Halloween Reads

From early on, American literature has teemed with tales of horror, of hauntings, of terrifying obsessions and gruesome incursions, of the uncanny ways in which ordinary reality can be breached and subverted by the unknown and the irrational. As this pathbreaking two-volume anthology demonstrates, it is a tradition with many unexpected detours and hidden chambers, and one that continues to evolve, finding new forms and new themes as it explores the bad dreams that lurk around the edges--if not in the unacknowledged heart--of the everyday. Peter Straub, one of today's masters of horror and fantasy, offers an authoritative and diverse gathering of stories calculated to unsettle and delight.

The second volume of Peter Straub's pathbreaking two-volume anthology American Fantastic Tales picks up the story in 1940 and provides persuasive evidence that the decades since then have seen an extraordinary flowering. While continuing to explore the classic themes of horror and fantasy, successive generations of writers--including Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, Charles Beaumont, Stephen King, Steven Millhauser, and Thomas Ligotti--have opened up the field to new subjects, new styles, and daringly fresh expansions of the genre's emotional and philosophical underpinnings.

For centuries, blood feeders have inhabited our nightmares and horror stories, as well as the shadowy realms of scientific knowledge. In Dark Banquet, zoologist Bill Schutt takes us on a fascinating voyage into the world of some of nature's strangest creatures-the sanguivores. Using a sharp eye and mordant wit, Schutt makes a remarkably persuasive case that blood feeders, from bats to bedbugs, are as deserving of our curiosity as warmer and fuzzier species are-and that many of them are even worthy of conservation. Enlightening and alarming, Dark Banquet peers into a part of the natural world to which we are, through our blood, inextricably linked.

The setting is the Georgia wilderness, where the states most remote white-water river awaits. In the thundering froth of that river, in its echoing stone canyons, four men on a canoe trip discover a freedom and exhilaration beyond compare. And then, in a moment of horror, the adventure turns into a struggle for survival as one man becomes a human hunter who is offered his own harrowing deliverance.

In the privacy of her own home, and against her will, Susan Harris will experience an inconceivable act of terror. She will become the object of the ultimate computer's consuming obsession: to learn everything there is to know about human flesh. Reissue.

Dracula is an 1897 Gothic horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker. Famous for introducing the character of the vampire Count Dracula, the novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to move from Transylvania to England so he may find new blood and spread an undead curse.

In this complete and uniquely authoritative Library of America collection, Edgar Allan Poe's well-known tales of "mystery and imagination" and his best-known verse are collected with early poems, rarely published stories and humorous sketches, and the ecstatic prose poem, Eureka.

Frankenstein is a classic text that many feel it is the greatest horror novel of all time. Frankenstein tells the story of gifted scientist Victor Frankenstein who succeeds in giving life to a being of his own creation. However, this is not the perfect specimen he imagines that it will be, but rather a hideous creature who is rejected by Victor and mankind in general.

The Ghostly Road Tour is filled with assorted apparitions, haunted lighthouses, phantoms in a mirror and mysterious orbs that travel the highways and byways of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Twenty-five ghostly tales will give you a haunting read.

Get started with the Locke & Key series of graphic novels here at the library. Not all at Keyhouse is not what it seems, and not all doors are meant to be opened. Now a Netflix original series!

The library has upwards of 20 horror-themed Stephen King novels. This link will take you to a list in the catalog of all the ones available on the shelf. Most are on the third floor in the PS3561.I483 area.

Once again Alfred Hitchcock gathers together a cold-blooded collection of his fiendishly brilliant friends for some group shock-therapy. This time it's a fear-for-all gala where only gourmet suspense and well-chilled mysteries are served -- and only the nervous are invited.

Get started on The Walking Dead Series at the library! In a world ruled by the dead, we are finally forced to start living. This Volume collects volumes #1-48. Now an Emmy Award-winning television series on AMC.