Halloween reads

Let’s get spooky!

Boys and girls of every age,
Wouldn’t you like to see something strange?
Come with us and you will see
This, our town of Halloween

Halloween is one of the lovely things we get to import from America and enjoy! Let them keep their elections and politics, but thank you for Halloween! In Europe, it is not as celebrated, but let me tell you, it is good fun. Why not go all out and dress up once in a while? Don’t they say you are only as old as you feel? I am struggling to find someone who will celebrate with me this year (being in the country and far from any parties), but this doesn’t mean I haven’t got my baking ready for jack-o-lantern and ghost treats, marshmallows for scary eyes, picked my costume (Alice in Wonderland’s Queen of Cards, because I have a red dress), and am currently carving my pumpkin.

Pumpkins scream in the dead of night
This is halloween, everybody make a scene
Trick or treat till the neighbors gonna die of fright
It’s our town, everybody scream
In this town of Halloween

Nothing is quite as scary when you are an adult, unless you have some amazing make-up artist amongst your friends, but you can still get some chills! Have a horror film night if you wish, but I will give you some great books to read. Sit down in the evening with only a small reading light and I promise you a very sleepless night.

Best are always the classics – that is why they are classic, after all. It is all in the name.

Let’s start with the ones which MADE Halloween: Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, Dracula, by Bram Stoker and The also The Halloween Tree, by Ray Bradbury. Even if you have read them before, now it a great time to pick them up again.

Other famous thrillers are of course, the Stephen King novels. The Shining or Carrie anyone?

From a few years ago, there is Pamela K. Kinney’s Spectre Nightmares and Visitations, or a bit of Agatha Christie with And Then There Were None (there’s a similar, great episode of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries called Murder Under The Mistletoe which will give you shivers, in a 1920s style).

I am the clown with the tear-away face
Here in a flash and gone without a trace
I am the “who” when you call, “who’s there?”
I am the wind blowing through your hair
I am the shadow on the moon at night
Filling your dreams to the brim with fright

Halloween is not Halloween without ghosts and haunted houses, so give Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House a try, and Peter Straub’s Ghost Story (or Casper, if you would rather have the cute ghost).

But honestly, my favourite, the one to always give me the creeps, is Edgar Allan Poe. A Tell-Tale Heart, of course, or The Raven. I have a beautiful edition of the Complete Stories and Poems and now is the time to get it from the shelf!

Note: If you want a good scare, find a good audiobook version of his stories and listen to them in the dark. Just check you locked all your doors first, you may be too scared to check later!