There’s a Book for

Friday Listens: Spooky Stories

This is, indeed, Halloween.  Or near enough.  Any time is a good time for haunting, hair-raising books, but have you considered listening to one during this particularly spooky time of year?  From classics to modern day treasures, here are some picks to make your Halloween just a bit more bone chilling.

expand
  cover_9780739337844THE BEST OF EDGAR ALLAN POE: (Listen here!) A collection of 13 stories from one of the most influential American writers. Includes: The Tell-Tale Heart, The Cask of Amontillado,The Masque of the Red Death, The Raven, Annabel Lee, Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, Ulalume, The Black Cat, The Bells, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Purloined Letter, & The Gold Bug.   cover_9781415951842FRANKENSTEIN BY MARY SHELLEY:   (Listen here!)  Frankenstein is a masterpiece of nineteenth-century Gothicism and the prototype of the twentieth-century science-fiction novel. It was conceived in the Swiss Alps in mid-June 1816 after a conversation about bringing corpses to life provoked a nightmare, and was written over the next eleven months in largely morbid circumstances. Death and the terrors of childbirth–as much as Romanticism, a burgeoning awareness of unconscious drives, and contemporary ideas of atheism, the collapse of the social contract, and the corrupting influence of society on human nature–inform this story of a man (or monster) built by Dr. Victor Frankenstein and brought to life by electricity.   cover_9780739353356THE HISTORIAN BY ELIZABETH KOSTOVA:  (Listen here!) Late one night, exploring her father’s library, a young woman finds an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters. The letters are all addressed to “My dear and unfortunate successor,” and they plunge her into a world she never dreamed of–a labyrinth where the secrets of her father’s past and her mother’s mysterious fate connect to an inconceivable evil hidden in the depths of history.The letters provide links to one of the darkest powers that humanity has ever known-and to a centuries-long quest to find the source of that darkness and wipe it out. It is a quest for the truth about Vlad the Impaler, the medieval ruler whose barbarous reign formed the basis of the legend of Dracula.   cover_9780451481900MALLON THE GURU & THE COLLECTED SHORT STORIES OF FREDDIE PROTHERO BY PETER STRAUB:  (Listen here!) Peter Straub has spent forty years at the forefront of modern literary horror. This pair of stories represent his astonishing range and his ability to terrify, transport, and hold a reader hostage. Both stories crack the foundation of our reality and opens our eyes, taking us further and further into the darkness that normally remains deeply, and safely, hidden.   cover_9780525595281THE WORLD OF LORE:  MONSTROUS CREATURES BY AARON MAHNKE:  (Listen here!): A beautifully illustrated collection of stories from the hit podcast Lore—now a streaming television series—that combines fan favorites like “Unboxed” and “They Made a Tonic” with new tales to deepen the legends.     cover_9780739346426WORLD WAR Z BY MAX BROOKS:  (Listen here!) The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result.   cover_9780525495314THERE’S SOMEONE INSIDE YOUR HOUSE BY STEPHANIE PERKINS:  (Listen here!) It’s been almost a year since Makani Young came to live with her grandmother in landlocked Nebraska, and she’s still adjusting to her new life. And still haunted by her past in Hawaii. Then, one by one, the students of her small town high school begin to die in a series of gruesome murders, each with increasing and grotesque flair. As the terror grows closer and the hunt intensifies for the killer, Makani will be forced to confront her own dark secrets.   cover_9780307941824ROTTERS BY DANIEL KRAUS:  (Listen here!) Grave-robbing. What kind of monster would do such a thing? It’s true that Leonardo da Vinci did it, Shakespeare wrote about it, and the resurrection men of nineteenth-century Scotland practically made it an art. But none of this matters to Joey Crouch, a sixteen-year-old straight-A student living in Chicago with his single mom. For the most part, Joey’s life is about playing the trumpet and avoiding the daily humiliations of high school.  Everything changes when Joey’s mother dies in a tragic accident and he is sent to rural Iowa to live with the father he has never known, a strange, solitary man with unimaginable secrets. At first, Joey’s father wants nothing to do with him, but once father and son come to terms with each other, Joey’s life takes a turn both macabre and exhilarating.   Need more spooky reads and listens?  Visit the Edelweiss collection!  

There’s a Book for That! is brought to you by Penguin Random House’s Sales department. Please follow our Tumblr by clicking here—and share this link with your accounts: theresabookforthat.tumblr.com. Thank you! Did you see something on the news or read about something on your commute? Perhaps you noticed something trending on Twitter? Did you think: “There’s a book for that!”? Then please, send it our way at theresabookforthat@penguinrandomhouse.com