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As Halloween fast approaches, you might be wondering about some scary books to get you into the holiday spirit. Something that will chill your bones. People have been talking a lot about the new “It” movie, and how it scares the wits out of people, but if you’ve already seen it, or would rather just stay home and read, here are some terrifying books:
Ghost Story (Peter Straub): A book titled “Ghost Story” could be pretty cheesy in the hands of the wrong writer, yet Straub is able to make it anything but. It’s the story of a group of old men who gather to tell ghost stories, only to be set upon by the horrors of their past.
The Exorcist (William Peter Blatty): While it’s since become a cliche of pop culture, “The Exorcist” movie caused a sensation when it first hit theaters. A level of graphic and terrifying as yet unseen in film, it sent audience members over the edge. And the book it’s based off of is even scarier and more graphic.
House of Leaves (Mark Z. Danielewski): This book takes the horror cliché of a haunted house and delivers it in a truly unique way. It uses unusual page layout and style, meant to disorient the reader. The way that text is arranged on the page is meant to mirror events in the story and create a unique effect mirroring agoraphobia and claustrophobia.
The Witches of Worm (Zilpha Keatley Snyder): While the story of a girl who buys a kitten and nurses it back to health has a lot of potential for a heart-warming tale, “The Witches of Worm” is anything but. After the main character, a girl named Jessica, buys a kitten, she comes under its malevolent spell, and begins to act increasingly violent towards her family. It’s a creepy enough story to get banned from school libraries.
Diary (Chuck Palahniuk): Chuck Palahniuk is known, for good reason, for deeply disturbing books. This one, about an aspiring artist who becomes embroiled in a generations-old conspiracy theory as her deeply disturbed husband falls into a coma and reveals his dark side, is written in a diary-style format that gives it a special degree of spookiness.
Voices in the Night (Steven Millhauser): This collection of short stories take unique and terrifying looks at daily life. Whether it’s a look at gossip in a small town or a man obsessed with his wife’s image in a mirror, these are stories guaranteed to spook you.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (Alvin Schwartz): This trilogy of ghost stories might be meant for children, and indeed some of them can come across as a bit hokey, but what truly makes them are the illustrations by Stephen Gammell, which are able to make everything from a staircase to a mouse look creepy.
Maria Haymandou 