Halloween Book Picks
Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer
Maybe you’ve seen the movie with Natalie Portman and Oscar Isaac — and I actually like the movie too — but either way, the book is a wholly different experience. Skin-crawling in the sense that your skin crawls only when you’re not looking at it — as though everything is corrupting, changing, and you may not be who you once were. Jeff VanderMeer is likewise a master at writing climate change horror that is at once recognizable, but never slaps you with: “hey, this is about climate change.” Which is not easy, in the least. —Elliot Alpern
Perfume, Patrick Suskind
Scents and odors trigger a myriad of reactions in our brain because of its close proximity to our occipital lobe, the main chamber for memory-storing and nostalgic emotions. I have always had a thing for scent-triggered memories and emotions. If you relate (and you also like blood and murder), this book is bound to excite you this Halloween season. The pacing and oh-so-vivid descriptions of Grenouille’s crimes will entangle you just as deep as his fascination in creating the perfect perfume.
Oh, and a friend once told me Kurt Cobain would carry this book with him at all times. —Giulia Di Stravola
American Gods, Neil Gaiman
Maybe my favorite novel about America, this is a perfect book for Halloween because it turns the moral terror and spiritual thirst behind the American project into something magical. Check yourself into a cheap hotel on a rainy night in October and read it until the sun comes up. —Nathaniel Berry
A Collapse of Horses, Brian Evenson
Reading A Collapse of Horses in quarantine has been a treat and a terror. Brian Evenson writes horror as philosophical investigation, and his fictions seep into your subconsciousness, where they stay, burrowing forever. There’s a line in one of his stories, “A Report”, that I keep coming back to: “Here is the real difficulty with such confinement: it is not that you are kept in, but that the world is kept out.” It’s exquisite. —Gauraa Shekhar
How the Dead Speak, Val McDermid
The latest installment in McDermid's Tony Hill series finds the namesake character behind bars and his partner Carol Jordan out on her own, the two trying to figure out how to survive without the other. Then, construction is stopped on a nearby orphanage following the discovery of dozens of skeletons on the property, dating a few decades back to when nuns ran the operation. But when younger skeletons are found by another DI (including one for a man who is supposedly behind bars), Tony and Carol are reunited to look into the case. It's the perfect high-stakes thriller to get your blood racing, even if you aren't leaving your couch. —Rachel A. G. Gilman
Here, Richard McGuire
While it’s not “officially” a ghost story, it’s totally a ghost story. This genre-bending graphic novel artfully tells the narrative of a single room, illustrating all the lives and happenings it has inhabited over the course of thousands of years. Going beyond linear storytelling, Here is more preoccupied with the infinite element of time, and how experiences are often layered without even realizing it. Not exactly the spookiest of reads, but definitely one to consider for those who believe (or would like to) in ghosts and the existence of souls. —Madeline Garfinkle
The Shining, Stephen King
I read The Shining when I was 12, which in retrospect, was a mistake - I was so scared of the book itself that I would actually flinch as I turned each page, and had to lock it up between reading sessions in a cupboard. It was so terrifying I ended up never watching the movie, which I hear is a masterpiece! —Jemimah Wei
The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson
I could have picked this and then also We Have Always Lived in the Castle for my two favorite Halloween books, but that seemed boring. Only Shirley Jackson has ever understood that ghosts are a terror that pales in comparison to uncomfortable dinner parties and the feeling that everyone else doesn’t like you. Never let them take your cup of stars. —Nathaniel Berry
Ghosts of You, Cathy Ulrich
Easily one of my favorite flash collections, Ghosts of You examines the trope of The Murdered Woman in the second person by adding depth to each narrative. Each story begins with “The thing about being the murdered [girl/homecoming queen/extra/ hermit] is you set the plot in motion.” Can’t recommend it enough. —Gauraa Shekhar
Earthlings, Sayaka Murata
If other-worldly is more your vibe, the second novel from the author of Convenience Store Woman will definitely delight. Natsuki doesn't fit in with her family, clinging to a plush hedgehog toy that says he has come from the planet Popinpobopia to help save the Earth. Then her cousin tells her during a summer trip that he is an extraterrestrial, an out-of-this-world confession that keeps Natuski company through the troubles of her daily life. Warm, weird, and wonderful, the characters in this book will make you hopeful there's a planet out there that's better than ours. —Rachel A. G. Gilman
Salem’s Lot, Stephen King
This was the first book to truly scare me as a child, and in many ways it’s a perfect read for current events. Small town America, a shady foreign agent, malignant darkness spreading over an honest, humble, god-fearing town. There’s a sense of struggle against overwhelming force, in this book, that still cuts through — that feeling of fleeing Dodge, with the sun just a pad of butter on the horizon. “Salem’s Lot” is one of King’s early slew of horror classics, and you can truly feel the working-class identity, back when Stephen King still worked in that class. —Elliot Alpern
Eileen, Ottessa Moshfegh
Set in a harsh Massachusetts winter, the narrator, Eileen, tells her story of solitude, self-loathing, obsession and, ultimately, escaping her nightmare reality. The eerie backdrop of an unforgiving winter coupled with Moshfegh’s unparalleled gift for voice, ignites chills on every page. Eileen is a creepy, hypnotizing story that pulls you directly into one woman’s spooky world as she grapples to understand it herself. —Madeline Garfinkle
Cherry, Nico Walker
Now, this isn’t a book related to spooky Halloween, but it does chronicle excerpts of an unnamed narrator’s life before and after returning from his tour(s) in Iraq during the American opioid epidemic. He’s young, he’s a drug addict and a bank robber, and if that’s confusing, no worries, he walks you through all of that. Disclaimer, there is a lot of “vulgar language” in this book, but you’ll surely not forget his story anytime soon. —Giulia Di Stravola
Cathy’s Book, Sean Stewart, Jordan Weisman, and Cathy Brigg
I’m not sure how I wound up with a copy of Cathy’s Book in middle school, but I did, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. Cathy attempts to “investigate” why her boyfriend suddenly ended things, but her search leads her to strange findings. And this book is strange; it’s laced with intricate doodles and uncontextualized phrases such as “today was a cut-your-ear-off day.” I vividly remember that it came with a lot of interactive materials, including but not limited to: newspaper clippings, telephone numbers the reader could call, lipstick-stained bar table napkins, photographs you had to piece together to decode a clue. A truly immersive and interactive reading experience that makes you miss 2006. —Gauraa Shekhar
In a Dark, Dark Room and Other Scary Stories, Alvin Schwartz
This is the story collection for kids where I first encountered The Green Ribbon, a creepy tale about Jenny, a girl who wears a mysterious green ribbon around her neck, and Alfred, the boy who's always trying to get her to untie it. The story collectively messed up my entire generation. And then later, it was resurrected in Carmen Maria Machado's The Husband Stitch, which I can't recommend enough! —Jemimah Wei
