It’s the week of Hallowe’en, and in the spirit of the season, I’m spending the week blogging about the world of the ghoulish, the macabre, and the haunting in a series I’ve titled “Scary Library”. (Get it? It rhymes!)
To kick things off, I thought it was only fair to give a sampling of the stories I’ve read and loved in the past. You may have surmised from my “What’s Your Librarian Reading?” posts that I’m a bit of a horror story fan. So, if you came into my library and asked me about some of my personal favourites, what would I say? Here, in no particular order, are my top ten choices.
- The Shining by Stephen King
Nothing says creepy like a little kid with a spooky power and a hotel with a lot of ghosts. Very, very different from the Stanley Kubrick movie, but the basic idea is the same: mentally unstable dad takes his family with him to be a winter caretaker in a Rocky Mountain hotel, unaware that his son’s paranormal abilities will trigger the hotel’s ghosts and push the whole family beyond the brink of madness.
Image via Illiterarty.
- Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
Vampire novels are generally pretty exciting (or at least they were before Twilight – lately I’ve been finding them overdone and I don’t understand why they all think they have to have a werewolf). But the child vampire Claudia, all decked out in Victorian dress and doomed to never age, is the creepiest ever. The story is essentially the autobiography of a vampire as related in (logically) an interview.
Image via Picsicio.
- The Chrysalids by John Wyndam
Although it’s not hard to argue that this is a science-fiction rather than a horror story, it’s a genuinely frightening account of a hard-edged post-apocalyptic community where religious mania gone wild purports to protect citizens from mutants not made in the True Image of God. Since God only produces perfection, anything that differs from The Definition must be destroyed as an abomination. Into this community, a group of children are born, conforming to the True Image on the outside but concealing a telepathic ability that could threaten their survival in the harsh society that produced them.
Image via Miss Bell's Classroom.
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Image via The Horror Shop.
A very classic story that appears all over the place in pop culture . . . but if you’ve never read it, there’s so much more to it than the classic depiction of a mad scientist’s laboratory. The brilliantly-written story-within-a-story tells of Victor Frankenstein, a student who becomes obsessed with cheating death by reanimating the dead. But through his eventual success, he creates a suffering creature for whom he’s ultimately responsible, and it’s his failure to take responsibility that ultimately creates the conditions for horror here.
- ‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King
My all-time-favourite vampire story. Something about the creepy small-town-gone-wrong setting with its vivid characters (typical of King), plus the methodical way in which a pair of newcomers bring horror to an otherwise-normal place, is very compelling. The story focuses on a writer who returns to his hometown – a place called ‘Salem’s Lot – to try to deal with his issues. Instead he finds himself dealing with a rash of mysterious anemic deaths that seem to have a deeply supernatural cause.
Image via Fantastic Fiction.
- The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson
The purportedly true story of a family tormented by demonic presences when they move into their new home on Long Island. Before the Lutz family flees in terror after less than a month in their home, they’ll have experienced personality changes, inexplicable events, and unseen presences that are truly unsettling . . . especially if you believe that the story’s events actually took place.
Image via Tru TV.
- The Gemma Doyle Trilogy by Libba Bray
These three books – A Great and Terrible Beauty, Rebel Angels, and The Sweet Far Thing – tell the story of a Victorian girl named Gemma Doyle who’s inherited supernatural powers from her now-dead mother. After living in the colony of India for a long time, the newly-motherless teenager returns to England to attend a boarding school for girls. In addition to coping with the usual pressures of life – catty classmates, suffering friends, and strict social mores – Gemma has to learn to deal with her ability to unlock an alternate dimension for her friends to visit. It’s a place that can be both wonderful and dangerous, and Gemma will have to grow up fast to be able to handle the power she’s found.
Image via Angus Robertson.
- Gallows Hill by Lois Duncan
Image via Good Reads.
It’s been years since I’ve read this, but I still remember the story of Sarah, a teenager who’s new in town when she begins to unwittingly predict the future. Her classmates conclude that she must be a witch . . . which is strange, because she’s writing a paper about the Salem Witch Trials, and it’s triggering some very peculiar flashbacks to events she’s never experienced in her life. She and her new friend Charlie begin to suspect a past-life history in the Salem Trials that most of their town experienced, a history that they’ve all come back to bring into balance.
- Generation Dead (series) by Daniel Waters
An ongoing series that is super-clever and super-addictive . . . and also very new and fresh compared to most of my picks. The basic premise: something is causing teenagers who’ve been killed to come back from the dead, and not everybody is happy about it. The world is divided between supporters of the “differently biotic”, and those who think it’s an abomination for teenagers to rise from the grave. Phoebe is one of the supporters, dazzled by the attentions of an attractive (and undead) football player. But her life just becomes more and more complicated as she tries to sort out her loyalties and stand up for what she believes as the hostility simmers and threatens to erupt into violence.
Image via Finding Wonderland.
- Pet Sematary by Stephen King
Image via Online Book Club.
The creepy and poignant story of a family who learns that their home is near an old pet cemetery with a misspelled sign (hence the title) and a collection of tombstones honouring beloved dead pets. But if you go just past the pet cemetery (sematary?) you find a plot of land that brings the dead to life. Except that, when tragedy strikes, the family discovers that what goes into the ground there comes back changed . . . not quite as alive as it used to be, and with the taint of evil clinging to it.
THE BOOKSHELF OF THE MIND 
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