The X-Files premiered in the fall of 1993, and before long it became a cultural phenomenon. The characters and theme song are instantly recognizable to most members of several tv-watching generations. To honor the X-Files in this anniversary year, here are some books that capture the spirit of that sometimes eerie, often goofy, always iconic show.

Fox Mulder would have loved to meet aliens who run a donut shop. Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki was my favorite read of 2021. In addition to the aforementioned donut shop aliens, there’s also a violin teacher who’s made a Faustian bargain. (People too often forget that the X-Files wasn’t all aliens, either.) In exchange for musical greatness, Shizuka Satomi traded her soul to a demon. Now she’s facing eternal damnation unless she can bring the souls of seven other violin prodigies in exchange. She’s already traded six unlucky students, but her time is running out. Then she finds Katrina Nguyen, a teenage transgender runaway with outrageous talent at the violin, and Shizuka knows she can make her deadline. But in a donut shop off a bustling highway in the San Gabriel Valley, she meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four. Shizuka doesn’t have time for crushes or coffee dates, what with her very soul on the line, but Lan’s kind smile and eyes like stars might just redefine a soul’s worth. And maybe something as small as a warm donut is powerful enough to break a curse as vast as the California coastline. You can read about them all in print, as an ebook on OverDrive, or as an audiobook on OverDrive or Hoopla.

Connie Willis has been a favorite of mine since I read her 2016 novel Crosstalk (about a mind-reading technology for couples gone badly awry for a hapless redheaded heroine who finds she must rely on the weird IT guy from her office’s basement for help escaping a conspiracy– also not a bad readalike for The X-Files, come to think of it). Her books are smart, funny, emotionally intelligent, and all-around a good time. Her latest, The Road to Roswell, is being billed as “part alien-abduction adventure, part road trip saga, part romantic comedy” by the publisher. Could that sound any more appropriate to Mulder and Scully’s years-long cross-country epic? When level-headed Francie (a skeptic like Dana Scully if I’ve ever seen one) arrives in Roswell, New Mexico, for her college roommate’s UFO-themed wedding–complete with a true-believer bridegroom–she can’t help but roll her eyes at all the wide-eyed talk of aliens, which obviously don’t exist. Imagine her surprise, then, when she is abducted by one. Find out what happens next in print, or as an ebook or audiobook on OverDrive.

Part detective story, part metaphysical enquiry, Strange Beasts of China engages existential questions of identity, humanity, love and morality with whimsy and stylistic verve. In the fictional Chinese city of Yong’an, an amateur cryptozoologist is commissioned to uncover the stories of its fabled beasts. Some myths are, after all, based in truth. These creatures live alongside humans in near-inconspicuousness–save their greenish skin, serrated earlobes, and strange birthmarks. Aided by her elusive former professor and his enigmatic assistant, our narrator sets off to document each beast, and is slowly drawn deeper into a mystery that threatens her very sense of self. Like the quest Agent Mulder is on, the research trip of the unnamed narrator is more personal than it appears at first. Explore the fantastical Chinese wilderness in print, as an ebook on OverDrive, or as an audiobook on Hoopla.

If you like the monster of the week episodes as much as or more than the alien conspiracy lore ones (I confess I have a soft spot for them myself), the new Monster Hunter Mysteries series is for you! In A Death in Door County by Annelise Ryan, Wisconsin bookstore owner and cryptozoologist is asked to investigate a series of deaths that just might be proof of a fabled lake monster.. Morgan Carter, owner of the Odds and Ends bookstore in Door County, Wisconsin, has a hobby. When she’s not tending the store, she’s hunting cryptids-creatures whose existence is rumored, but never proven to be real. It’s a hobby that cost her parents their lives, but one she’ll never give up on. So when a number of bodies turn up on the shores of Lake Michigan with injuries that look like bites from a giant unknown animal, police chief Jon Flanders turns to Morgan for help. A skeptic at heart, Morgan can’t turn down the opportunity to find proof of an entity whose existence she can’t definitively rule out. She and her beloved rescue dog, Newt, journey to the Death’s Door strait to hunt for a homicidal monster in the lake-but if they’re not careful, they just might be its next victims. Confront the lake monster in print, or as an ebook or audiobook on OverDrive.

Like the Mulder family, the family in Mike Chen’s Light Years From Home is wrecked by the disappearance of a family member. Evie Shao and her sister, Kass, aren’t on speaking terms. Fifteen years ago on a family camping trip, their father and brother vanished. Their dad turned up days later, dehydrated and confused–and convinced he’d been abducted by aliens. Their brother, Jakob, remained missing. The women dealt with it very differently. Kass, suspecting her college-dropout twin simply ran off, became the rock of the family. Evie traded academics to pursue alien conspiracy theories, always looking for Jakob. When Evie’s UFO network uncovers a new event, she goes to investigate. And discovers Jakob is back. He’s different–older, stranger, and talking of an intergalactic war–but the tensions between the siblings haven’t changed at all. If the family is going to come together to help Jakob, then Kass and Evie are going to have to fix their issues, and fast. Because the FBI is after Jakob, and if their brother is telling the truth, possibly an entire space armada, too. The perfect combination of action, imagination and heart, Light Years from Home is a touching drama about a challenge as difficult as saving the galaxy: making peace with your family…and yourself. You can read it in print, as an ebook on OverDrive, or as an ebook or audiobook on Hoopla.

Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant feels like an exploration of one of those monster-of-the-week episodes I mentioned earlier. And the monster of the week is mermaids. And I know what you’re thinking, but these mermaids are scary. And the backstory feels like a X-Files cold open (complete with a long-lost sister. Seven years ago the Atargatis set off on a voyage to the Mariana Trench to film a mockumentary bringing to life ancient sea creatures of legend. It was lost at sea with all hands. Some have called it a hoax; others have called it a tragedy. Now a new crew has been assembled. But this time they’re not out to entertain. Some seek to validate their life’s work. Some seek the greatest hunt of all. Some seek the truth. But for the ambitious young scientist Victoria Stewart this is a voyage to uncover the fate of the sister she lost. Whatever the truth may be, it will only be found below the waves. But the secrets of the deep come with a price. Read it in print or as an ebook or audiobook on OverDrive.

Finally, for a dip into related nonfiction, check out The Unidentified by Colin Dickey, a real-life Agent Mulder. In a world where rational, scientific explanations are more available than ever, belief in the unprovable and irrational–in fringe–is on the rise: from Atlantis to aliens, from Flat Earth to the Loch Ness monster, the list goes on. It seems the more our maps of the known world get filled in, the more we crave mysterious locations full of strange creatures. This book looks at what all fringe beliefs have in common, explaining that today’s Illuminati is yesterday’s Flat Earth: the attempt to find meaning in a world stripped of wonder. Dickey visits the wacky sites of America’s wildest fringe beliefs–from the famed Mount Shasta where the ancient race (or extra-terrestrials, or possibly both, depending on who you ask) called Lemurians are said to roam, to the museum containing the last remaining “evidence” of the great Kentucky Meat Shower–investigating how these theories come about, why they take hold, and why as Americans we keep inventing and re-inventing them decade after decade. The Unidentified is Colin Dickey at his best: curious, wry, brilliant in his analysis, yet eminently readable. Get it in print or as an audiobook on OverDrive.