Here's my go for this week's topic at the Broke and the Bookish.
1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Still one of the scariest books I've ever read. I'll never forget staying up all night thinking that the madwoman was coming to get me.
2. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
After the whole Jane Eyre debacle, there was no way my mom would let me touch Frankenstein. Naturally, I snuck around and got my hands on it anyway. I didn't find it nearly as scary, I was more interested in how he got those dead body parts to reanimate anyway and feeling sorry for the poor abandoned monster.
3. The Ghost Writer by John Harwood
An old creepy mystery that I read as a kid.
4. The Oxford Book of Scary Tales
These are the ghost stories I'd scare my little sister and her friends with, I used to bring it out every Halloween and every camping trip.
5. Falling Up by Shel Silverstein
Shel Silverstein is frightening. I'll never forget the poem about the man who grew old standing in the corner of a classroom and especially not the little line on the flap about disappearing into the covers if you looked too long...I never looked again and even hid the book in the back of the closet for a while.
6. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
The perfect antidote to creepy tales, with that amusing Gothic style leading only to parody a more conventional, but still hostile, reality.
7. The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe
I didn't actually finish it (someday), but it's a Gothic classic.
8. The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
The first Gothic novel, an enjoyable chill but not really scary.
9. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Du Maurier is the queen of Gothic, her books, and definitely Rebecca, her best known, is frightening not because of what happened, but why and how.
10. Lost by Gregory Maguire
I've yet to read it, BUT it seems like a perfect Halloween read; specters, A Christmas Carol, and Jack the Ripper are involved.
1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Still one of the scariest books I've ever read. I'll never forget staying up all night thinking that the madwoman was coming to get me.
2. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
After the whole Jane Eyre debacle, there was no way my mom would let me touch Frankenstein. Naturally, I snuck around and got my hands on it anyway. I didn't find it nearly as scary, I was more interested in how he got those dead body parts to reanimate anyway and feeling sorry for the poor abandoned monster.
3. The Ghost Writer by John Harwood
An old creepy mystery that I read as a kid.
4. The Oxford Book of Scary Tales
These are the ghost stories I'd scare my little sister and her friends with, I used to bring it out every Halloween and every camping trip.
5. Falling Up by Shel Silverstein
Shel Silverstein is frightening. I'll never forget the poem about the man who grew old standing in the corner of a classroom and especially not the little line on the flap about disappearing into the covers if you looked too long...I never looked again and even hid the book in the back of the closet for a while.
6. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
The perfect antidote to creepy tales, with that amusing Gothic style leading only to parody a more conventional, but still hostile, reality.
7. The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe
I didn't actually finish it (someday), but it's a Gothic classic.
8. The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
The first Gothic novel, an enjoyable chill but not really scary.
9. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Du Maurier is the queen of Gothic, her books, and definitely Rebecca, her best known, is frightening not because of what happened, but why and how.
10. Lost by Gregory Maguire
I've yet to read it, BUT it seems like a perfect Halloween read; specters, A Christmas Carol, and Jack the Ripper are involved.
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