifiable publication records.
📚 Recommended Reading Order
Most of Malerman’s fiction consists of independent works. Consequently, there is no single required reading order for his complete bibliography.
Bird Box Series
- Bird Box (2014)
- Malorie (2020)
Psychological Horror
- Inspection (2019)
- Daphne (2022)
- Pictures of You (2026)
Supernatural and Domestic Horror
- A House at the Bottom of a Lake (2016)
- Incidents Around the House (2024)
Short Fiction and Collections
- Goblin (2017)
- A Little Red Book of Requests (2019)
- Spin a Black Yarn (2023)
Apart from the Bird Box sequence, these works can be read independently.
🏆 Selected Literary Recognition
Malerman has received major genre-award recognition for both novels and shorter fiction.
Notable achievements include:
- One Last Transformation — Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction.
- Half the House Is Haunted — 2024 World Fantasy Award for Best Novella.
His novels and collections have also received Bram Stoker Award nominations, while Incidents Around the House was recognised among the finalists for the Locus Award for Best Horror Novel.
🦋 Josh Malerman on BookFairy
📖 Malorie by Josh Malerman – Book Review
Malorie continues the world introduced in Bird Box, shifting the focus from immediate survival to the psychological consequences of living with fear for years.
In my BookFairy review, I explore the conflict between Malorie’s determination to protect her children and their growing need for freedom, independence and a life beyond constant caution.
📖 Read the Full BookFairy Review
Future BookFairy reviews of Josh Malerman’s books will be added here as I read them.
📖 Bibliographic Sources
The bibliography draws on author materials, original publisher catalogues and bibliographical reference works.
Official Author and Publishers
- Josh Malerman — Official Website
- Josh Malerman — Published Books
- Josh Malerman — Penguin Random House
- Pictures of You — Del Rey
- Spin a Black Yarn — Del Rey
Bibliographical References
Romanian Publishers
💭 Final Thoughts
Josh Malerman’s bibliography reveals a writer who continually experiments with the possibilities of horror.
Although Bird Box remains his best-known work, his fiction extends far beyond post-apocalyptic survival. His novels, novellas and short stories explore a wide range of unsettling situations, from isolated institutions and haunted homes to dangerous sounds, disturbing legends and the darker dimensions of creativity.
Across these different settings, Malerman frequently returns to the relationship between fear and control. His characters must confront not only external threats but also the decisions, beliefs and sacrifices that shape their lives.
His shorter fiction demonstrates the same willingness to experiment, while his limited editions and serialised publications form an important part of his literary history.
Together, these works establish Malerman as a distinctive voice in contemporary horror, with a bibliography that rewards readers interested in both psychological complexity and imaginative storytelling.
