31 Days of Spooky Season Reading

October 1st: Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix

This is one of my favorite books, but it’s so unsettling I that I can’t think about it or even be in the same room with it once I’ve finished reading. I can’t say too much without giving away the wild plotline, but here’s the basics: Amy works at ORSK, a large warehouse style store that closely resembles a familiar Swedish furniture and home decor chain. It’s an unfulfilling and fairly boring job, except for the strange acts of vandalism that have seemingly been occurring overnight. A group of employees are tasked with staying in the store from sundown to sunrise to finally find out who is behind the crimes. What they find is dark, and alive, and hungry…

Come talk to me after the seance scene. I’ll be hiding in the closet with my dogs.

October 2nd: Stiff by Mary Roach

Mary Roach is one of my favorite authors, and a huge inspiration to me. Every single one of her books is incredible, from the depth of research to her easy humor and wit, but in honor of spooky season, I would like to highlight Stiff.

From her website:

For two thousand years, cadavers—some willingly, some unwittingly—have been involved in science’s boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. They’ve tested France’s first guillotines, ridden the NASA Space Shuttle, been crucified in a Parisian laboratory to test the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, and helped solve the mystery of TWA Flight 800. For every new surgical procedure, from heart transplants to gender confirmation surgery, cadavers have helped make history in their quiet way. Stiff investigates the strange lives of our bodies postmortem and answers the question: What should we do after we die?

October 3rd: Bunnicula by Deborah and James Howe

Did you read this series as a kid? I found a copy at a yard sale recently and was instantly transported to the nineties. This is the perfect introduction for young readers who want something for Halloween that’s spooky but not necessarily scary. The Monroe family go out one dark and stormy night and return home with a tiny, red-eyed bundle of fur. Suddenly, all the vegetables in the home are being drained of all their juice and color: who could be doing such a dastardly deed? Chester the cat thinks the culprit is tiny Bunnicula, who he suspects is less of an adorable bunny and more a bloodthirsty (juicethirsty?)vampire.

October 4th: Howliday Inn by James Howe

I absolutely had to include the next in the series, and for good measure, I’ll throw in the next one as a bonus: The Celery Stalks at Midnight.

October 5th: The Chill by Scott Carson

For several weeks a few summers ago I was plagued with a reoccurring nightmare. It didn’t even have the decency to be the kind of bad dream that rips you from your sleep in a sudden, sweaty panic – instead it kept me trapped within the nightmare, pinned down by my own subconscious.

The dream was always the same: I’m walking along a hiking trail when I come across a village. The people there are panicked – a flood is coming, and they have been told they will be washed away. Within seconds water is pouring in from everywhere, filling up the village clearing as if it were in an invisible fish bowl. Before I can take a breath I’m knocked off my feet and swept up amongst the chaos of people screaming, dogs barking, and somehow, underneath it all, what sounds like a tornado siren. I know that the village will be drowned and along with it, me.

When I first picked up this book I couldn’t believe it: “Far upstate, in New York’s ancient forests, a drowned village lies beneath the dark waters of the Chilewaukee Reservoir…” It was my dream. My nightmare.

Carson’s writing is what I would describe as clean, it makes it easy to keep turning the pages.

October 6th: Get Out by Jordan Peele

I know we’ve all seen the movie, but I can’t urge you enough to get the screenplay. This edition comes with notes from Jordan Peele about his writing process, his directorial style, and the whys and hows of the story came to be. One example: the carefully crafted foreshadowing during the moment the two main characters first appear on screen.

October 7th: The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

This book has me in an absolute chokehold. I don’t want to do anything but read it, which makes things like working and commuting and sleeping are really holding me back.

October 8th: I Am Watching You by Teresa Driscoll