October. The spooky season of ghosts, goblins, and things that go bump in the night ... but who in this town needs vampires and werewolves when we’ve got the shutdown, the debt ceiling, sequestration, and the suicide caucus? The federal government might not be able to get anything done, but October is prime time for the fall book season, and we here at the Independent posted reviews of 28 books (including books by Jhumpa Lahiri, Dave Eggers, Malcolm Gladwell, Bill McKibben, David Finkel, Jesmyn Ward, and many others), as well as 20 author Q&As, blog posts, and other features. Of those 48 new posts, here are the five that got the most views:

1) October Exemplars: Poetry Reviews by Grace Cavalieri. Such a surprise to see Grace’s monthly poetry reviews on the list ... I kid, of course. Grace dominates the list; our readers want their poetry fix!

2) 12 Best Quotes from Tom Clancy Books: You know, I never thought of Clancy as a particularly quotable author. But when he died early this month we quickly assembled this list, and found ourselves with quite a bit of culling to do to get it down to 12.

3) Rejected Titles by Holly Smith: The premise is simple: swap in a synonym for one word of a famous title to make it awful. It’s not too late to play the game: click on the post and submit your own.

(tie) 4) Review of Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon: This is what I like to see: a review of a literary book getting lots of attention. John A. Farrell looks at the latest from the reclusive author of, among many others, Gravity’s Rainbow.

(tie) 4) Interview with George Estreich: Mandy Huckins interviews the author of The Shape of the Eye, a memoir of his daughter’s Down Syndrome diagnosis and its effects on his family. 

5) Review of Burial Rites by Hannah Kent: Rhoda Trooboff reviews this historical novel about the last woman executed in Iceland. I haven’t read the book myself, but I bet they executed her because no one could spell the protagonist’s name (or figure out where to put those accent marks).