Staff Picks: SPOOOOKY READS
Happy Halloween from your favorite Brazos Bookstore ghouls & ghosts! Here are our staff picks for Best Spooooooky Read! Come scoop one of these chilling tales for yourself! 'Tis the season for creepy readin' !!!!
KEATON'S PICK: THE HAUNTED LOOKING GLASS: GHOSTS STORIES CHOSEN BY EDWARD GOREY - This is an impeccable, whimsical and most of all spooooooky collection of supernatural tales selected by the original goth himself, Edward Gorey! Featuring his darkly humorous illustrations, these are stories from a veritable who's who of Victorian era authors--Bram Stoker, Algernon Blackwood, and Charles Dickens (with a ghostly Christmas story even!) among others. A perfect literary selection to chill the bones and set the hairs on end. Happy Halloween!!!
KEATON'S PICK: JAPANESE GHOST STORIES by Lafcadio Hearn - This collection of reimagined traditional ghost stories from the island nation of Nippon is a literary and spooky milestone in world literature. Hearn was one of the West's first translators of Japanese language and culture. and these unnerving tales are among his greatest output. Providing an insight into Japanese folklore as well as a truly truly frightening reading experience, these bloodsoaked and haunted stories are utterly unforgettable.
MARK'S PICK: SONG FOR THE UNRAVELING OF THE WORLD by Brian Evenson - Eerie, strange, utterly singular, Evenson's newest collection of stories will make any reader jump out of their skin. The first story alone (less than two pages) has stayed in my mind for months. A great collection guaranteed to scare.
TRACI'S PICK: FEVER DREAM by Samanta Schweblin - A woozy and unsettling horror to be read in a single sitting. A half waking hallucination. Beautifully constructed. A haunting kind of magic.
ÜLRIKA'S PICK: NIGHT FILM by Marisha Pessl - Nightmarish, mysterious, distorting, with a little head-spinning that leaves you wanting to make sure you are reading in during the day.
JOY'S PICK: GHOST STORY by Peter Straub - A masterful horror story and literary homage to the likes of Henry James and Turn of the Screw, GHOST STORY begins, "What's the worst thing you've ever done," and spirals terrifyingly from there as four men gather to tell stories, linked by one tale from their past that continues to haunt them... and refuses to stay buried.
LAURA G'S PICK: THE GRACES by Laure Eve - Filled with references to the occult, Eve writes like a modern Emily Brontë; gothic, eerie, and bafflingly original. THE GRACES crackles with an electric mix of characters all following a path to the inevitable conclusion. Haunting!
LYRIC'S PICK: THE WITCHES by Stacy Schiff - Interested in the history that inspired Netflix's gritty TV series, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina? Stacy Schiff called the Salem witch trials America's "first true-crime story," and by drawing on extensive archives, she compellingly reconstructed 1692 New England and the circumstances that led to the hanging of nineteen men and women. Touching on not just witchcraft but conspiracy, paranoia, fear, and madness, the history of the Salem witch trials makes for truly scary reading!
CASSIE'S PICK: WILDER GIRLS by Rory Power - This book is the spooky, queer, female version of LORD OF THE FLIES that you didn't know you needed. Everyone at Raxter School for Girls waits under quarantine for the world to deliver them a cure to The Tox. The illness distorts and destroys their bodies, minds, and souls in grotesque, irreparable ways. When Byatt goes missing, Hetty promises to find her again - no matter what it may cost her. Strange and amazing, WILDER GIRLS will chill you with an unsettling ending that may leave you with more questions than answers.
