Saralee Says
The leaves are falling, the temperature is dropping, and it is getting dark earlier each day. This is the perfect time of year for witches, goblins, vampires and other monsters, which makes it ideal to discuss scary books. Some of my favorites are part of classic literature.
The first story that I remember reading that really frightened me was The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving (Wildside Press). I pictured a huge, headless man and convinced myself I could hear the clip-clop of horses running swiftly by my house just as I tried to go to sleep.
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James (St. Martins) is my favorite ghost story with an intellectual twist. You have to pay attention and the ending is a surprise. Reading the story is better than watching the movie based on this book, The Others starring Nicole Kidman.
Dracula by Bram Stoker (Signet) is one of the most romantic stories ever written. It has passion, love and the will to survive, plus enough violence to keep even my husband Larry happy.
The first modern feminist, Mary Shelley, actually titled her book Frankenstein-The Modern Prometheus (Penguin). Why did Shelley add the subtitle? Should Frankenstein should be classified as science fiction?
Louisa May Alcott is known for her heartwarming coming of age books, but before Little Women (Signet) she wrote Behind A Mask, (Quill) that includes the chilling story, "The Abbot's Ghost."
Phantom of the Opera (Puffin) by Gaston LeRoux is a romantic, provocative and bloodcurdling anecdote, and you do not have to wait until the holidays to enjoy Christmas Carol (HarperCollins), the Victorian ghost story by Charles Dickens.
The Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe (Doubleday) is the perfect gift for the host of a Halloween Party. Poe wrote about the horror of being buried alive in "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Premature Burial" and "The Cask of Amontillado."
William Shakespeare even wrote about ghosts, goblins and witches in Hamlet (Penguin) and in my favorite, Macbeth (Norton), where the witches said "Double, double, toil and trouble: Fire burn, and caldron bubble."
Larry's Language
Stories that inspire fear about looking under the bed and walking down the dark hall are obviously designed only to affect children and young minds.
When I was 12, my level of fright from the Friday night movie determined whether I chose the leisurely stroll down the well-lit street or to run the shortcut down the shadowy railroad tracks. Now that I am an adult, of course, horror books have no control over my imagination, except for the following where I wanted company, or at least bright lights, while I read them.
Haunted house stories are always good for a chill, and the best are The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (Penguin), The Shining by Stephen King (Doubleday), Hell House by Richard Matheson (Warner), and Ghost Story by Peter Straub (Pocket).
Books about evil stalking the land are great for despair, depression and sleeplessness. Try Swan Song by Robert McCammon (Simon & Schuster), The Stand by King (Signet), The Dark Tower series by King (Scribner), Mr. Murder by Dean Koontz (Berkley), and Camp Concentration by Thomas Disch (Vintage).
For blood, gore and things that crawl and slobber in the dark, don't miss The Dunwich Horror and Others (Arkham House) or At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft (Del Rey), Books of Blood by Clive Barker (Berkley), Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk (Doubleday), Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham (Del Rey) and The Totem by David Morrell (Warner).
Alien possession is a headturning, mindbending experience in books like The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty (HarperTorch), Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin (Signet), Psycho by Robert Bloch (Bloomsbury), Who Goes There? by John Campbell (Hyperion), Wild Seed by Octavia Butler (Aspect) and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (Penguin).
I Am Legend by Matheson (Berkley) is the leading vampire novel, while the scariest vampires are found in Salem's Lot by King (Signet), Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons (Warner), and Lost Souls by Poppy Brite (Dell).
The pleasure and the terror shared in these books is they make the ordinary and the commonplace different and frightening, even for a grownup.
Join us for our next book club discussion which will feature The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.
