Halloween is right around the corner, and if you're like a lot of readers this time of year, you want something spooky but you're not sure how spooky. Maybe you scare easily. Maybe you've been waiting all year for a book that will make you leave a light on.
So we put together a trail: five books, arranged in order from gentle and atmospheric to genuinely unsettling. Start at the top and see how far down you're willing to go. All five are the kind of books that turn up secondhand all the time, which makes this an easy (and affordable) October reading list.
1. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Spook level: a cozy fireside shiver
A boy who loses his family is raised by the ghosts of a graveyard, who teach him how to fade, how to haunt, and how to survive. It's eerie, but it's also warm and funny, and it's a great starting point if you want atmosphere without nightmares. Readers of any age can enjoy it.
2. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
Spook level: a chill on the back of your neck
A strange carnival arrives in a small Midwestern town in late October, and two boys figure out that it offers something far more dangerous than rides. Bradbury's writing is lush and nostalgic, so the dread creeps in under the beauty. It feels like autumn on every page.
3. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Spook level: a slow, creeping unease
There's no monster here. A young bride arrives at her new husband's grand estate and finds herself living in the shadow of his first wife, whom everyone seems unable to stop talking about. The fear is psychological, built from tension and things left unsaid, and it's one of the great gothic novels for a reason.
4. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
Spook level: lights on, please
A small group gathers at a notoriously strange house to investigate its reputation, and the house seems to take an interest in one of them in particular. Jackson is a master of understatement. Very little is shown outright, which is exactly why it gets under your skin and stays there.
5. The Shining by Stephen King
Spook level: you've been warned
A family becomes the winter caretakers of an isolated mountain hotel, and the isolation does terrible things to all of them. If you made it this far down the trail, this is your reward: slow-building, claustrophobic horror from the writer who made a career out of it. Read this one in daylight.
How Far Did You Get?
Some readers will stop happily at book two, and others will finish the whole list in a weekend and ask for more. Either way is a good October.
We've got great used copies of all five in the shop in Interlochen and online. Pick up a couple, or grab the whole trail and work your way down.
Where did you tap out? Tell us the book that scared you most, and we might build a sequel trail from your answers.