With the arrival of Halloween, the houses are filled with pumpkins, the children knock on the door clamoring for their candies and the world prepares to be scared in the most effective way.
Parties, rituals, movies, games and yes, also these next 10 best books to read on Halloween and spend some time under the autumn sheets. You are ready?
10 best books to read on Halloween
The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
More than a million copies sold consolidate the work published in 1983 by Susan Hill. Adapted into a film version with Daniel Radcliffe as the lead actor, The Woman in Black is born from the old legend of a single mother whose son drowned in the marshes of a town to which the protagonist, the lawyer Arthur Kipps, returns to witness the passage of a ghost before whose passage a new child dies. Gothic horror black label for a Halloween in which ghosts are the protagonists. Without a doubt, one of the best books to read on Halloween.
Pet Sematary by Stephen King
Some say that this book was so terrifying that King himself stopped writing it for a while . Although he has yet to find a convincing film adaptation, Pet Sematary is arguably one of the American author’s most chilling books. The story tells of the horror of a family that moves to a small town in Maine where an animal cemetery releases a first “ambassador”, Church the cat, who was run over and whose presence confirms an old Indian curse.
The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe
Despite its few pages and its character as a story, Edgar Allan Poe’s flagship genre, The Black Cat is one of the most terrifying stories in history . A plot that presents a married couple with a quiet life who lives with her cat, until the husband begins to abuse alcohol, ending the life of the animal. An advance whose outcome confirms the genius of the unfortunate author who also died of alcohol in the street, alone, wrapped in the darkness that would define his great literary works.
Call of Cthulhu by HP Lovecraft
Few literary universes are as colorful and outrageously imaginative as that of Lovecraft, an author whose monsters, parallel realities and macabre magic define a piece of horror literature history . For example, The Call of Cthulhu, a work that condenses two narrative threads, that of a professor harassed by a sect and a sailor on the high seas, whose nexus is the presence of a scaly being 10 kilometers high that has come from outer space and submerged in the depths of the sea.
The Fair of Darkness, by Ray Bradbury
They say that the magician of a fair called Mr. Electric was the one who inspired Ray Bradbury to be a writer. One of the best American authors of the 20th century delved back into his own childhood when he created The Fair of Darkness, a novel published in 1962 whose two teenage protagonists, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway, experience terror at a fair that arrives in the month of October to the fictitious Green City of the Midwest. Transcendental and exquisite terror.
Dracula, by Bram Stoker
If there is a myth of terror, it is Count Dracula, the famous vampire character created by Bram Stoker and inspired by the bloodthirsty Romanian prince Vlad the Impaler . Published in 1897, Dracula is narrated in epistolary form from different documents, mostly written by Jonathan Harker, an English lawyer who travels to the mythical castle of Count Dracula, in Transylvania. Although it was not the first work to include vampire characters in literature, Dracula became the most influential in history.
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
Published in 1959, The Haunting of Hill House takes us to an old mansion with its own eyes where ghosts roam the corridors and old curses lurk in the most unexpected corners. A terrifying focus that attracts characters lost in life and with serious problems with their parents. Jackson’s work not only brought out the classic haunted house device , but also inspired Stephen King himself for The Shining and also a not-so-successful film adaptation called The Lair.
From Hell, by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell
Conceived as comics included in the From Hell collection , there are various copies that encompass the universe written by Alan Moore and drawn by Eddie Campbell in the 90s. Focused on the events that occurred during and after the Whitechapel murders committed by the infamous Jack The Ripper, this graphic novel illustrates the terror of the streets of Victorian London and the nature of a character that still provokes both debate and chills.
The Devil’s Spawn by Ira Levin
Newly moved into a new apartment in New York, Rosemary begins a relationship with some mysterious neighbors. At the same time, she becomes pregnant. Focused on the rites and modern redoubts of Satanism in the West, The Devil’s Seed is one of those works that consumes the reader’s attention in crescendo , taking us into a dying universe. The work, published in 1967, inspired Roman Polansky for his famous film adaptation starring Mia Farrow .
The Haunted House in Amityville by Jay Anson
In December 1975, the Lutz family moved into a house in suburban New York where a mass murder had taken place a year earlier. The terrifying event that explained the clouds of flies and voices that began to be heard in the middle of the night, resulting in a nightmarish labyrinth. The best (or worst) of all? That this really happened, and Anson’s book captures in full detail the month of horror for this family.
These 10 best books to read on Halloween warm up the wait for the scariest party of the year. Classics to read at any time but, especially, in a week when pumpkins flood everything, the forests seem to sigh and the need to be scared becomes almost a ritual in itself.