In celebration of the Halloween season, we are sharing horror titles and books that are aligned with the themes of the holiday: the sometimes unknown and scary creatures, witches, and ghosts. From Edith Wharton’s classic ghost stories and popular novels like Frankenstein and Dracula that are commonly celebrated today, in literature courses and beyond, to contemporary stories about the monsters that hide in the dark, our list ranges in its stories and subject matter.
Many Indigenous people believe that one should never whistle at night. This belief takes many forms: for instance, Native Hawaiians believe it summons the Hukai’po, the spirits of ancient warriors, and Native Mexicans say it calls Lechuza, a witch that can transform into an owl. But what all these legends hold in common is the certainty that whistling at night can cause evil spirits to appear—and even follow you home.
Chilling real-life accounts of witches, from medieval Europe through colonial America, compiled by the New York Times bestselling author of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane and The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs.
The visionary writer and director of Get Out, Us, and Nope, and founder of Monkeypaw Productions, curates this groundbreaking anthology of all-new stories of Black horror, exploring not only the terrors of the supernatural but the chilling reality of injustice that haunts our nation.
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Daughter of Doctor Moreau and Mexican Gothic comes a fabulous meld of Mexican horror movies and Nazi occultism: a dark thriller about a curse that haunts a legendary lost film--and awakens one woman's hidden powers.
Brilliantly entertaining and eerie ghost stories, regarded as major classics in Japan, by the Irish writer and Japanophile Lafcadio Hearn--whose life inspired bestselling writer Monique Truong's novel The Sweetest FruitsA Penguin Classic
“A magnificent, compulsively readable thriller . . . Rice begins where Bram Stoker and the Hollywood versions leave off and penetrates directly to the true fascination of the myth—the education of the vampire.”—Chicago Tribune
The Black Spider can be seen as a parable of evil in the heart or of evil at large in society (Thomas Mann saw it as foretelling the advent of Nazism), or as a vision, anticipating H. P. Lovecraft, of cosmic horror. There’s no question, in any case, that it is unforgettably creepy.
Of the many admiring reviews Bram Stoker’s Dracula received when it first appeared in 1897, the most astute praise came from the author’s mother, who wrote her son: “It is splendid. No book since Mrs. Shelley’s Frankenstein or indeed any other at all has come near yours in originality, or terror.”
You can search for books across this discipline through our course lists, which include period histories of Africa, Asia, England, Ireland, and the U.K., Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, Russia and Eastern Europe, the U.S., and more. Period History: Africa Period History: Asia Period History: England, Ireland, and the U.K.
Here are the Penguin Random House books that have been chosen as winners for the National Book Award, one of the most celebrated prizes since 1950. Read more about the winners from the National Book Foundation here. Winner, National Book Award for Fiction James by Percival Everett (Doubleday) Winner, National Book Award for Nonfiction Soldiers
