My book club is looking for a spooky book to read for October. Any suggestions?

Question

In the past, we've read Anne Rice. Some of our readers can't handle anything too scary (like Haunting of Hill House) but otherwise we're pretty open to suggestions.

Answer 1

Read The Terror. Very good suspenseful book based (loosely) on the true story of the H.M.S. Terror.

Or you could try The Historian, a good challenging book about Vampires and Dracula.

Answer 2

How about one of Ray Bradbury's books? He's not read as much now as he was in my younger days, but he's still a master at making the flesh creep without necessarily providing a lot of in-your-face blood and gore: and the majority of his books should still be available.

I'm attaching a link to the Wikipedia article on him, as well as one for his official website. He's been a very prolific writer, so there are a lot of choices. I'd suggest either "Something Wicked This Way Comes" or one of his books of short stories. If your group doesn't want to read an entire book of short stories, you could pick a few classics like "The October Game" or "The Veldt", both of which are in "The Stories of Ray Bradbury", a 1980 compilation of 100 of Ray's short stories. I think "The Veldt" resonates even more now in these days of iPods and X-boxes than when it was first published, and "The October Game" is the quintessential creepy Halloween tale with a tragic back-story of modern angst.

Answer 3

I recently read Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill and thought it was quite good. Its a pretty straight up Stephen King-like ghost story without a lot of the blood and gore. Here is a sympnosis straight from harpercollins.com if your interested.



Judas Coyne is a collector of the macabre: a cookbook for cannibals . . . a used hangman's noose . . . a snuff film. An aging death-metal rock god, his taste for the unnatural is as widely known to his legions of fans as the notorious excesses of his youth. But nothing he possesses is as unlikely or as dreadful as his latest discovery, an item for sale on the Internet, a thing so terribly strange, Jude can't help but reach for his wallet.

I will "sell" my stepfather's ghost to the highest bidder. . . .

For a thousand dollars, Jude will become the proud owner of a dead man's suit, said to be haunted by a restless spirit. He isn't afraid. He has spent a lifetime coping with ghosts—of an abusive father, of the lovers he callously abandoned, of the bandmates he betrayed. What's one more?

But what UPS delivers to his door in a black heart-shaped box is no imaginary or metaphorical ghost, no benign conversation piece. It's the real thing.

And suddenly the suit's previous owner is everywhere: behind the bedroom door . . . seated in Jude's restored vintage Mustang . . . standing outside his window . . . staring out from his widescreen TV. Waiting—with a gleaming razor blade on a chain dangling from one bony hand. . . .

A multiple-award winner for his short fiction, author Joe Hill immediately vaults into the top echelon of dark fantasists with a blood-chilling roller-coaster ride of a novel, a masterwork brimming with relentless thrills and acid terror.

Answer 4

Try THE BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN by Christopher Golden.

The main character goes to his 10 year high school reunion and finds that his memories are being altered, people change before his eyes, and there is something very weird going on.

Not too scary, but quite suspenseful and very interesting.

Answer 5

Well, if you're open to short stories, instead of a single novel, I suggest the Oxford Anthology of Victorian Ghost Stories.

If you want a novel, you might like the classics like Bram Stoker's "Dracula," or Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein."

Answer 6

If you haven't read The Shining you need to read it. It's one of the scariest I've read, especially since I find the "being in a haunted house alone" is the most frightening.

Answer 7

The Art of War

Answer 8

Good Omens by Niel Gaimon & Terry Pratchett.

Answer 9

How spooky? Vulgar? Because if your club doesnt mind launguage or cannibalism, i definatly recomend "Exquisite Corpse" by Poppy Z Brite

Answer 10

Judas Child by Carol O'Connell

http://www.amazon.com/Judas-Child-Carol-OConnell/dp/0515125490