Six More Books to Read before Halloween 2025

Benjamin Lacombe returns with a second volume of Poe’s Tales of the Macabre—a collection so exquisitely illustrated it feels like stepping into a dream (or nightmare) of ink and shadow. While there isn’t an English edition yet, the publication captures the same gothic melancholy that made the first volume irresistible. Vol. II includes Metzengerstein: A Tale in Imitation of the German, Eleonora, Maelzel’s Chess Player, King Pest, Some Words with a Mummy, and MS. Found in a Bottle.

Τίτλος στα ελληνικά Μακάβριες Ιστορίες κατά Σαρλ Μποντλέρ, Τόμος ΙΙ από την Brainfood Εκδοτική/οξύ.

A spectral fox that falls in love, a scholar haunted by his own ambition, ghosts who seek justice rather than vengeance—Pu Songling’s 17th-century collection is an elegant waltz between the real and the uncanny. John Minford’s translation preserves its sly wit and moral undercurrent, showing us that horror can be as philosophical as it is eerie. These are tales to read slowly, like sipping something potent, each story a mirror for the mysteries of human nature.

Greek-born, Irish by heritage, and Japanese by choice, Lafcadio Hearn was a wanderer between worlds, and few understood ghosts as he did. The Boy Who Drew Cats gathers his retellings of Japanese folk tales, brimming with quiet wisdom and moonlit strangeness. Between the humble heroes and the shape-shifting spirits lies an undercurrent of tenderness, as if Hearn himself were trying to reconcile the human and the supernatural. A beautiful introduction to Japanese folklore for all ages.

When Laura “Lolly” Willowes decides to escape her stifling life as a maiden aunt and move to a quiet village in the Chiltern Hills, she doesn’t expect to find freedom in witchcraft—but that’s exactly what happens! Townsend Warner’s novel, first published in 1926, is both a feminist awakening and a darkly humorous meditation on solitude. The prose is crisp as fallen leaves, the atmosphere faintly sinister. It is witchery without cauldrons, rebellion dressed in lace and fog.

Two sisters, a family tragedy, and a village that fears them—Shirley Jackson’s final novel is a masterpiece of claustrophobic unease. Told through the voice of the unsettlingly innocent Merricat, it’s a study in isolation, superstition, and the monstrous tenderness that can grow in confinement. Few writers make the ordinary feel so cursed. Read it on a rainy night, when the house is too quiet and every creak sounds like a secret.

Carter takes the bones of old fairy tales (Bluebeard, Beauty and the Beast, Little Red Riding Hood) and rebuilds them with flesh, silk, and sin. Her retellings shimmer with sensuality and defiance, reveling in the gothic and the grotesque. These aren’t stories about women in peril; they’re stories about women awakening. It’s the perfect bridge between classic horror and feminist reclamation—lush, strange, and impossible to forget.