Damien Galeone

It is just about October, Halloween is around the corner, the creepy time of year. It’s that time of year that a good – a great – scary story just tastes better. There’s something about October twilight, the Philadelphia Eagles, and leaves dying that makes a creepy tale all the more enjoyable.

In celebration of October, I suggest reading a scary book. Do it for a small change in your routine, or to try something new. Last October I read Ellen DeGeneres’ autobiography – oh, the horror!

Oh, and why a scary book and not a scary movie?

Because movies are too easy. It’s so much easier to scare a person with a movie. There’s a whole range of input available to work with: visuals, a passing face in the window, whispering, eerie music, the breeze that creeps along the trees, and, of course, something jumping out at and eviscerating a Japanese teenager.

When it comes to a good scary book, nothing matters – not the author, its ‘classic’ status, its cover – the only thing that matters is whether it scares you or not. That’s part of why spooky fiction is so hard to pull off. It’s also why I love it.

However, as a connoisseur of horror, speculative, and creepy fiction, I find that most horror leaves me as disappointed as the last time I ordered a filet mignon in a truck stop.

This post is dedicated to making a list of scary books for us to read. Below are my four recommendations, four books that truly spooked me. They were not researched, not found on websites, and I didn’t put them there so I’d seem more well-read or worldly.

They scared me.

5. Cycle of the Werewolf

One of Stephen King’s possibly lesser known works, this novella was made into a movie called Silver Bullet. This is the story of a werewolf terrorizing a small town.

One of my favorite things about Stephen King is his disinterest in social mores when it comes to killing people. That means he will kill dogs, happy parents, grandparents. He will kill a child in his book, feed its corpse to a thresher as the parents are forced to watch and sing songs.

This book is full of those moments where you can’t sit down because you’re hoping the poor schmuck can get away from that thing that’s stalking him.

And they almost never do.

4. 20^th Century Ghosts

In a genre where many books and collections of stories fall short, this one stands out.

Joe Hill tells some damn scary stories. Standouts in this collection are ‘Voluntary Committal,’ ‘My Father’s Mask,’ and ‘The Last Breath.’

I think Hill’s best ability is to scare you in the periphery. To allow a glimpse at that thing that’s terrorizing you without letting you get that full, satisfying, debunking look at it. Oh yeah, and his dad is Stephen King, so you know he suffers from prolonged bedtime story induced trauma.

Read this book!

3. Nocturnes

This is another book of stories – and one novella – that in no way disappoints. John Connolly knows how to write a tale that will creep your pants off, even if you’re not wearing pants. That’s right, he’s that good.

Stories such as ‘The New Daughter,’ ‘The Furnace Room,’ and ‘Some Children Wander by Mistake,’ take fantastic, terrifying spins on otherwise tired motifs seen in dozens of spooky stories. This book finishes with a novella featuring Charlie Parker, his protagonist and the often supernatural world he must fight.

Damn good stories.

2 The Complete Stories of M.R. James

Honestly, this man is the grandfather of the modern-day ghost story. And boy, did he know how to write them. He even wrote a set of rules that to this day is the barometer to which a ghost tale is judged.

This collection of stories is chock full of those disturbing moments that you pass over while reading, but which revisit you later while you are not sleeping. M.R. James was one of the first writers to break out of the timely standard of horror stories and, along with H.P Lovecraft, really let people have it. He knew how to scare in so many ways, he was clearly ahead of his time.

1. You

Recommend a scary book! Anything that’s horror, speculative, or creepy. Suggest one that kept you up at night, reading and sweating, hiding under your covers, too afraid to keep reading and too afraid to shut off the lights.

There are two prerequisites to recommending.

1. You have actually read the book you are suggesting. I don’t want recommendations about books you’ve heard were scary. These are always exaggerated and almost always lead to disappointment.
2. The book you are recommending scared you. Bigtime.