Spooky October reads for Halloween

It's October and I am a basic human. You say October I say Spooky Season! Although I feel like people lining up to get a Pumpkin Spiced Latte from Starbucks could quite possibly score higher on the basic-0-meter than me. In October, one shall find me wandering about the horror section of my local bookstore and gazing longingly at covers with questionable graphics and titles claiming no subtleties, in Gothic fonts that are as identical as The Shining twins (see what I did there?). 

Despite the prohibition on full-priced-book-purchasing I have imposed on myself for the rest of the year, I shamelessly end up at the checkout till handing over my money to the store clerk and happily walking home with Misery (1987) by Stephen King. I tell myself it's a cult-classic and money spent on classics is money earned (I may have just made that up). The same does not apply for money spent on cults, FYI.

When I decided to write this article, my initial thought was to go through my Goodreads and my memory bank and find some master creepy books to recommend. I realised fast enough that my creepy book bank is significantly less well stocked than my weepy. Thus, I decided to bring in a partner—a bibliophilic associate if you will—who is truly dedicated to the horror genre to help me out with this compilation. My husband Clarke, who grew up in the old English countryside (the perfect setting for any horror novel in my book) pulled out the big guns and helped me co-write this list. I've also included some of my own selection, which are in Bengali because truly there is nothing scarier than the world of Djinns and bhoots. 

Here's hoping at least one of these books gets you spooked enough to check for monsters under your bed this Halloween.

Dracula (1897), the pinnacle of all vampire novels, this is Bram Stoker's masterpiece. After the deluge of fluffier, teen-friendly vampires of recent years, it is interesting to roll things back and experience the original horrifying version and understand why it seized the imaginations of petrified readers over a century ago. The novel takes place between the castle of the mysterious Count Dracula in Romania and Victorian England and manages to build an increasingly haunting and tense atmosphere punctuated by moments of horror. Stoker adopts a fascinating narrative style in the form of a series of diary entries, letters, articles and even a ship's log.

Pet Sematary (1983) by Stephen King. The herculean task of including only one Stephen King book in this list, means that I have had to simply cop-out and pick my personal favourite. Pet Sematary has a good claim to being the creepiest as well as one of King's finest. The novel revolves around a family that moves to the remote countryside near Ludlow, Maine, where a friendly neighbour leads them to a "Pet Sematary" deep in the woods, where local children have been burying their dead animals for generations.  The novel's famous warning that "Sometimes dead is better" gives you some indication of just how dark things get from there. 

Oktarin (2016) by Tanjim Rahman is described by the author as a possession mystery. I describe it as the thing which compelled me to leave my lights on at night for a whole weekend—and I do not scare easy. Rahman's central character Mumin, a teacher of Islamic studies in a district high school is summoned by the headmistress to help liberate her young daughter from an apparent demonic possession. This compels Mumin to face his own demons from the past and the trauma that he has been on the run from all his life. Mumin's story is then told entirely in the third-person-limited point of view—an effective method which ensures chills are running down even the bravest spines. There is so much more to this book than the average run-of-the-mill possession drama; Rahman uses magic, adventure and even some wizardry to bring his story to the most satisfying end. I hope someday Oktarin is translated to other languages; I see tremendous potential in it to resonate with millions of horror and fantasy readers across the globe.

I Am Legend (1954) by Richard Matheson is a part-vampire, part-post apocalyptic novel. Robert Neville is the last surviving human in a world populated by the undead. He spends his nights holed up in his house in a Los Angeles suburb listening to his former neighbours (now vampires) shouting for him to come outside and join them.  Matheson delivers a thoroughly chilling and intelligent novel that deals with themes of human loneliness, resilience and a masterful ending that leads to Robert's famous conclusion "I am legend".

American Psycho (1991) by Bret Easton Ellis is a black comedy set amidst the cocaine and slick materialism of 1980s Wall Street. The novel follows Patrick Bateman, a wealthy twenty-something investment banker as he glides from ritzy lunch meetings to dinner dates and nightclubs, all while moonlighting as a serial killer with mind-bending depravity. Ellis' cult-classic, which had been adapted as a film starring Christian Bale, is on the one hand a humorous satire but also a thoroughly disturbing ride through a man's descent into complete madness and the murderous, splatter filled mayhem that accompanies it.  This intense read is not for the faint hearted.

Botol Bhoot (1989) by Humayun Ahmed. No list is complete without including a Humayun Ahmed horror-comedy! It wouldn't be a mighty exaggeration to say that for many of us Bengali readers, Botol Bhoot would rank among our all-time-favourite childhood reads. The central character Humayun, loosely based on the author's own childhood, is a thorough backbencher whose academic prowess is underwhelming at best. He befriends the class-topper Munir who promises to include Humayun in his plans of obtaining a ghost in a bottle from an apothecary. They meet Robi nana (an homage to Tagore) who hands them the "ghost" in a tiny homeopathy vial and thus, begins the life of miracles for Humayun and Munir. For any parent struggling to get your kids to read Bengali books, I highly recommend Botol Bhoot to keep them engaged and yearning for more. 

Who Goes There? (1938) by John W. Campbell Jr is a genre bending creature-horror where scientists operating in an isolated research station in Antarctica discover a wrecked spaceship buried beneath the ice.  The shape-shifting creature that is unleashed from the spacecraft replicates any life forms it comes into contact with.  This premise leads to a tale of intense claustrophobia, survival and paranoia as friends turn foes. At 161-pages this is a quick and fantastic commute-read that caters to sci-fi as well as horror lovers.

So, there you go, a carefully curated and fool proof list of horror books that comes from a home of bibliophiles (who often do not agree on each other's choice of read). May the month of October bring upon you the magic of goosebumps, shivers, and chills down your spine. When the hair on the back on your neck rises, please do think of us. Yours Truly.